Commercial banking is at a pivotal crossroads. As digital-first challengers and neobanks rapidly raise the bar for customer experience and operational agility, traditional commercial banks face mounting pressure to evolve. The days of product-centric operating models—where banks focus on selling individual products rather than solving customer needs—are numbered. To remain competitive and relevant, commercial banks must make a bold shift: from product centricity to true customer centricity, enabled by modern, coreless, cloud-based architectures.
Recent research, including the Global Banking Benchmark Study, reveals that while many commercial banks are confident in their customer experience capabilities, it is the digital challengers and neobanks who are setting new standards. In the UK, for example, challenger banks consistently outperform incumbents in business banking service quality. Meanwhile, 58% of commercial banking executives admit their organizations are not investing enough in digital innovation to keep pace with these digital-first competitors. The stakes are high: customer expectations are evolving rapidly, and legacy technology is increasingly seen as a barrier to delivering the seamless, personalized experiences that clients now demand.
Historically, commercial banks have operated in silos, with disconnected product systems, channels, and databases. This product-centric approach leads to fragmented customer experiences, slow onboarding, and missed opportunities for deeper engagement. Customers often feel they are being sold to, rather than understood and supported.
A customer-centric model, by contrast, organizes the bank around the needs and journeys of its clients. This means:
Achieving customer centricity in commercial banking requires more than incremental change. It demands a fundamental re-architecture of technology, data, and operating models. The following building blocks are essential:
Modern coreless architectures decouple data from legacy product and channel silos, making it accessible across the organization. This enables banks to:
Flexible, API-driven digital platforms allow banks to:
Digital workbenches and analytics tools empower relationship managers to:
With better data and analytics, banks can:
A modern, coreless architecture is the foundation for agility and customer centricity. Key benefits include:
To support ongoing transformation, leading banks are adopting outcome-based, quarterly funding models. This approach enables rapid reprioritization, faster value realization, and the ability to pivot as market conditions change.
With these building blocks in place, commercial banks can:
Modern core banking platforms—cloud-native, API-first, and composable—are the engine behind this transformation. Unlike monolithic legacy systems, they:
Transitioning to a customer-centric, coreless architecture is a complex, multi-phase journey. Best practices include:
The pace of change in commercial banking is only accelerating. Neobanks and digital challengers are not waiting for incumbents to catch up—they are redefining what good looks like. Commercial banks that act now to modernize their core, embrace customer centricity, and build for agility will not only defend their market position but unlock new sources of growth and relevance.
With deep expertise in digital business transformation, core modernization, and commercial banking, Publicis Sapient partners with leading institutions to:
The future of commercial banking belongs to those who put the customer at the center—enabled by the right technology, data, and operating model. Let’s build it together.
For more insights and to start your transformation journey, visit publicissapient.com.