In the first post of this series, we talked about the importance of customer experience in banking. In the second, we took a look at how open banking can help banks innovate, create new sources of revenue, and why they must start investing in their API offering now.

Today, we’re going to look at how OutSystems can help banks respond to consumer needs and stay competitive.

Table of contents:

• Now Is the Time to Stake Your Bank’s Claim in the Digital Future
• Stop Code Problems from Becoming Real-World Problems
• Collaboration Takes on a Whole New Meaning
• Change Is Good (and Easy)
• To Banking without Boundaries, and Beyond

Now Is the Time to Stake Your Bank’s Claim in the Digital Future

Cloud-native application development is one of the fastest growing trends. However, calling it a trend, might be a bit of a misnomer. According to Gartner and ICS 90-95% of apps will become cloud-native by 2025, and more than 85% of organizations will need to use cloud-native technologies to fully execute their digital strategies. In other words, it’s pretty safe to say that cloud-native application development is here to stay, and may even become the new norm.

This provides banks with an unprecedented opportunity to stand out from the bigger players by taking advantage of low-code to become more agile to win the hearts and minds of consumers by meeting their needs (and demands) in a timely fashion.

Of course, banks have a few hurdles preventing them from fully tapping into their potential: namely, legacy IT systems and lack of resources. These obstacles must be overcome if banks want to stay agile, prepared for the future, and innovate quickly.

And herein lies the conundrum.

Banks know that legacy system modernization is a must if they want to stand out in today’s market. Yet, the barriers above keep them stuck in place. Meanwhile larger banks throw a seemingly bottomless supply of resources at their problems to keep up.

But here’s the good news: low-code development platforms have changed the game by leveling the playing field. Before, it might have felt like banks were fighting with one arm tied behind their back. But that’s all changed. OutSystems amplifies the resources banks have at their disposal to tap into their true potential and unleash a whole new set of capabilities.

Instead of taking years to modernize their legacy IT systems, banks can now do it in a matter of months.

Just take a look at Western Union. The leader in the global payments space is using OutSYstems low-code platform to accelerate the launch of its digital banking experience. In just 11 months, they launched new digital banking services in two countries, and are now rolling the new services out to other countries.

You can read Western Union story here.

Stop Code Problems from Becoming Real-World Problems

Applications built with OutSystems rely on standard architectures and frameworks, and don’t require proprietary components, runtime engines, or interpreters. In other words, technical debt is essentially curbed before development even begins.

This is important, because technical debt can be a significant drain on resources. So much so that some CIOs have reported dedicating up to 20% of their budget to resolve these issues! Not only does OutSystems allow you to do more without adding resources, it saves money and time when “paying back” technical debt.

Collaboration Takes on a Whole New Meaning

Unlike classical programming methods—which can be tedious and error-prone—the OutSystems low-code, visual-based application development platform gives developers superpowers.

For example, a UI/UX designer can work on front-end development while a backend developer can work on prototyping a consumer app. The result is greater productivity and cleaner code while getting to market in record time.

Teams can also work on multiple modules in parallel, without interfering with one another’s work. Multiple developers can even work on the same module at the same time without worrying if things will break when the code is merged, because a module can only be published when it functions correctly.

Change Is Good (and Easy)

OutSystems makes application creation and updates a breeze. Through a combination of automation, AI, and analytics the platform identifies architecture errors, faulty logic, and broken dependencies to orchestrate the process from design time to build time to runtime—all in real time. Here’s what this looks like in action:

As new code is written or when changes are made to existing code, immediate feedback on its impact is provided. When possible, corrective measures are applied automatically. Otherwise, the developer is directed to the source of the error, along with a suggestion on how to fix it.

It’s almost like having a second, virtual developer working alongside you. What’s beautiful about this approach is that it’s extremely helpful when teams need to make quick, accurate changes on the fly to adapt to a sudden market shift—or any imperative for that matter.

To Banking without Boundaries, and Beyond

Banks must modernize their legacy IT to stay competitive and agile to meet consumer demands in today’s market, but time, money, talent shortages, and other barriers have prevented them from doing so. OutSystems can simplify your bank’s cloud migration with minimal disruption while amplifying your team’s capabilities. That way you can focus on providing exceptional customer experiences and building the innovative products of tomorrow—instead of deciding between resource-intensive overhauls or patchwork updates.

To learn what OutSystems can do for your bank check out our Low-Code for Financial Services page. Or book a demo.