As UK financial services braces for the major legislative and policy changes faced by the nation, it has been found falling behind global rivals in digital while prioritising control.
This loosening grip on digital is exposed by a towering 84 per cent of UK financial services organisations that are concerned about their ability to correctly identify customers.
In addition to this, a third of the UK organisations in the space agree that they are ‘seriously lagging behind competitors’ in terms of fraud checks, and essential task when faced with today’s complexity and density of threats.
The study commissioned by GBG and carried out by Forrester also noted a comparative lack of interest among UK firms in the pursuit of identity authentication adoption, placing UK financial services behind the likes of the U.S., China and Singapore.
Mick Hegarty, Managing Director at identity data intelligence specialist GBG, said: “Although the UK is currently behind the rest of the world in its digital approach to customer identity, there are some promising signs for the future.”
The biggest policy and legislative challenges faced by the UK include Open Banking, having landed at the beginning of 2018, GDPR that arrives in May, and of course, Brexit.
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Despite these challenges, there have been positive results despite Brexit in regard to record fintech VC investment for example, as well as a recent study from EfficientIP that found 74 per cent of UK businesses GDPR confident.
“Our research shows that UK fintechs are more interested than the established banks in adopting new approaches and more are planning to increase investment in the next 12 months. The fintech innovators and challenger banks will prove vital to the UK financial service sector in keeping pace with the rest of the world whilst we navigate a challenging year of legislation and policy change,” said Hegarty.
Also applying pressure to UK financial services, customers are becoming more widely accustomed to digitally enhanced experiences, leading to rising expectations. In light of this, it is becoming increasingly important to create innovative customer experiences to win and retain attention.
