User experience is one of the most overlooked areas within retail financial services and one of the most significant opportunities.

Most breakout businesses over the past 20 years have not been new business concepts or products but rather step-change advancements in user experience. When you look at Apple’s evolution — music, phones, photos, and computers were nothing new. What was and still is new (and innovative and disruptive) is Apple’s use of modern technology to drive new user experiences around established customer behaviors and activities. At Uber, cab hailing services are not new. Again, it is Uber’s use of modern technology that delivers a new user experience that is disruptive and creates superior service and overall value. This argument extends to Amazon, Ebay and even Twitter and Facebook – they have not created new products as much as they have reimagined the solution with enhanced user experiences.

If we turn to retail financial services we see that the last step-change in user experience came from the online brokers/banks and the introduction of self-directed trading. Again, the products were the same, but the experience was different and created a new value proposition. But, this step-change occurred over 20 years ago. Since then, the online construct is mostly unchanged and has gone from being simple and intuitive to crowded and intimidating. Robo advice, while introducing a new customer experience for asset allocation and portfolio construction, is at best is an incremental change that is still based on an outdated construct.

The opportunity for creating the next step-change within retail financial services is significant. It will disrupt, differentiate and drive growth across customer demographics. Online access and lower fees are not enough. We need to be building new experiences that deliver better information, better service, and a better holistic value to the end customer.