How Can Banks and Credit Unions Improve Customer Engagement

The rules of engagement in banking have changed. Customers no longer judge banks and credit unions against just each other—they compare their digital experiences to the seamless, personalised, and intuitive interactions they receive from top tech and e-commerce platforms. As expectations shift from transactional to experiential, financial institutions must do more than just offer online services—they must create journeys that are intelligent, human-centred, and emotionally resonant. In this landscape, customer engagement is no longer a support function—it’s the new competitive edge. At the heart of this transformation lies the power of a modern digital engagement platform.

This digital-first expectation calls for a new approach—one that blends innovation, empathy, and agility. From onboarding to servicing, customers demand experiences that are relevant in the moment and evolve with their needs. For both banks and credit unions, the opportunity lies in turning every interaction into a moment that fosters relationship-building. That’s where adopting a digital engagement platform can offer real value, especially when deployed as a cloud-based banking platform.

Breaking Barriers: What’s Stopping Customers from Feeling Connected?

Despite digital adoption, many customers still encounter major roadblocks in their journey. These include:

• Tedious onboarding journeys that lead to high drop-offs
• One-size-fits-all messaging that feels impersonal and irrelevant
• Fragmented service channels that create friction in problem resolution
• Delayed responsiveness due to manual operations and legacy systems

When customers face these frustrations, their trust erodes—and so does loyalty. Recent research starkly indicates that over 50 per cent of consumers are willing to switch to a competitor after just a single unsatisfactory interaction^[1]. To build meaningful connections, institutions need to make engagement seamless, responsive, and, above all, human-centric. Leveraging a modern digital engagement platform can help eliminate these issues by providing real-time personalisation and channel consistency.

Powering Real Relationships: How Digital Engagement Platforms Make a Difference

Digital engagement platforms are built for connection, not just communication. They turn transactional experiences into interactive relationships by aligning every touchpoint with what the customer truly needs. Especially when part of an integrated banking platform, these tools scale seamlessly while delivering individualised experiences.

Here’s how DEPs drive engagement:

• Unified Banking Platform: Microservices-based, event-driven, API-enabled, cloud-native, headless with underlying AI models
• Codeless & Extensible Journeys: Empower teams to roll out new journeys faster—no tech delays
• AI-Powered Personalisation: Predict what customers need next and tailor interactions accordingly
• Omnichannel Content Delivery: Stay consistent and contextual across mobile, web, and in-branch experiences
• Smart Integrations: Work seamlessly with core banking software, fintechs, and third-party ecosystems
• Composable Design: Let institutions control the UX and evolve with customer behaviour trends, leveraging over 57 reusable components

With these capabilities, institutions can see results quickly. According to Forrester^[2], a 1-point improvement in customer experience index score can drive an incremental $123 million in revenue for a large multichannel bank.

For Banks: Building Hyper-Personalised and Agile Experiences

Banks today operate in an environment where speed, insight, and innovation are critical. For banks, engagement isn’t about more features—it’s about more meaningful moments. Customers want the ability to:

• Open accounts in minutes
• Get alerts and advice exactly when needed
• Move from one channel to another without losing context
• Feel rewarded and recognised for their loyalty

Retail banks need to create proactive, lifestyle-based experiences—whether it’s sending investment tips during market volatility or movie offers during the weekend. 

A robust digital engagement platform makes this possible, especially when architected with banking-as-a-service models in mind. DEPs should provision the following customer engagement-centric features:

• Digital Onboarding
  Let customers open a bank account in just 3 minutes—no long forms, no waiting. With digital liveness checks, instant KYC, and document upload, onboarding becomes as smooth as signing up for Netflix.
• Digital Lending
  Make borrowing fast and friendly. From traditional loans to micro-credit and BNPL, offer approvals in minutes with real-time credit checks—fully digital and hassle-free.
• Family Banking
  Help parents teach financial habits early. With a dedicated kids’ app, parents can assign tasks, send rewards, and share videos or books—turning banking into a shared, educational experience.
• Personal Finance Management
  Let users take control of their money with goal-based savings, spend analysis by category, and smart financial tips. Empower them to save, spend, and plan better—all in one place.
• Ecommerce Marketplace
  Turn your banking app into a lifestyle hub. Offer curated shopping, travel, dining, and entertainment—plus integrate loyalty rewards for a richer, more engaging experience.
• Greenification
  Add a swipe of sustainability to every transaction. With built-in ESG calculators, customers can track their carbon footprint and donate towards eco-causes, making everyday banking more purposeful.

Human-First Digital: What Credit Unions Can Teach Us

Credit unions need to lead members with empathy. As they digitise, that ethos must stay intact. DEPs give credit unions the tools to modernise while staying personal. Combined with fintech software solutions, these platforms offer advanced features without losing the human touch.

