Empowering investors through digital platforms

One of the saving graces for people’s work and personal lives during the pandemic was the ability to use digital platforms. That’s not exactly breaking news to any of you who have been in Zoom or Teams meetings with colleagues or distant relatives over the past 2½ years or to those who order banh mi and pho through GrubHub. But it’s not just COVID-driven necessity driving the convenience and wider adoption of apps, websites, and videoconferencing tools.

Even before the pandemic but particularly during those crucial early months of the lockdown, organizations—Vanguard among them—were improving their online customer experience by embedding new technologies and by investing in and accelerating enhancements in response to greater digital traffic. These advances often came with the goal of increasing self-service as well as enabling better consumer decision-making.

These efforts worked to boost customers’ digital interactions, though the most dramatic jump came during the early months of the pandemic. In the U.S., 65% of customer interactions were digital in July 2020, up from 41% in December 2019, according to research by McKinsey & Company. This kind of digital adoption rate would previously have taken more like three years.

But adoption rates are still going strong, and they extend to financial activities as well. In a recent Vanguard survey of U.S. investors, nearly 70% of respondents reported being comfortable conducting financial business online, and more than half (52%) were comfortable doing most of their investing online. Furthermore, almost 60% of respondents preferred conducting financial activities online over other methods such as making in-person transactions and phoning customer service.

More control, more convenience, more cost savings

Survey participants cited a plethora of benefits in managing their finances digitally, among them:

• Saves me time (81%)
• Can conduct my financial business at any time (75%)
• Faster access to my funds (67%)
• Allows me to be more in control (47%)
• Allows me to be more responsive (38%)

Whether simply checking the performance of specific stocks or interacting with their 401(k) investments, individuals empowered by technology can take action on their money when and how they want, without relying on human support.

In essence, our survey respondents were citing the benefits of what I call the three C’s of digital finance—control, convenience, and confidence—and particularly the first two.

Broader digital adoption has positive implications, not just for you as individual investors, but also for the financial institutions that serve you. The initial capital outlay for digital enhancements can be extensive, but asset managers, plan sponsors and administrators can gain efficiencies and scalability. In Vanguard’s case, because of our mutual structure, we can pass those savings back to our clients and investor-owners.*

There are, however, obstacles to further digital adoption that are unique to financial services, and some of those involve human psychology more than digital capabilities. In other words, while control and convenience are readily apparent, the third C—confidence—has been lagging.

Confidence hasn’t kept pace with the other Cs

Although more investors are comfortable taking their investing experience fully online, Vanguard’s survey found that some respondents are still uncertain about engaging digitally with their financial services firms.

Almost half the respondents (48%) cited security concerns as the reason they would not conduct financial activities online, regardless of overall comfort with their financial firms’ digital platforms. Confusion about the platforms was a distant second reason (22%).

More than 16% of respondents were not comfortable conducting their financial business online. Close to 19%, or one in five investors, were not comfortable doing most of their investing online; in other words, they might have no problems checking their bank balances online but might not make a trade in their brokerage account that way.

Safeguarding data remains a critical area of focus for Vanguard and other financial services institutions that have been adopting more sophisticated security measures.

How far we’ve come in addressing concerns

As an example of such measures, we completely redesigned our mobile app for individual investors. Besides being easier to use, it has a highly secure login that uses biometrics and other multifactor authentication capabilities.

Many of my industry peers have adopted similar secure methods of account access. We’re also improving features for control and convenience.

Our investors will notice improved end-to-end experience on our retail website, including:

• More intuitive fund shopping experience.
• Revamped portfolio watch and personalized performance tools.
• Simplified layouts for easier navigation.
• Improvements in core pages providing balances, holdings, transactions, and confirmations.
• Enhanced search features.

Likewise, other financial services firms have accelerated enhancements to their online experiences and mobile apps. If you’re a digital-reluctant investor, you may want to explore these advances. Websites and apps have moved the needle on security and navigation.