Although all industries are feeling the effects of Covid-19, those who have already developed remote services via the app, are more ready for current challenges.
Mārtiņš Bērziņš, Head of E-business at Citadele, shares trends of such industries as a restaurant, transport and financial.
Financial services via the app
Looking back at the development of banking and financial services over the past three years, we see the incredibly fast change due to the development of several apps. A significant amount of work was invested in researching the customer experience and in developing new technologies. The rapid development of new remote financial services can be explained by the fact that several significant solutions were implemented.
The first solution was client identification using an app. At Citadele, we predicted that the future of financial services would take place on mobile devices rather than online or in person, so we developed the ability to identify a client using an app in collaboration with some powerful FinTech companies. This gave new customers the chance to become a client of the bank remotely: the tool uses artificial intelligence to process a client’s selfie and take a picture of their ID. In 2019, the first year in which we offered this service in Latvia, more than 2,000 people became clients using the app. Now, while we’re currently only serving clients in person under special circumstances, this service has become even more appreciated.
The second - data analysis. Financial services involve a huge amount of data, and we require tools for data analysis to have a fast and automated process. All of these tools, which are invisible to clients and work behind the scenes, are necessary for all apps which help to facilitate payments, provide remote access to financial services, or automate credit rating assessments.
The remote availability of financial services is particularly important now when people are advised to avoid public places. With the help of the app, clients can now access services which could previously only be conducted in a branch or via phone call: opening accounts, making transfers, controlling the use of payment cards (blocking, PIN changes, etc.), in addition to receiving support through the app chat.
Food delivery: an opportunity for the restaurant industry
Three years ago, food delivery was a service used only for special occasions, and the process was manual and complicated: find a restaurant online, order by phone, tell the address, pay in person, etc. In the best-case scenario, you could order online, but the process was not particularly user-friendly or convenient. When the innovative app-based food delivery service Wolt was introduced, the world started to change for restaurants: the significance of their interior atmosphere decreased, with more emphasis being placed on the food, its packaging and delivery. When we look at the habits of Citadele clients, we see that food delivery to home addresses has increased more than threefold within the past year, with the average purchase being around 20 Euro.
Currently, food delivery is being offered by restaurants, grocery stores, and even local farms. The biggest winners will be those businesses who already saw the potential in this service and were gradually beginning to develop it, educating their customers about the opportunity. At the moment, we cannot compare the different services and solutions; the most important thing is to receive the products or food with less emphasis on details like app functionality or ease of use. After the state of emergency ends, we will be able to evaluate which services will remain. This fight will most likely be won by the service offering the best user experience in an app.
Mobility services
Perhaps the biggest transformation has experienced mobility services: while it may have been completely normal to flag down a taxi in the street a few years ago, everybody now knows that it is easier to call a taxi using an app. This is reflected in customer habits: we see that rides with the market leader Bolt are increasing significantly each year, with the average ride costing up to 5 Euro. There are more rides, of course, during the colder months of the year, but demand is also large in the warmer months, which confirms how customer habits have changed. Of cause, at the moment due to Corona-19, we see a slight decrease in the use of taxi services. In this situation, electric scooters, which quickly became popular, are very convenient. We can also thank a user-friendly app for this service, giving people the chance to move easily around the city while still adhering to the safety measures required by current circumstances.
At the core of all these changes is the development of new, digital services centred around an easy-to-use app enabling remote access to services. Other industries are also attempting to shift to remote services, including government services and tourism. The current state of emergency and the recommendation to avoid public places will undoubtedly lead to the growth and increased use of remote and app-cantered services.
