Bank and FinTech Partnerships for a Better Customer Experience
We are in a golden age of customer experience; from Instacart to Amazon Alexa, products and services are designed to create a memorable, seamless, or even addictive experience for the user. Money movement is experiencing the same customer experience evolution.
With the emergence of new digital money transfer platforms, consumers who wish to send money overseas have dozens of options with a variety of benefits.
Lower fees, competitive FX, integrated stored value, local currency pickup, real-time speed, easy Know Your Customer (KYC), tracking notification, and more – the available features are expanding as money transfer operators continue to innovate. But above all, consumers are looking for an easy way to support the people they care about.
Banks can find a strategic advantage by offering a cross-border money transfer service optimized for P2P transfers. While wire transfers via correspondent banking work well for business use cases, consumers demand greater transparency, more payout options, competitive pricing, and a better overall experience. Banks across the globe are taking increasing note of the benefits of keeping customers within their banking network to complete these transactions – just look at how Sber is thriving from the ecosystem of services they have designed for their customers.
Just as paying bills is now a standard feature of online banking, cross-border transfers may soon be the norm within digital banking platforms. Building a cross-border service from scratch, however, is not an easy task. There are global compliance regulations to consider, potentially hundreds of banking relationships to build and maintain, and ongoing work to monitor and improve the system and user experience.
Instead of building a bespoke P2P cross-border payment solution, banks can embrace partnerships with companies like Western Union to deliver an outstanding cross-border payments service for their retail customers.
Choosing a partner is an important decision and finding a partner that can meet the needs of your institution and end-customer is critical to long-term success. If you are a bank evaluating a cross-border fintech partner, here are a few key attributes to consider:
- Global Reach – how many countries, currencies and payout options will be unlocked for your customers, and at what speed will the funds be delivered? Can funds be deposited into mobile wallets, in addition to bank accounts? Are exotic currencies readily available?
- Payment Gateway API – how will you connect with the partner? Can the service be offered under your own brand, and who controls the customer pricing? Are there options available that let you control the user experience?
- Compliance Capabilities – does the partner follow the same rigorous practices as your financial institution? How does the partner work with regulators around the world to ensure global compliance and the integrity of its financial network?
- Partner Stability – how long has the partner been in the cross-border payments business, what is their operating cash flow, and can they handle the volume that your institution is likely to send through its rails?
- Customer Obsession – does the partner share your goal to deliver an amazing end-customer experience as the primary objective?
Building a comprehensive, customer-focused P2P payments experience is a significant undertaking, but by partnering with a trusted brand like Western Union, you can create a solution that will deliver ongoing customer and business value. Click here to learn more about Western Union partnerships.
