Jerry Norton

Jerry Norton

Vice-President, Global Industry Lead

What are the top business and IT priorities for today’s corporate and transaction banks? CGI conducted in-person interviews with senior executives, and our 2018 CGI Client Global Insights cover their top five priorities for both the business and IT sides of their organizations as they seek to drive growth and competiveness in an increasingly digital world.

Business priorities

Harnessing data to protect the bank and drive revenue has become the top business priority for the corporate and transaction banking executives we interviewed (74%) as they seek to increase customer value and differentiation, improve their business processes and reporting, and comply with new regulations and enhance security.

Executives also cited delivering customer-centric operating models (67%), optimizing operations to cut costs (67%) and protecting the business from changing threats (67%) as key priorities. Driving innovation in corporate digital servicing rounded out the top five list.

From a regional perspective, nearly twice as many European bank executives cited the importance of addressing cost pressures through optimization (85%) as did their North American counterparts (46%), mainly because of the increasing regulatory burdens they face. Further, when we asked both business and IT leaders to give their perspective on business priorities, the most commonly identified business priorities differed significantly among IT leaders compared to business leaders. For example, among IT leaders, driving a client-centered operating model and rapid innovations in corporate digital servicing are much lower priorities than identified by their business leader colleagues.

IT priorities

Cybersecurity rose to take the top spot among IT priorities (74%), followed by improving the end-to-end customer experience through digitalization and automation (67%). While interviewed executives also cited data as a key business priority (63%), the business focus is on generating revenue from data, while the IT focus is more on how to deliver data, improve its quality, and demonstrate control.

In addition, executives cited simplifying technology and adopting new models (59%) and addressing new regulations (56%) as top priorities. European executives, especially, are giving a lot of attention to digitalizing and automating their business processes, driven by the need to meet new regulations.

Data has become the key route to moving forward

While the digital transformation journey of corporate and transaction banks is a “work in progress” and their priorities have not changed much from 2017, banks find themselves at a digital crossroads. How do they remain compliant and secure, yet leap ahead of the competition? Although ongoing pressure in addressing regulatory and security issues remains high, requiring tremendous focus and effort, leading banks are additionally focused on carving out a leadership position in the new world.

Using data more effectively is one route, and one that has significantly risen in importance this year. There are two key reasons for this. First, by effectively managing data, banks can generate rich insight to differentiate and elevate their service offerings through customer tailoring while improving their internal business processes and reporting. Second, given the introduction of data security and privacy regulation, along with continuing security risks, banks are under greater pressure to have and demonstrate tight control of their data and retain their trust franchise.

While the business side is focusing on generating revenue from data, the IT side is concentrating on better data control and using automation to ensure effective data management while reducing costs.

The CGI Client Global Insights reveal many more findings from our in-person interviews with corporate and transaction banking executives, as well as provide our perspectives on those findings. Post a message here to request a copy of the report, or contact me. I’d be happy to discuss the report and your own firm’s IT priorities in more depth.

About this author

Jerry Norton

Jerry Norton

Vice-President, Global Industry Lead

As of October 2019, Jerry Norton is CGI’s Global Industry Lead responsible for shaping CGI’s response to the strategic issues facing global industries in the commercial sector. Prior to that, Jerry was CGI’s global banking and payments lead, jointly responsible for CGI’s strategy across the ...