Advanced DEPs support the following needs of Credit unions:

1. Deeper Member connections: To build deeper member connections, credit unions must deliver experiences that are personal, engaging, and values-driven. Tools like spend analysis, loyalty rewards, and gamification boost member lifetime value, while personalised offers strengthen relationships. With AI-powered insights and dynamic pricing, institutions can enhance conversion rates, boost profitability, and maintain a competitive edge in their landscape.
2. Enhanced Revenue: Credit unions can accelerate growth by delivering fast, seamless, and modern experiences from the start. AI-enabled digital lending simplifies loan applications and approvals, boosting speed and satisfaction. Open banking capabilities enable secure data sharing for more personalised services, while easy fintech integration accelerates innovation, expands offerings, and enhances competitiveness in a dynamic market.
3. Reduced Risk: Robust access controls like multi-factor authentication, single sign-on, and role-based permissions protect member accounts while maintaining ease of use. End-to-end encryption using AES-256^* and TLS 1.2/1.3^** safeguards data in transit and at rest ^{[3] [1]}. Complementing these measures, AI-powered fraud detection continuously monitors transactions to identify and respond to suspicious activity in real time, minimising risk and reinforcing member trust.

According to industry data^[4], over 70% of credit union members are more likely to stay with institutions that offer easy-to-use digital tools and personalised service.

One Platform, 360° Engagement

A great digital banking platform brings everything together. 

The future of financial services lies in deepening relationships—not just through personalised offers, but through meaningful, consistent engagement. Whether it’s a bank seeking to scale personalised services or a credit union aiming to remain community-driven yet digitally agile, the right digital engagement platform can bridge this gap. 

The eMACH.ai Digital Engagement Platform equips banks and credit unions with a sophisticated back-office application designed to empower their employees with essential tools and functionalities. It empowers your employees to design better journeys in a codeless manner and serve Retail Banking customers better. eMACH.ai DEP comes with comprehensive microservices across Domain, Engagement, Contextualization, Data ingestion, and Process Choreography. 

eMACH.ai DEP comes with over 750+ Front-end journeys, 50+ Domain Packs (across onboarding, lending, cards, payments, PFM, e-commerce marketplace, ESG, etc), 520+ Open APIs, 45+ Events, workflows, and more. This gives banks a jumpstart on launching an exceptional banking experience.

This Open Finance-enabled platform allows banks to expand their retail market share by collaborating with Fintechs, e-commerce and more. Our solutions empower credit unions to deepen member relationships through personalised, seamless experiences, unlock new revenue streams with modernised services, optimise operational efficiency to control costs, and proactively address risks with intelligent, integrated tools. 

An impactful live example of eMACH.ai DEP enhancing customer 360°engagement involves implementing an Open Finance-enabled digital transformation for one of the UK’s oldest private banks, looking to deliver a seamless and personalized digital experience across channels. Our scalable and future-ready banking infrastructure provided seamless third-party integrations to drive innovation and customer convenience which helped expanded customer base with differentiated solutions via 47+ Open Banking-enabled partners. 

Another example involves a leading bank improving customer experience & revenue with core, lending & digital channel transformation. The implementation involved fully digital onboarding in 3 minutes, with a reduced process from 15 to 4 steps. With our platform’s technological innovation, we were able to have a new product variant go live for the customer in 1-2 days vs months earlier, with the help of our composable architecture. An improved payment system also enabled each branch to process 2000+ payments daily 

The Future of Customer Engagement

The customer-led transformation has already begun. Now is the time to invest in banking as a service models and platforms that help you build not just accounts, but relationships that last.

As we journey through the digital age, conversational banking and robust digital engagement frameworks are game-changers. Addressing the core needs of progressive banking leaders with advanced digital solutions allows banks to achieve rapid, cost-effective transformation.

Digital Engagement Platforms enable better insights, smarter operations, and more impactful connections with customers and members. In an era where every interaction defines brand loyalty, banks and credit unions must move from transactional interactions to relationship-driven engagement, powered by technology, empathy, and data.

By embracing a connected, composable, contextual, and collaborative approach, banks and credit unions can stay ahead of the curve—delivering exceptional value to customers, reducing costs, and driving sustained growth.

Contact us to discuss deeper into similar insightful case studies on how banks and credit unions such as yours can benefit from our industry-leading Digital Engagement Platform.

Glossary:

* Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 256 is a virtually impenetrable symmetric encryption algorithm that uses a 256-bit key to convert your plain text or data into a cipher.

** TLS 1.2/1.3 protocols provide communications security over the Internet.  These protocols allow client/server applications to communicate in a way that is designed to prevent eavesdropping, tampering, or message forgery.