In unprecedented times, this article discusses the impact of COVID-19 on the financial institutions sustain and manage the risk in this uncertain reality and changes to the digital transformation strategy. It also discusses the impact through the initial onset phase, and how it is being coped with now and the plans for the future.

Initial Onset Phase

1. Initially, a quick and intentional effort was made to disperse the workforce in most banks and credit unions. The approach that was adopted was to try and develop multiple workplaces that are separate and independent. The employees were asked to work from home. Eventually, an increase in debit card expenditure was observed which was diverse across various sectors. To understand such an expense, models such as "money in money out" models can be put in place.
2. The onset of COVID 19 was accompanied by forced migration, a decrease in physical channels, and a huge spike in digital services. This was followed by the re-allocation of resources. Even though members shifted to digital they still wanted that human assist, and thus tools like virtual appointments were utilized.
3. Temporary shutting physical branches and sending employees to work from home has been the primitive step in promoting their health and welfare. Frequent standup phone calls have been a way to go about it.
4. For call center employees, to shift to work from home was a challenging task. The next approach was to reduce the working hours of each branch. For the offshore contractors and vendor partners, complexities had to be balanced for working from home.
5. Reaching out to members identified through proactive business intelligence teams, and cold calling has been beneficial in understanding the state and needs of the members. This was used to shift members to the digital platform. Improving digital platforms and collaborating with the right partners is the need of the hour.

Coping with the present situation and planning for longer-term.

1. At present, there is a spike in the number of members registered for digital access. The only task now is to iterate and build the assistance so that this need can be met with.
2. After the community spread, the process has been about sustaining the learnings. Although members are comfortable or not in using the digital channels, they are still using it, and the emphasis should be to provide support to this effort and respond to their needs.
3. The long term emphasis has been on risk management, like closely monitoring long term investor risk, profitability, member service, emergency loans to provide the best services.
4. The customers are using digital a lot more and behavior is changing rapidly. The volume of transactions has been increasing. The challenge is to develop the capacity and prevent instances of fraud. There has been increasing collaboration across various geographic locations. Though it poses security problems, overall, efficiency has increased.
5. The challenge is to determine what the change means for investment plans and redirecting the digital platforms especially towards providing efficient services and digital support to small business owners so that the dependency on physical branches and cash-based transactions can be reduced.
6. To be prepared for a better future, as the health crisis shifts to the economic crisis- infrastructure, availability of technology, and operational functionality should be developed in a cooperative direction, with knowledge and expertise.
7. The right mix of online collaboration tools and a business agility plan is the need of the hour.
8. Information Security ‘ does not remain a point on the checklist, but now should be a part of the overall design.

Leveraging work from home and introducing work from home as a permanent part of the policy is a practice many institutions have started considering. The online channel is on its way to becoming mandatory, and investments need to be directed towards the same.