Rethinking Digital Resilience in Banking

Nearly every interaction with a bank has a digital component these days, heavily relying on APIs and cloud services.

This shift has led to an expanded view of digital resilience. It’s no longer just about keeping systems running; now, it also involves ensuring that services are reliable and that critical business goals are consistently met.

Banks are now faced with the challenge of re-evaluating how they monitor and maintain their digital systems. Gerald Dada, the Chief Technology Officer at CatchPoint, shared insights on this topic during the “Summer School Series.”

Transforming Bank Interactions

Dada pointed out that the way banks interact with customers is undergoing significant change. The traditional experience of visiting a bank branch—think coffee and lollipops—has shifted almost entirely to digital channels.

He emphasized the importance of speed. “When you’re trying to pay via Venmo or checking an ATM balance, if it takes longer than expected, you might start worrying something’s wrong, and soon enough, you think it just won’t work,” he explained.

Keeping all these digital components working together is challenging. The old image of a single server room and a tech person controlling everything is a thing of the past. Today’s banking environments are intricate setups involving numerous systems like authentication protocols, APIs, security measures, and CRM systems, all interconnected across various clouds and networks.

This complexity carries the risk that a poor digital experience could drive customers to look for other banking options. If, say, a company’s CFO can’t access funds due to a tech glitch, it’s not uncommon for them to consider a switch in banking partners, Dada noted.

Impacts of Digital Transition

The digital shift extends beyond just customer-facing services; it’s affecting internal operations and remote work setups as well. With more people working from various locations, their entire workflow hinges on digital systems.

Even basic tasks, such as conducting in-person check transactions, now depend on hundreds of digital connections.

In response to this evolving digital landscape, financial institutions are reassessing their operational frameworks. “It’s not just banks; many organizations are adopting broader observability practices,” Dada mentioned.

This involves blending new solutions focused on Internet Performance Monitoring with traditional application performance metrics. The goal is to transform IT departments into operation centers that focus more on customer experience than on standard system metrics.

The objective is to quickly detect issues and respond effectively, developing best practices around this new framework. CatchPoint assists companies with this transformation through a structured model that helps them navigate the changes, according to Dada.

Consumer Expectations and Managing Complexity

Consumers today have heightened expectations regarding speed and seamlessness, driving the demand for flawless digital performance.

To navigate this complexity and meet these rigorous demands, Dada outlined four crucial components of digital resilience that banks should emphasize:

• Reachability: Ensuring users can access the digital system.
• Functionality: The system must work as intended once accessed.
• Performance: Users should receive timely feedback when interacting with bank services.
• Continuous Availability: A measure of trustworthiness; can users depend on the system to function consistently?

It’s essential for banks to understand and monitor these areas just like e-commerce does to prioritize digital resilience, Dada indicated.

Additionally, shifting towards an “external” perspective means understanding user experiences and recognizing all internet-related factors impacting business operations.

CatchPoint tackles these four principles by offering global coverage through 3,000 intelligent agents worldwide, capable of addressing issues proactively.

Dada explained, “If your office or branch loses connectivity, you’ll get alerts right away—not just when you come in and expect things to be fine.”

He added that catching issues early, perhaps even at 3 a.m., could lead to quick resolutions. “By the time morning arrives, no one even knows anything went wrong,” he noted. Achieving this level of proactive detection is a key goal.