Banks may not be ready for mobile payment surge
TORONTO — A new report from CenturyLink suggests some of the highest-level executives at Canadian banks believe their companies may not be ready to meet the mobile banking needs of their customers.
CenturyLink, along with market research firm IDC Canada, surveyed 50 high level executives from financial services institutions about how customer needs are changing in light of the digital revolution.
Nearly half — 46 per cent — of respondents said they did not think their company had the IT infrastructure, systems and processes in place to meet customer demands for mobile payments. And 40 per cent said they didn’t think their companies had the IT infrastructure to satisfy client expectations even for core banking services.
The entrance of technol- ogy companies into the financial-services space has been the subject of heated discussion among banking executives in recent months.
Chief executives of some of Canada’s biggest banks have commented during their annual general meetings about the need to adapt or risk losing market share to new entrants.
Online peer-to-peer lenders threaten to snatch customers from the banks, while tech giants such as Apple and Google have launched mobile-payment processors that could weaken the relationship between banks and their clients. Royal Bank chief executive Dave McKay has stressed the need to work with early-stage financial technology companies in order to thrive in an increasingly digital world.