Digital Transformation of Commercial Banks in Serbia During COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The importance of digital transformation for banks has been recently stressed by many researchers. However, banks are perceived as traditional market players that are relied on robust infrastructure and rigid internal procedures. Apart from market competition imposed by innovative market players, the COVID-19 pandemic revealed to be strong external driver for digitalization in financial industry. The objective of this study is to examine how COVID-19 pandemic is influencing digitalization of Serbian banking industry. The research methodology is based on management tool of Canvas Business Model. The results show that communication channels were the most affected and evolved from traditional such as branches to digital communication channels such as websites, social networks, and online applications. Employees and IT infrastructure turn to be the most important resources while COVID-19 had no significant influence on key business activities, customer segmentation, cost structure and revenue stream. Finally, we elaborate research limitations and use research results to formulate potential directions for future research.