Banks are enabling personalization with Elastic — your industry can, too

Think about the moments when something is presented to you that is just what you’re looking for. Those moments, when it feels like a company you trust knows you, are all too rare in commerce. And of course, presented incorrectly, they can even feel invasive. But done well, they solidify your relationship as a customer, and reinforce that you’re getting the service you deserve.

But let’s flip that around — how can you help your organization deliver that kind of personalized experience to your customers?

As a professional in the industry, you probably have a pretty good idea of how personalization works, and why companies find so much value in personalizing offers for customers. But the massive amounts of data needed to really bring personalization to life is something not every organization has at their fingertips. And even if they have the data, they might not have the ability to access or process it. Unless, of course, they’re already on Elastic.

In the banking and payments sector, digital customer experiences have been a critical investment area for over a decade. However, given the industry's complexity and highly regulated nature, the primary focus has been on making sure online channels meet basic security, compliance, and customer requirements.

However, personalization is the next frontier. Institutions are looking for new ways of presenting customers with journeys that speak to their unique financial needs — offering the right content or service at the right time with the right interaction.

In order to do this, unlocking data is vital. And more than most industries, financial providers are sitting on a wealth of customer data points to drive personalization. For example, banking and payment customers share valuable information with financial institutions when they open accounts — followed by fluctuations in account balances and asset values, and in their daily transactions. And customers are accessing their financial data across a bevy of digital touchpoints throughout their banking journey, from payment apps, to third party websites, to tax and financial planning software. Banks have the ability to have the clearest picture in history of who their customers are and what financial products and services they need — if only they used this data.

According to Deloitte, only 30% of customers believe that their banks are personalizing their service offerings. One challenge for banks is integrating and using the necessary real-time structured and unstructured data from internal and external sources. To accomplish this, providers need to set up an integrated data infrastructure that enables data to be seamlessly processed, ingested, and updated frequently. With better access to data, banking and payment providers can use tactics like data analytics, behavioral science, and ethnographic research to better target their customers.

Elastic enables banks and payment companies to unify siloed data structures — correlating decades’ worth of data, even when there’s no single repository or unified structure. Elastic centrally stores data for lightning-fast search, fine‑tuned relevancy, and powerful analytics that scales with ease, allowing technical and non-technical functions to better serve customers based on individual needs. Here are a few examples of how Elastic can support your personalization strategy:

To learn more about how Elastic helps financial services clients unlock value download the positioning paper.