Digital Transformation of American Banking Institutions

The increase in the number of digital use cases in the banking and financial services industry has led to the emergence of newer digital hotspots in the US. States such as Minnesota, North Carolina, Texas, and California have a high density of mature talent specializing in these digital cases. These digital use cases have also given rise to new hotspots in neighbouring states such as Iowa, Arizona, and Ohio. Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and JP Morgan Chase have capitalized on this rapid digitalization to create solutions in anti-money laundering, digital wealth management, information security, cloud technology.
Analysing the Digital Maturity of Top US Banks
The digital maturity of banks and financial institutions has been measured by their competency in innovation which includes their competitive intensity and growth potential and assessing their capabilities in terms of talent scalability and maturity of skills in new age technologies. By these parameters, firms such as Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citi, and Capital One have identified as digital leaders while Union Bank, First Republic Bank, HSBC US have been relatively slower in the digital race.
Case-by-Case Analysis of Banking Transformation
Bank of America:
Bank of America has over 14 digital centres with over 76% of the digital talent based out of centres located in the US. The 4,000+ digital workforce is involved in functions such as app development, analytics, security, and cloud. Bank of America is one of the few leading banks looking to increase the digital capabilities of all its bank branches through interactive systems that need very little human intervention. Some branches are also fully automated equipped with an interactive teller machine and a video conferencing room.
Citi Group:
Citi is taking cues from its innovation labs that are involved in developing cutting-edge solutions such as beacons. The firm’s 3,500+ digital talent pool is predominantly based out of North America. The bank’s smart branches are equipped with interactive media walls that display local weather, stock information, and financial updates. Citi announced their partnership with Nasdaq which was formed to create payment systems that use DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology) to record payments.
Wells Fargo:
The firm’s large 7,500+ digital workforce is largely consolidated in the United States with sporadic distribution in India as well. The firm has 15 digital centres with only 2 of them located outside the US i.e. in Hyderabad and Bengaluru. Over 28% of digital talent is involved in new-age solutions such as RPA, Blockchain, IoT and AI.