What Are Bankers’ Top Priorities for 2024? By Allison Maddock, Chief Product Officer, CSI To find out how bankers will confront challenges associated with a changing technology landscape, artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity, financial crimes and more, CSI surveyed banking executives from across the nation about their strategies and priorities for 2024. We highlight the results of this survey in an interactive executive report and dive into the challenges and emerging opportunities in our industry. This article explores the issues bankers selected as most likely to affect the industry in 2024, along with top technology trends. Top Industry Issues for Bankers in 2024 CSI’s survey explored the challenges facing bankers, asking respondents to identify which issue will have the greatest influence on the industry in 2024. Here are the issues bankers identified as their top concerns in the coming year: • Responding to High Interest Rates: Bankers indicated that continued high interest rates will affect the industry most, with 35% of respondents choosing this issue. To cope with this environment, 50% of respondents are offering competitive interest rates on deposits, and 46% plan to shift their investment strategy. Banks must evaluate the opportunities in their existing market and portfolio to offset decreased interest revenue. To find investments with a higher yield, like loans with variable interest rates, some institutions have also begun seeking new interest income opportunities (48%) and diversifying portfolios through resources like lending marketplaces. • Fighting Fraud: Coming in second, fraud was identified by 30% of respondents as the most pressing issue. Specifically, over four in 10 banks identified card fraud (45%) and wire transfer fraud (42%) as the foremost challenges. Fraud remains an ever-present threat, with the Federal Trade Commission estimating $8.8 billion in stolen funds throughout 2022. And the acceleration of AI is only increasing criminals’ ability to execute fraud. Keeping up with changing regulations and investing in the right technology is crucial for financial institutions to stay ahead of scammers and win the war on financial crime. • Keeping Up with Mergers and Acquisitions: Ranking third, mergers and acquisitions gained prominence among bankers, with 14% of the vote. Since this marks an increase from the 5% reported in last year’s survey, rising consideration of mergers and acquisitions could signal increased attention to market consolidation and plans for heightened M&A activity, recovering from the 2022 slowdown and headwinds throughout 2023. • Recruiting and Retaining Employees: Only 11% of bankers selected talent acquisition and retention, a significant decline from last year’s top spot (34%). This result could signal that bankers sense a stabilizing job market or potential to streamline operations, a likely factor contributing to overall optimism. • Navigating Regulatory Change: Contrary to the 27% reported last year, a mere 8% of bankers now view impending regulatory changes as the most pressing issue. However, more than eight in 10 bankers were concerned with all regulatory issues evaluated in the survey, including financial crimes compliance (89%), building a financial services ecosystem (88%) and cybersecurity compliance (87%). What Technology Trends Did Bankers Identify? Technology’s rapid evolution is reshaping the financial services landscape, introducing new opportunities and prompting banks to reassess their operations. Bankers in our survey generally 15 West Virginia Banker
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODQxMjUw