Six in 10 financial services workers worried about threat of Brexit
Six in 10 financial services workers fear the aftermath of Brexit will be the single biggest challenge the sector has to face over the next 12 months, according to a report published today.
The survey of more than 500 financial services workers by content software firm Nuxeo also identified other potential threats on the horizon for 2020.
Top concerns included cybersecurity threats and information and data breaches (36 per cent), physical branches closing down (26 per cent), the burden of increasing regulation (24 per cent), competition from big tech firms moving into financial services (21 per cent) and competition from new challenger banks ( 20 per cent).
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Nearly six in 10 workers felt these challenges left their businesses vulnerable to losing customers over the next 12 months.
“In 2020, UK financial services firms will not only have to deal with competitive and operational pressures, but they expect that the regulatory and political landscape will impact them as well,” said Chris McLaughlin, Nuxeo’s chief product and marketing officer.
“The firms that will succeed in this challenging environment will be those who focus on improving the customer experience, delivering innovative, new products and services, and embracing technologies that will modernise their operations in order to make all of this possible.”
The key challenges for 2020 identified by UK financial services workers are already having an impact on their day-to-day activities, the survey found.
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Brexit was cited as the factor having most effect (69 per cent), closely followed by the threat of cybersecurity issues (67 per cent) and increased regulation (67 per cent).
The research found differing levels of communication to staff on how the threats faced by financial services firms were being dealt with.
The challenge of dealing with increased regulation had been communicated effectively to 72 per cent of respondents, while 69 per cent said the same about cybersecurity issues.
However, 41 per cent of those surveyed said their organisation had not communicated well about its Brexit plans, 37 per cent said communication about the threat of big tech firms had been inadequate and 36 per cent said communication about the threat from challenger banks was lacking.