Introduction

The rise of the digital consumers, need for cost containment & efficiency, multi-channel integration, and rising threat from non-banking competitors were some of the key challenges faced by banks in 2014. Banks are specifically aligning their technology priorities around digital transformation and are heavily focusing on formulating their go-to-market strategy with customer-centric offerings. Direct channels, such as mobile and internet, have become increasingly important for retail banking. At the same time, there is growing focus on mobilizing the power of social media networks to engage with the next-generation customers while promoting their brands.

In a highly mature and competitive market that is characterised by low differentiation for products and prices, banks are leveraging digital technology themes in order to keep up with the next-generation consumer base, which prefers to perform daily banking activities on an anytime/anywhere basis.

In this research, we analyse consumer-facing digital functionalities as well as the associated business impact on nine retail banks in United Kingdom. These banks have been mapped on the Everest Group Ability | Performance | Experience (APEX) Matrix, which is a composite index of a range of distinct metrics related to each bank’s customer-facing digital investments and business impact. In this report, we focus on:

• Assessment of the bank’s digital functionalities on multiple capability-related dimensions
• Characteristics of leading banks on the individual themes assessed on the Everest Group APEX Matrix for digital effectiveness in banking

SCOPE OF THE ANALYSIS

• Industry: Retail banking
• Geography: United Kingdom
• Enterprises: Includes nine leading UK banks, shortlisted on the basis of the largest asset size, with a major focus on retail banking business, but not falling under the same parent group

SOURCES LEVERAGED

Only publicly-available information (i.e., information from a consumers’ lens) has been used for the entire analysis in this report:

• Google Play and iTunes
• Demos / consumer access of mobile apps and online platforms of different retail banks
• Social media platforms – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Google+
• Aggregators/tools – Alexa, Likealyzer, SEMRush, SocialBlade, Twitonomy, and XYO
• Company filings and press releases (annual reports, investor presentations, SEC filings, etc.)