Shifts in consumer behaviour, regulation, and technology have pushed the industry far beyond branch-centric service. Competitive advantage now hinges on omnichannel banking a model that stitches every touchpoint into a single, coherent conversation, delivering relevance at the exact moment of need.
From multichannel to omnichannel retail banking: Why the distinction matters
Multichannel distribution makes products available across several platforms but often leaves insights isolated in silos. Omnichannel retail banking, however, integrates these platforms to provide a seamless and consistent customer experience. For example, a mortgage enquiry initiated on a smartwatch can be continued at a branch without the need for repetition.
Achieving this level of continuity requires a unified data fabric, real-time decision-making, and a culture that prioritises the customer journey over channel ownership. The benefits are significant: reduced cost-to-serve, elimination of duplication, and the transformation of every interaction into a source of valuable context.
Four pillars of a winning omnichannel strategy
Unified data fabric
An event-driven, cloud-native architecture streams behavioural, transactional and third-party data into a single source of truth governed by enterprise-grade privacy controls. Domain APIs surface insight to marketing, risk and service teams, creating the foundation for authentic omnichannel customer engagement.
Experience orchestration engine
Customers experience journeys, not channels. A real-time orchestration layer uses analytics to decide the next best offer, alert or reassurance irrespective of interface. Machine-learning models refine these decisions continuously, compressing campaign cycles from months to minutes while lifting revenue and retention.
Embedded risk and compliance
Frictionless does not mean reckless. Digital identity, biometric verification and consent management must sit inside the journey, not bolt on afterwards. Anomaly detection and explainable AI guard against fraud without disrupting the customer flow, reconciling regulatory duty with experience quality.
Adaptive talent and culture
Technology cannot dismantle silos if people remain isolated. Channel-centric KPIs should be replaced by cross-journey measures; leaders rotated between digital and physical roles; collaboration elevated over conquest in reward frameworks. Front-line managers seconded to agile squads frequently raise conversion because operational empathy meets digital agility.
Leadership imperatives for omnichannel customer engagement
- Focus on customer lifetime value by shifting the emphasis from individual product profitability to long-term relationship economics.
- Invest in scalable platforms such as data fabrics, orchestration layers, and API marketplaces instead of isolated projects that risk becoming redundant.
- Collaborate with FinTechs, telecom providers, and retailers to rapidly expand reach and enhance data richness.
- Implement dual-track governance, enabling quick approvals for low-risk changes while maintaining robust oversight for critical transformations.
Measuring what matters
Conventional metrics such as branch footfall or average call-centre handling time offer limited insight into omnichannel effectiveness. To truly evaluate performance, organisations must adopt more relevant and forward-looking measures:
Journey abandonment rate – The percentage of interactions that break down when customers move between channels.
Time-to-context – The time taken for any interface to recognise and respond to the full history of a customer's intent.
AI decision lift – The additional revenue generated or risk mitigated through AI-led decisions compared to traditional rule-based approaches.
Net trust score – A composite metric combining customer satisfaction, perceived security, and willingness to share data.
By aligning leadership incentives with these indicators, enterprises can drive meaningful behavioural change and embed a customer-centric culture across the organisation.
Building the investment case
An omnichannel roadmap typically pays for itself within thirty-six months when direct cost savings, risk benefits and revenue gains are viewed together. Consolidating legacy systems into a unified data fabric removes overlapping licence fees and maintenance contracts. Increased straight-through processing frees capacity in underwriting and service teams, trimming overtime expenditure.
On the revenue side, next-best-action engines expand wallet share by presenting context-aware offers – overdraft extensions during travel, carbon-footprint insights during credit-card selection or instant loyalty upgrades on the eve of life events. Lower fraud losses and sharper credit scoring protect the bottom line further. Such tangible returns, combined with softer advantages like brand differentiation and faster speed-to-market, strengthen the internal business case and release budgetary bottlenecks.
Positive outcomes of omnichannel banking
A mature omnichannel model delivers compounding benefits. Revenue growth accelerates as intelligent cross-sell nudges lift product penetration into double-digit territory. Loyalty deepens because consistency across channels lowers churn and suppresses customer-initiated switching. Integrated data lakes improve credit assessment and fraud detection, reducing losses while minimising false positives that alienate legitimate users.
Operational resilience rises when self-healing cloud platforms cut downtime to minutes per year, sustaining service during peak demand or local outages. Sustainability goals gain momentum through decreased paper flows and optimised branch footprints, and workforce effectiveness improves as unified dashboards present instant context, shortening training cycles and elevating advisory quality. Each advance amplifies the next: heightened trust encourages data sharing, sharper analytics create richer propositions, and richer propositions reinforce trust – a virtuous circle that locks in competitive insulation.
Voice assistants, embedded finance and generative-AI advisers will stretch channel boundaries still further, yet the principle remains constant: every new interface simply threads into the same data fabric and orchestration layer. Institutions embedding that mindset today will define tomorrow’s standards for trust, convenience and relevance in omnichannel retail banking.
How can Infosys BPM help?
At Infosys BPM, omnichannel retail banking is delivered end-to-end: deposits and branch operations, cards, and payments. We streamline account opening, KYC/AML, branch balancing, reconciliation, collections, fraud dispute resolution, and chargebacks. Our digital brain, GenAI knowledge copilots, RPA and Doc-AI extraction drive straight-through processing, while strategic workforce management and process excellence cut cost-to-serve. Advanced analytics power proactive omnichannel customer engagement and risk insights, ensuring secure, compliant, friction-free omnichannel banking experiences that elevate revenue and customer trust.
