A quarter of global financial services organisations are running the risk of falling behind their competitors by maintaining legacy systems that do not offer a fully personalised service for customers, new research has claimed.

The study, undertaken by Marketforce for Pegasystems and Cognizant, surveyed 500 financial services and insurance industry executives across 56 countries. It found that despite plans to use data from connected and wearable devices to build detailed personal profiles of their customers and their behaviours, 24 per cent of financial services retailers were unable to do so due to the inability of existing legacy systems.

Data from newer technologies, such as wearables, was proving increasingly important for enabling organisations to provide personalisation to customers. The number of firms intending to offer these products has been increasing, with 38 per cent of survey respondents expecting to use data from wearable devices within the next two years, and 68 per cent expecting to do the same within five years.

The difficulty of processing very large data sets proved the greatest barrier for 85 per cent of respondents when attempting to offer full personalisation to customers, while 79 per cent cited the lack of a single customer view.

Graham Lloyd, director and industry principal of financial services at Pegasystems, commented: “It’s never been more important for financial services organisations in the retail sector to understand customers, and personalise services to meet their needs. We live in an age where ‘Generation Selfie’ is king, and the expectations of customers across all sectors are increasingly influenced by the experiences they get from digital leaders such as Amazon and Netflix. For this reason, it’s critical that those in the financial services sector invest in technology that enables them to mine the rich seams of available data that can help them truly recognise their customers as individuals and personalise their customer journeys accordingly. Those that don’t could find themselves falling a long way behind.”

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