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How Changing Your Approach to Technology Gives You an Edge

Part 1 of our Tech-Enabled or Tech-Empowered Series

How forward-thinking financial institutions are shifting the way they empower technology—beyond their digital banking platform—during the implementation process to create better experiences for all.

For banks and credit unions, a digital banking platform is, quite frankly, the beating heart of their operations. It’s critical for conducting business and the lifeblood of all end users who rely on their bank for everyday tasks. The digital platform has the power to drive how the financial institution functions across services and make or break a customer’s experience.

Still today, many banks and credit unions are being held hostage by digital platforms that can’t keep up with changing consumer behaviors and increasingly complex digital demands. And while most know that they need to implement new systems, the fear of making any changes to their core banking platform can put any decision-maker on edge. They are weighing the cost of implementation, the impact it will have across all business functions, and the effect on each end user. And let’s not forget the likelihood of digital downtime during implementation, maintenance, and updates.

Technology makes it more viable for financial institutions to approach complete system overhauls, enabling banks to adapt and transform better today than ever before.

Forward-thinking organizations are leveraging the digital push to fundamentally reshape how they approach banking solutions, including implementation. They’re embracing technology in exciting new ways to optimize processes, maximize their team’s expertise, and create a smoother, more efficient implementation process for their customers and internal teams alike. Here’s how.

Use technology to solve problems.

Before the pandemic, a team of people was expected to go on site at the bank or credit union to ensure a smooth, disaster-free technology integration for the financial institution. But as soon as the pandemic hit, banks and their digital banking providers had to develop new, more agile ways to facilitate implementation that enabled a successful remote integration. Not surprisingly, most leveraged tech to do so.

But many digital providers have realized that implementation problems will happen, whether a team of people is on site or doing a remote integration. It’s no longer about making sure problems don’t happen, but about increasing agility to solve them faster and more cost-effectively. And adopting a truly tech-empowered approach helps you solve those issues faster.

Forward-thinking digital banking providers and customers are reimagining how they approach technology to transform the implementation process.

Instead of throwing bodies at problems, as was the tried-and-true way before, innovative companies are using technology more effectively during implementation to enable their team to be focused on creating solutions. So, rather than having a large group of people on site running regression testing or performing quality assurance, they let technology do the work, so their team can keep doing what they do best: continuous innovation.

Early on at Lumin, we decided that we were going to use technology to solve problems so our people could continue innovating. We found that our team and our clients didn’t lose anything by not being on site. On the contrary, we can solve any issues more effectively and efficiently remotely. That’s just where the work gets done.

Deliver innovation weekly.

Continued technological advancements are necessary for any industry, and banking is no exception. With constantly changing consumer behaviors, compliance and regulatory impacts, and the continual evolution of a digital world, banks and credit unions are, not surprisingly, struggling to keep up.

But thankfully, digital banking providers have been looking for ways to create solutions that can adapt and evolve as frequently as the consumers and markets driving the need. Some have even created technology solutions that can keep up with the rapid pace of change and intelligently adapt to growing demands. And while that sounds almost too good to be true, it’s made possible by one simple idea: continual innovation and continuous delivery.

The public expects more from their technology every year, and the banking industry is no exception to the rule.

Forward-thinking digital banking providers are thinking out of the box, leveraging technology differently to provide constant innovations to their banking platforms. Those looking ahead recognize that it’s not just about making system updates for the sake of updates; it’s about making updates that create real value for your customers. It’s using technology to predict customer behaviors, innovate functions and features that didn’t exist before, and constantly deliver solutions the customer didn’t even know they needed.

At Lumin, continual innovation and continuous delivery are at the core of everything we do. From developing microservice architectures to enabling real-time updates, we believe that technology-empowered—not enabled—platforms can provide real solutions today, and for the evolving needs of tomorrow. This is why we leverage weekly updates that help our digital solutions be even more effective for our customers and their end users.

Make launch day count.

Considering the time invested into finding the right digital banking solution, launching the technology should be a walk in the park. But, for many financial institutions, that’s not the case. From technical hiccups to human error, launch days can make or break your first experience with your new digital banking solution.

It’s easy for a financial institution to get lured into taking a “big bang” approach to implementing its new platform. This game-changing solution will solve their problems, increase their capabilities, and unveil a fresh online face for their organization. Plus, the implementation team is understandably eager to get started. But, without the right plans and processes in place, excitement can quickly turn to frustration.

Given the high stakes, launching a new platform on time and on budget is more critical than ever.

Therefore, some of the most experienced digital providers are proactively seeking ways to mitigate launch day concerns, leveraging technology to help facilitate the process. From making communications easier for everyone involved to expanding the launch team to include specialists, a tech-empowered launch team can set the tone of the entire launch, and make the experience as easy as an update.

At Lumin, launch day is just as important to us as it is for our customers. We leverage several technology platforms to ensure the entire launch team—ours and our customers—have clear communication channels and access to the right people when they need them most. We have discovered that technology empowers our clients and eliminates the “first-day jitters” because they know they have an entire Lumin team supporting them throughout their launch.

Learn from Lumin Digital

Change can be daunting. It requires you to rethink what has always worked in favor of something that might work better. As a digitally native technology company, Lumin’s ability to think differently about technology is fundamental to who we are. It’s ingrained in everything we do – from our advanced digital banking solutions to our internal operations, to our culture of curiosity.

Check back to learn more about how we’re using technology to elevate service in Part 2 of our Tech-Enabled or Tech-Empowered series.