Earlier this year, Celent conducted a series of conversations with clients exploring digital maturity at large banks (it can be found here). These institutions were tier 1 in asset size (>$250 billion); however, they were not the top four “mega banks.” What became clear was a growing perceived divide by bank execs between the largest banks in the US and even the regional/super-regionals. The need to achieve significant scale, the speed of change, and resource availability for transformation were top of mind with these institutions. This invited the question: what about smaller institutions?

In this context, we expand on the previous project with new conversations among executives at small and midsize institutions—those that are smaller than the regional or super-regionals. The conversations focused on smaller bank digital journeys, challenges, and road maps. We followed the same framework, which includes five technology characteristics understood to be prerequisites to digital transformation and embedded within a larger digital maturity framework: technology modernization, data and analytics, technology innovation, agile organization, and ecosystem configuration. Shown in the figure below, we captured each institution’s perceived importance as well as the perceived capabilities for each characteristic.