It is fair to say that financial institutions have, with technology, largely succeeded with stopgap measures in the initial drive to adapt to the new normal of the “After COVID-19” (AC) world. Celent released the results of its global survey at a digital event in April. Of course, financial services depend to a large extent on country-specific regulations, business practices, and consumer behavior. Likewise, the impact of the COVID pandemic and its effect on financial technology will vary by region and depending on how the pandemic plays out in different places.
The survey inquired about responses to the new normal from four perspectives: Effectiveness of remote work and WFH; IT difficulties in responding to the crisis; Deployment of new IT in response to the crisis; and Postcrisis usage plans for the cloud (or SaaS).
Many survey respondents indicated they had successfully responded to the IT challenges of the AC era and were preparing for the future (440 individuals answered the first question online in real-time, after which the number of respondents fell to 254). The field of survey participants included financial institutions and IT vendors and was skewed toward larger companies, which presumably accounts for the positive responses indicating success in dealing with the pandemic challenges.