For its latest World Retail Banking Report, Capgemini quizzed more than 10,000 retail banking customers in 20 countries, as well as dozens of senior banking executives.

The results are concerning for bankers, with extensive investment failing to translate into positive customer experiences. Just 51% of those surveyed say that their branch banking experience is positive, but this is better than the 47% who are happy with their mobile interactions.

This may be due to other sectors raising the bar. Asked what the main cause of industry disruption is, nearly three quarters of bank executives surveyed cite positive experiences in other areas.

One of the major sectors driving higher expectations is technology. Nearly a third of customers might consider big techs for financial products and services. For Gen Y respondents this rises to 43%, for tech-savvy consumers 53%, and for those already likely to switch provider 70%.

Yet banks are keen to treat big tech and fintech providers as colleagues rather than competitors. Nearly three quarters of executives think they can ‘generate non-traditional revenue’ via collaboration with fintech and big tech providers, whether to develop a new service or distribute third-party products via a marketplace platform.

Most banks believe there are untapped opportunities to make more strategic use of data to improve the customer experience: executives said they plan to use customer data to create smoother customer journeys (87%), develop relationship-based pricing (75%), build personalized loyalty rewards (58%) and create lifecycle-stage products and services (54%).

“The retail banking industry is at an inflection point and needs to determine its role going forward in the open banking ecosystem. There is opportunity to innovate through collaboration as well as reinvention. It is an exciting time to be in banking as regulation, innovation, competition and collaboration merge to form the bank of the future,” said Vincent Bastid, secretary general, Efma.