Jouk Pleiter is the CEO and founder of Backbase, a fintech that provides an AI-powered banking platform. In this interview with McKinsey Senior Partner Max Flötotto and Partner Henning Soller, Pleiter breaks down how the customer banking experience is transforming and how banks can gradually achieve an end-to-end technology modernization. He also discusses the importance of bold leadership and why he thinks that banks will ultimately be unable to resist the platform approach.
The future of customer experience in banking
Max Flötotto: What has been holding banks back from improving customer experience?
Jouk Pleiter: Banks talk a lot about customer experience, but they are often set up in a way that puts the focus on products and channels, rather than on the customer, and that dictates how banks behave. They’ve been unconsciously investing in a very siloed model, which is really hard to break down. Newer players, who can start with a platform approach, have a real advantage.
These cloud-based, vertically integrated systems, which didn’t exist ten years ago, make it much easier for companies to get away from their siloed approach. They don’t have to worry about system integration, which means they can really focus on maximizing customer and business value for the first time.
Henning Soller: What is the next frontier for the user experience?
Jouk Pleiter: Banking used to be about building lifelong relationships. But with the rise of automation, that human element has been lost. Most customers now engage only through a generic, transactional app.
The challenge is that these digital channels treat everyone the same. Banks still deliver a one-size-fits-all experience, even though a young professional, a family, and a small business owner each have very different needs. What’s missing is contextual relevance. With a platform-based approach, banks can design purposeful experiences for distinct customer segments—not through hyperpersonalization, but through smart, scalable tailoring.
Even starting with four or five core segments can dramatically raise the bar. This unlocks what we call customer lifetime orchestration: guiding people through a personalized digital journey that evolves as their life does. Whether they start with a loan or a savings goal, the app grows with them by anticipating needs, surfacing the right advice or product at the right time, and ultimately helping banks become the primary financial partner across all stages of a customer’s life.
The power of progressive modernization
Henning Soller: Can you talk a bit about the journey that your clients go on with you? Where do most clients start?
Jouk Pleiter: Companies can sometimes get very focused on modernizing their core through a large-scale IT investment program, but they’re often misdiagnosing their problem. If they use a white-label platform, they can go through a process of progressive modernization in which they follow the customer journey to identify the biggest frictions.
Companies could start with a single end-to-end journey. They often choose consumer onboarding, which is a low-risk investment given the relatively low complexity in that area. Clients could then move on to activating their own employees on the platform, and then to commercial business banking and wealth management. With focus and diligence, our clients can build digital factories—small, compact teams of a maximum of 100 people who really focus on an individual customer journey.
With this approach, you can get real business impact after less than six months, which helps build momentum. Previously, companies might have had to go through five expensive years of transformation before seeing any progress.
Henning Soller: And what is the end state that you want to help your clients achieve?
Jouk Pleiter: Our vision is much bigger than just providing a better user experience. It is really about helping clients achieve an end-to-end modernization of technology over time.
Over the long term, banks generally want to decommission dozens of point solutions, which means implementing new journeys. They could theoretically find many different point solutions, but that wouldn’t make sense. They should opt for real platform solutions to the challenge.
Max Flötotto: So you’re saying that with tech modernization, as with building customer relationships, progress is not about big leaps, but about a series of small steps?
Jouk Pleiter: Spot on. One of the most frustrating moments of my career was 12 years ago. I was presenting on stage in the US, and people said, “Love the vision. Feels like boiling an ocean.” And it was. But over the intervening years, we’ve been building it, block by block.
Overcoming the challenge of leadership risk aversion
Henning Soller: Banks have had an IT modernization agenda for at least two decades, but it still hasn’t been fully implemented. What keeps you going?
Jouk Pleiter: Backbase is mission-driven. New cloud technology and unified platforms really do offer a whole new operating model for the banking industry.
Sometimes the missing ingredient is bold leadership. You see companies where there is just no appetite for change. But there are also leaders who see it as their mission to future-proof their institutions. We’re actively searching for these changemakers.
I understand that making big moves can feel risky, but in the end, banks that try to fight against the platform approach will eventually end up with a more expensive operating model. Platforms are designed to offer speed of execution and a high return on investment to those companies that embrace them.
At Backbase, we’re now seeing clients who have been able to completely modernize their bank in four years, at least in the e-commerce layer. And that’s what gives me the energy to keep going.
Jouk Pleiter is the CEO and founder of Backbase. Henning Soller is a partner in McKinsey’s Frankfurt office, and Max Flötotto is a senior partner in the Munich office.
Comments and opinions expressed by interviewees are their own and do not represent or reflect the opinions, policies, or positions of McKinsey & Company or have its endorsement.