Banks today are awash with a host of platforms, ecosystems, and innovations — all of which are enabled by their ability to partner. Partnerships have become increasingly central to banks’ strategies in recent years, with over 80% of surveyed bank executives saying partnerships are critical to the success of their strategies.

However, banks still fail to make partnerships work, leading to value destruction and bad partner experience. Only 6% of banks partnering with fintechs have achieved their desired return on investment. Banking industry partnerships have often been opportunistic or experimental, with banks lacking a clear framework of value creation. According to most, the lack of cultural fit and frustration over banks’ processes hampered value creation in partnerships.

Given the size of the opportunity, and the low starting point, the case for change is clear: banks must learn the art and science of partnerships. Banks need to successfully partner at scale, institutionalizing and industrializing partner competencies. Getting banks partner-ready is key to win.