EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

• The banking industry has been on a steady pace of digital transformation since the economic crisis of 2008, focusing on risk management, compliance, and customer-facing digital front office to address the challenges of that period. Now, as the industry is responding to another crisis and the tactical challenges facing the business, banks should focus on fundamental changes at the infrastructure, building resiliency into their critical back-office systems all the way to the very core systems, in order to return to innovation while withstanding any future disruptions. 

• IDC's COVID-19 Recovery Cycle Model and subsequent survey data have defined and quantified the steps institutions are taking to recover from the tactical challenges and how they're preparing for a post-COVID-19 world. The survey data shows that for a small number of institutions that had already invested in technologies like cloud, open API architectures, AI, security, and mobility, those investments are allowing them to weather the COVID-19 storm better than their peers and recover more quickly. For banks that are not in this position, the digital divide represents, at best, a threat to their market share and, at worst, a threat to their very existence from the banks that had already progressed further on their transformational journeys.