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When mobile banking

experiences count:
Maximizing customer value at a major
retail bank
Leading the mobile revolution
We are denitely considered to be the leader in all things
mobile in banking in our country, explains Sandy Jones,
the CIO for Channel Strategies at a major retail bank outside
the United States. Leadership is about being the best. To do
this, we absolutely need the holistic alignment between the
technology and the business organizations within the bank.
That may seem obvious, but its actually not.
As the technology chief for most retail channels (another
CIO is responsible for the ATM network), Jones spearheads
the technology choices that make business sense. Sometimes
we do technology for technologys sake. Sometimes the
business does things for business reasons that arent always
the best delivery decisions, he observes. Yet when things
work, we are very much aligned on at least nding the right
balance for both sets of agendas.
Leadership is about
being the best. To do
this, we absolutely need
the holistic alignment
between the technology
and the business organi-
zations within the bank.
That may seem obvious,
but its actually not.
INNOVATOR: SANDY JONES
CIO for Channel Strategies at a major retail bank
outside the United States.
Presented by Kony, Inc.
I N N OVAT OR S E R I E S B R I E F
Once we established
our leadership position
in mobile banking,
we knew we had to
become more nimble
and we knew we had
to go multi-platform.
Investing in the mobile journey
The bank is a diversied nancial institution in
its country, comprised of multiple technology
and business units. It operates through three
segments: retail and business banking, wealth
management, and wholesale banking. The
retail banking segment provides customers
with nancial advice, products, and services
through teams of advisors, branches, ATMs,
a mobile sales force, telephone banking,
online, and mobile banking.
The bank has had mobile banking solutions
on its radar for some time. We were out there
in 2003 with a WAP oering but nobody used
it, Jones reports. So the bank learned from
its past experience, focusing on integrating
technical services. The business and tech -
nol ogy groups developed the business
justica tions and project plans for invest-
ments in back-end services and upgrades
to the under lying IT infrastructure. Through
systematic management and strategic
planning, the bank was ready for the
coming transformation.
As customers became comfortable doing
business over the web, the Internet mandate
turned to mobile, and I am now at the epi-
center of the change management, Jones
continues. By the end of the decade, the
success of Apple iPhones and other mobile
channels renewed both retail and business
customers interest in mobile banking experi-
ences. We launched an iPhone application in
February of 2010 and we were the rst in our
market to do so, Jones reports. At the time,
iPhones were the most popular smartphones.
The bank designed its mobile banking app
to highlight the excellence of the iPhone
experience. We believed that the iPhone user
wanted to see an iPhone-specic experience,
would punish us if we didnt bring it to them,
and frankly, would love us if we did.
However, the bank eventually realized that
a stand-alone iPhone app would cost more
and require a second project for an Android
experience when the time was right. As Jones
describes it, The market dynamics in our
country are a little dierent from the US. The
Android community only became a signi-
cant presence in 2012. We nally released our
mobile banking app for Android in mid-2013.
Being nimble with
multi-platform solutions
Mobile banking apps for iPhones and Android
devices are only the rst wave for mobilizing
the banks product portfolio. In addition to
its retail customers, the bank continues to
develop mobile and online applications for
traders and businesses, and is looking for
ways to enhance self-service assistance within
its branches and call centers through added
value digital connections.
Jones faces the challenge of streamlining
the banks application development
organi zation. With its emphasis on delivering
next-generation experiences, the bank cannot
aord to invest in separate development teams
and tools for each mobile app, platform, and
channel. Once we established our leadership
position in mobile banking, we knew we had
to become more nimble and we knew we
had to go multi-platform, Jones states.
The bank needed a partner who could help
it face its multi-channel application design
and development challenges. Kony quickly
emerged as the best choice. Just as we focus
on the customer experience, Kony focuses
on developers, Jones says. When it comes
to ease of use and simplicity, Kony stands out
in our minds from competitors like night and
day. From our perspective, it is really the only
true integrated development environment
(IDE) out there that spans mobile, online,
and in-branch applications.
By adopting Kony, the bank has the application
tools and resources in hand for delivering on
its multi-channel application development
roadmap. Powered by Kony, the bank released
its mobile brokerage app for both iOS and
Android devices at the same time.
Scaling to accelerate
customer engagement
The bank planned that the customer adoption
of mobile banking would go as smoothly and
as steadily as the adoption of online banking
over the Internet the decade before. It did
not anticipate the hockey stick adoption
pattern and rapid acceleration it faced with
mobile. The penetration of mobile banking
into the banks customer base was much
faster than the introduction of online banking
over a decade ago. As Jones estimates it, In
terms of initial customer volumes on mobile
banking, we actually exceeded our twelve
month target in about three months.
Fortunately, the bank beneted from its
long-term planning and was able to respond
to the rapid adoption. The good news is that
we built an infrastructure that is reasonably
scalable, and thats a good problem to have,
Jones observes.
As it tracked its customers, the bank began to
notice that mobile experiences augmented
rather than replaced online experiences.
Were not cannibalizing our Internet users,
Jones remarks. Were seeing all incremental
usage. Customers continued to check their
bank balances online, transfer funds, and pay
bills once or twice a day. By comparison, using
the mobile banking app, they connect to the
bank while on-the-go four or ve times a
day. These increased connections can lead
to greater opportunities for customer
intimacy. Remote deposit capture is only
one of a number of promising use cases,
such as mobile coupons and automatic alerts,
that can lead to value-added services and
additional revenue streams.
There are more interactions per day with
mobile users. You are in front of them more
often, Jones observes. These connections
have signicant business value. There are
more opportunities to engage with mobile
customers, build ongoing relationships,
and monetize the multiple moments of
engagement.
Winning through exceptional
customer experience
When it comes to lessons learned, Jones
emphasizes that, The customer experience
trumps almost every other issue, including
technology investments, architecture, dev-
elop ment cost, whatever else may be. We
are really, really focused on the customer.
Delivering on the banks promise of an
excellent experience, anywhere and at
any time, certainly requires a great deal
of planning and coordination. The business
and technology groups must closely
coordinate activities and plan solutions.
Yet when it comes to ensuring technology
leadership, it is important to rely on a
multi-channel solution. It all comes
together at the bank. Strategic planning
is the key to success, supported by the
choice of the right tools and technologies
to enable exceptional experiences.
About Kony, Inc.
Kony is the fastest growing cloud-based mobile
application development platform (MADP)
in the industry with over 600 live multi-channel
apps, serving over 20 million end users across
45 countries, and generating over 1 billion sessions.
The Kony Experience Platform is an integrated
software development lifecycle (SDLC) platform to
dene, design, develop, test, deploy, and manage
multi-channel applications from a single code
base. With Kony, you can deliver stunning user-rst
experiences, get to market faster, and lower your
application TCO. Kony also oers a suite of more
than 33 ready-to-run B2E and B2C apps that enable
customers to quickly extend their business.

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