Why Product-Centric Approaches Are Failing Financial Institutions

For years, financial institutions have operated on a product-centric model developing products and then finding customers to sell them to. This approach creates a disconnect because it assumes that every customer has the same needs. But in reality:

• Customers have unique financial goals, spending habits, and risk tolerance.
• A one-size-fits-all approach often leads to low engagement and high churn.
• Product overload can overwhelm customers, leading to confusion and dissatisfaction.

Traditional product-centric strategies often treat customers as mere account numbers delivering the same products with little regard for individual needs. This leads to missed opportunities, low customer satisfaction, and high churn rates. In an increasingly competitive market, banks and fintechs cannot afford to overlook the importance of personalisation.

In contrast, leading fintechs have pivoted to experience-first engagement designing interactions that evolve with the customer journey. This isn’t about flashy UX. It’s about intentional, data-backed, personalised connection.
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Beyond Names: What Personalisation Really Means in Financial Services?

True personalisation in financial services goes far beyond using someone’s name in a notification. It means delivering meaningful value, in context, based on behavior, goals, and preferences. It’s about anticipating needs before they are voiced, and supporting financial wellness with relevance.

That could mean surfacing investment tools after a salary bump, recommending tailored credit options during a major life event, or nudging users toward savings goals when spending spikes. Every touchpoint becomes a trust-building moment when driven by insight.

But true personalisation is about creating a sense of value. It’s about making customers feel seen, heard, and understood. When customers receive offers and services that genuinely align with their goals, whether it’s a customised savings plan or a targeted investment strategy, they are more likely to trust the institution.

The end goal isn’t just a better UI or convenience. It’s to build trust over time by showing customers that their financial institution truly knows them, respects their goals, and is ready to guide them with purpose. Every contextual message or relevant product suggestion becomes an opportunity to strengthen that bond.
When financial institutions personalise at this depth, they move beyond mere service providers. They become financial partners.

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The Loyalty Advantage: Why Personalised Experiences Win Every Time

Personalisation creates an emotional connection between the customer and the brand. When customers feel understood, they are more likely to remain loyal, even if they find similar products elsewhere. They are more inclined to recommend your services to friends and family and engage with your products more frequently.


According to industry research, 79% of consumers are more likely to engage with a brand that offers personalised experiences. Financial institutions that leverage personalisation effectively see higher customer retention, increased cross-selling opportunities, and stronger brand loyalty.
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Designing Experiences That Customers Remember

Building personalised customer experiences starts with leveraging customer data effectively. It begins with understanding customer preferences, transaction history, and behavioral patterns. AI-powered insights can help financial institutions identify customer needs and deliver proactive solutions. This can range from personalised financial advice to automated savings goals based on spending habits.

But it doesn’t stop there. An omni channel approach ensures that customers receive consistent experiences across digital and physical channels whether they are accessing services through a mobile app, website, or in-branch visit. Regularly monitoring customer satisfaction through feedback and engagement data allows institutions to refine their personalisation strategies.

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Turning Data into Delight: How FT Catalyst X Delivers Personalisation

FT’s personalisation at scale through Catalyst X its intelligent orchestration layer that bridges data silos, automates decision logic, and delivers actionable insights across digital channels. Unlike fragmented solutions that require manual stitching of customer insights, Catalyst X operates as a real-time command centre, continuously absorbing, analysing, and activating data.

At the heart of Catalyst X is its behavioral intelligence engine. It uses machine learning and context-aware algorithms to evaluate user behaviors, transaction histories, channel preferences, and lifestyle signals. This enables banks to go beyond reactive messaging and offer truly anticipatory experiences like nudging customers to invest idle balances, reminding them of upcoming EMIs, or highlighting spending patterns that deviate from their norms.

What makes Catalyst X even more powerful is its flexibility. Financial institutions can define triggers, customer segments, and communication workflows with minimal coding effort. This democratises personalisation, making it accessible to marketing teams, product heads, and compliance officers alike. Every campaign can be tailored, tested, and optimised on a single platform, without reliance on heavy engineering cycles.

Moreover, Catalyst X ensures that every personalised experience is secure and compliant. With built-in consent management, data masking, and audit trails, institutions don’t have to choose between innovation and regulation they get both, by design.

With FT, personalisation shifts from being a scattered initiative to becoming a scalable system of engagement. It helps institutions not only serve customers better, but understand them deeper, act faster, and adapt continuously.

