Since online banking became mainstream, the web has moved on. Jouk Pleiter of Backbase tells Future Banking how new thinking and technology is helping innovative banks set the pace of change.

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2. Customer experience management
Internet banking 2.0
Since online banking became mainstream, the web has moved on.
Jouk Pleiter of Backbase tells Future Banking how new thinking
and technology is helping innovative banks set the pace of change.
L
ong gone are the days of static web pages where the tailor your iPhone based on your preferences,” he says.
only thing moving was a marquee flashing “There are 80,000 apps out there and consumers can select
“Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!” The modern web is which ones they want to use. We see that as being the
slick, customisable and social. While networks such as future for retail banking too.”
LinkedIn and Facebook are leading the way, retailers have So when customers log on to their internet banking,
also reaped the benefits, and consumers expect the instead of being confronted with a standard page, they are
experience of using those sites to be replicated wherever taken to a customisable dashboard. The building blocks of
they are online. this environment are widgets or mini applications designed
Banks, however, have been slow to make use of new to fulfil a specific purpose, pay a bill or calculate interest on
technologies and approaches, despite the potential growth a mortgage, for example. Users can choose which widgets
opportunities they offer. Customisation of services they want enabled, matching the environment to their
empowers customers to identify their needs and mould their usage pattern.
experience accordingly. In the process they send preference Pleiter describes the first round of online banking as the
indicators to the bank, generating data that can be used to “web enablement” of existing services. “Traditional online
drive marketing and sales activities such as cross- and banking needs an upgrade. Customers are enjoying this
up-selling financial services. next level interaction with other on-line retail vendors and
Interaction also holds great potential. Discussion about are looking for the same experience in their banking,” he
financial products is already taking place on forums and says. “Many banks still use a flat transactional self-service
using social media. Banks need to tune into those online system. They have yet to rethink their approach to
conversations to understand what they can be doing better customer service when moving online and the strain is
and where their competitors are perceived to have an edge. beginning to show.
“Backbase enables business professionals at financial
Pace of change services organisations to take the lead in customer-centric
Jouk Pleiter, founder and CEO of Backbase, has witnessed online innovation, improve e-business results, and optimise
the changes first-hand, having been involved in online online customer interaction.
business since 1995. In recent years the pace of change has “As our conversations with banks illustrate, the online
only become quicker. “Five years ago we could only banking portal has changed little over the past ten years.
consume pages: we could read them and we could print In stark contrast to the one-size-fits-all approach of a
them,” he says. “Today we can actually comment, provide traditional portal, Backbase allows organisations to
ratings and read reviews from other users.” automatically emulate the face-to-face banking experience
He characterises the first generation of banks’ online that recognises each customer’s unique financial needs and
activities as a broadcast model or an inside-out approach. responds accordingly.”
This mindset needs to change if they are to move forward:
“To be truly successful, organisations need to be more Mash up
customer-centric. Instead of talking about products or The company’s mash-up engine is the key to pulling
creating portals for lines of business, they need to start everything together. It works with a bank’s infrastructure to
thinking about needs and personas and looking at the serve up information through the portal and send details of
customer journey.” transactions back to be processed.
He describes this way of thinking as “outside-in” and the A major challenge in creating new ways for customers to
first step is identifying segments of customers who have interact online is maintaining high levels of security. Backbase
similar requirements and habits. Content and services can works with the bank’s existing model but complements it
be repacked to target groups such as students, small with additional features necessary for the widget architecture,
business owners or joint account holders, but it is possible such as strong authentication and single sign-on capabilities.
to go even further and give individual customers complete Pleiter describes Backbase as a “presentation layer”, but
control over how they interact with a bank’s services online. adds: “It’s not just a pretty face because you need to go one
Pleiter makes the analogy with homepages such as step deeper and provide security, mash-up capabilities,
iGoogle, or Apple’s app ecosystem. “You can completely content and personalisation.”
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3. Customer experience management
Unlike some vendors, Backbase is not afraid to let IT aid in the setting of new business goals. The platform’s
teams get under the hood of the system and let them tinker distributed architecture cuts down the lead times for
at a nuts and bolts level. This might simply mean skinning projects dramatically, reducing the cost of experimentation,
the portal to include branding elements, but it also opens and because the system is robust and offers a strong
the door to more sophisticated development activities. governance model, IT teams can be confident handing
The platform relies entirely on industry standard mark-ups control to units pursuing commercial objectives.
and programming languages such as Java, .NET, XML and “You no longer have this monolithic application, instead
HTML and, as with other web-native services, Backbase has you chop your services model into small components,”
a completely open application programming interface (API). Pleiter explains. “It’s like Lego, the blocks operate
The combination of these elements enables teams with autonomously and you can add one or remove one without
standard web design skills to tweak the performance of the house collapsing.”
widgets or develop their own from scratch. In addition to data and transactions, Backbase supports
“The portal is like a two-way mirror,” Pleiter explains. content services, the texture around interactions, such as
“On the one hand we can empower the customer, but news about products and tutorials. “We can aggregate
The reality is you can’t hide anything on the internet, the information
is out there and organisations need to find a way to work with it and
engage in a dialogue rather than just ignoring it.
Backbase is a leader in providing targeted web services. valuable information from any source,” Pleiter explains, “be
that from an internal marketing department, an external
supplier like Thomson Reuters, or even user-generated
content where you empower the customer to contribute.”
Backbase also allows banks to optimse the online
customer journey, engaging people through new dialogue
models, such as personal start page, live chat and
co-browse, financial calculators, product finders, and
other interactive applications that help customers meet
their goals while creating cross-selling and up-selling
opportunities.
Help is at hand
While flexibility and a wide range of options make Backbase a
powerful tool, it also runs the risk of overwhelming a new client.
To overcome this, the company has a multi-disciplinary team of
experts who offer a tailored mix of user experience design
services, E-business optimisation and implementation services as
well as system architects and software engineers. The team can
work closely with in-house IT staff to optimise the system.
Backbase presents significant advantages for customers,
IT teams and business managers alike. Customisation
empowers account holders and encourages them to build a
strong relationship with the bank. Inside the organisation,
the platform’s flexibility and usability make achieving
e-marketers can also sit on the other side and make objectives easier.
observations to develop more targeted communication The company is presenting an innovative portal software
with a particular segment or individual. solution that can transform a financial portal into a dynamic
“In the past, companies had to use focus groups to get an online sales channel that drives new revenues. ■
understanding of what their customers wanted. Now they
can analyse the behaviour of real users online and do so
almost in real time.” Further information
Business managers can feed in their ideas and Backbase
www.backbase.com
requirements via a dashboard similar to that used by the Tel: +31 20 465 8888
customer. Built-in analytics tools can track key metrics and
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