IT-Enabled Sophistication Banking

Globalization of financial markets resulting from both IT (particularly internet standards) and increasing homogeneity of regulation has strongly affected the environment, financial services companies are operating in. Given these changes on the market, innovation is not a choice, but a necessity to survive. Observable today, however, are defensive strategies and poor service quality. In this paper based on investments in trust relationships with customers we propose Sophistication (fit) Banking enabled by IT and qualified staff. While traditional markets are characterized by shrinking margins and declining shareholder values, which can easily be explained by considering the digital character of financial products, new intermediaries for customer-centered Sophistication (fit) Banking have the opportunity of becoming spiders in the web and increasing shareholder values constantly.