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Operationalising Personalisation Across the Customer Lifecycle

Implementing personalisation isn’t just about sending one-off messages or promotions. For financial institutions to truly benefit from a personalisation strategy, it must be operationalised across the entire customer lifecycle from onboarding to retention to advocacy. Each stage presents a unique opportunity to add value, reduce friction, and build trust.

In the acquisition phase, personalisation starts with identifying the right customer segments and presenting tailored messaging that speaks to their financial aspirations or pain points. During onboarding, FT Catalyst X enables instant decisioning whether that means showing only the most relevant account types or fast-tracking documentation based on prior behavior. Personalised welcome flows, feature walkthroughs, and financial wellness prompts help new users feel seen and supported from day one.

As the relationship matures, personalisation becomes a driver of growth. Proactive suggestions help users optimise their financial habits, while real-time notifications highlight ways to save, invest, or avoid unnecessary fees. For example, a customer nearing their credit limit might receive a contextual alert offering a product upgrade or budgeting insight. FT Catalyst X enables these decisions dynamically by drawing from real-time data, such as spending patterns, goal tracking, and income fluctuations.

Even during support scenarios, personalisation ensures smoother experiences. Catalyst X can recognise repeat queries, recommend FAQs, pre-fill forms, or auto-prioritise support queues based on account type or sentiment signals. Each step reinforces trust by minimising effort and maximising relevance.

Personalisation also extends to re-engagement and advocacy. Inactive users can be reactivated through well-timed nudges tailored to their usage history. Loyal users can be rewarded through targeted benefit campaigns. In every case, FT ensures interactions feel seamless and intentional. By orchestrating personalised experiences across this entire lifecycle, Catalyst X helps financial institutions treat customers not as segmented lists but as evolving relationships. Personalisation becomes the backbone of modern customer engagement predictive, responsive, and always on.

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Relevance Is the New Currency of Loyalty

Financial institutions that continue to rely solely on feature sets and branding will struggle to retain modern customers. In a saturated market, loyalty is no longer a byproduct of reputation, it is a direct result of how well you understand and serve your customers in real time. Modern users are savvy, time-constrained, and value-driven. They no longer engage with generic offerings or wait for delayed responses. Instead, they seek intelligent, proactive experiences that align with their evolving financial goals.

Relevance, in this context, isn’t limited to personalisation within a product or notification. It includes every decision that an institution makes about what to show, when to show it, and how to deliver it. It’s about knowing the right moment to recommend a savings plan, highlight a credit option, or remind a user of their financial goals because timing matters as much as content. And when customers feel their bank is paying attention, they reward that attentiveness with trust and long-term engagement.


This is where personalisation becomes the most valuable currency. It’s not just about increasing engagement, it’s about reducing friction, anticipating needs, and offering timely solutions without the customer needing to ask. Financial brands that consistently deliver these moments of relevance are rewarded with deeper trust, higher retention, and stronger advocacy. Personalisation becomes a flywheel that drives both emotional loyalty and economic value.

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Catalyst X Turns Insight into Engagement

FT Catalyst X allows banks and fintechs to activate this shift by turning data into personalised journeys at scale. Whether it's surfacing a financial wellness tip at the end of a transaction, nudging a user to review spending habits, or pre-qualifying them for a timely credit upgrade, Catalyst X transforms every touchpoint into a relevant interaction. It orchestrates decisions across systems and channels in real time without adding operational complexity.

This orchestration isn’t just about automation it’s about intelligence. Catalyst X understands context: how a user’s behavior has changed over time, how their financial circumstances evolve, and what communication channels resonate best with them. By layering behavioral signals, lifecycle moments, and compliance frameworks, Catalyst X creates a dynamic engine that powers customer-centricity at scale.
What truly sets Catalyst X apart is its ability to operationalise personalisation across departments. It doesn't sit siloed in marketing or IT. It becomes the connective fabric that links marketing intent with product execution, compliance assurance with customer interaction.

It empowers every stakeholder from data analysts to CX teams to deliver better outcomes without sacrificing agility or oversight.
Financial institutions that want to future-proof their customer relationships must look beyond product portfolios and into experience orchestration. With Catalyst X, personalisation becomes more than a differentiator it becomes the foundation of a modern, resilient, and trusted brand. The institutions that thrive won’t just be the ones who innovate quickly. They’ll be the ones who personalise consistently and meaningfully.
The era of personalisation isn’t coming. It’s already here and with FT, it’s designed for scale, agility, and trust.

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