A quiet drama is unfolding in the US and the UK. Despite trillions of dollars pumped into digitalisation, the banking sector there is losing customers on an alarming scale. Baringa reports that as many as 62% of consumers are prepared to abandon their bank for a better digital experience.
The reason? A technological foundation from the 1960s and a code that remembers the days before the internet. This is a powerful warning and at the same time a priceless lesson for Poland, which, although in a completely different place today, must not succumb to the illusion of eternal security.
Looking from a Polish perspective, these problems may seem remote. Our banking sector is regularly praised internationally and, according to reports such as Deloitte’s Digital Banking Maturity, is one of the world’s digital leaders.
We are ahead of many countries in terms of the sophistication of mobile applications or the ease of opening an online account. We have managed to leapfrog an entire generation of outdated technologies that today cripple innovation in the West. This gives us a huge advantage. The question is: for how long?
Underneath the shiny façade of award-winning applications, there is also a challenge in Poland known as technological debt. Although it is not as dramatic as in the West, it exists and is a hidden threat. Research shows that Polish financial institutions still see digitalisation as a way of catching up with their infrastructure.
This means that even if our interfaces are state-of-the-art, the core systems on which they run are often not ready for the revolution that is coming.
This is where the lesson from overseas becomes crucial. The banks there, spending more than $2.8 trillion, have not created true innovation, but a ‘sea of sameness’. They have achieved the digital standard, but have not built an advantage because their old systems prevent true data-driven personalisation.
Poland, despite its leading position, also risks falling into this trap. Our banking applications, although excellent, are starting to look and act very similar. They lack the breakthroughs, based on artificial intelligence, that could turn the bank from a passive tool into a proactive, intelligent financial partner.
The crisis in Western markets is invaluable insight for us. It shows that investing solely in the facade, while ignoring the ageing technological ‘engine’, leads to a dead end. Instead of resting on the laurels of digital leadership, the Polish banking sector needs to treat its current advantage as a starting point for deeper modernisation.
The race for the customer of the future will not be about adding more features to applications. It will be won by those institutions that have the courage to rebuild their technological foundations for the era of generative artificial intelligence and hyper-personalisation. The West is showing us what failure in this field looks like.
We have a unique opportunity to learn from their mistakes and prove that our digital maturity is more than just an efficient interface.
