The rush to stand up digital channels and tools during the initial months of the pandemic likely signals a greater push by financial institutions to invest in innovation and digital transformation during the next two years, according to a survey by Bank Innovation and its sister accelerator, INV Fintech.

The March survey of the banking and fintech ecosystem gauged industry sentiment to understand business practices in light of the coronavirus and its impact on the U.S. economy. To follow up, we are looking at responses to the survey that came in between March 25 and Aug. 14, after the initial shock of the pandemic to the economy and banking sector.

Our full survey garnered participation from a total of 186 industry players, including 92 financial institutions, 50 fintechs and 57 venture capital firms, consultants and industry advisors.

According to the survey, 71% of new respondents said spending on innovation and digitization will “somewhat” or “significantly” increase. Meanwhile, 21% thought spend would remain constant and 8% believed spending would decrease.

Part of that digital transformation will be externally driven by fintechs and innovation firms to generate ideas and launch new products, as 42% of respondents said innovation will be spurred by external factors, and 47% said it will be a combination of external factors and internal ideas, and products generated in-house.

As such, zero new respondents said there will be fewer fintech partnerships in the next two years; 24% said they would keep their fintech partnership engagements and efforts constant, while 47% predicted there would be slightly more partnerships, and 29% said there would be significantly more partnerships with fintechs.

In the past months, some of the biggest banks have partnered with fintechs and tech companies for new customer acquisition. Google partnered with eight U.S. banks, including BBVA, BMO Harris and Coastal Community Bank, to launch co-branded digital bank accounts, while Citi and Amazon launched point-of-sale financing on the e-commerce giant’s website.

Also read: Banks ranked on their crisis CX

Several bank executives wrote in that the pandemic will act as a catalyst to digital product development, and one hypothesized the coronavirus pandemic will spark renewed interest in fintech beyond finance, such as in health, insurance a real estate.

Some of this is already happening. Merchants Bank’s mortgage banking subsidiary recently overhauled its LOS with technology from Clik.ai, and insurance brokerage Acrisure agreed to purchase an artificial-intelligence business from Tulco in a $400 million transaction. Meanwhile, remote assistance and services, such as conversational chatbots and contactless payments, will become a priority, according to another bank respondent.

Regardless of the new technologies banks are pursuing amid the pandemic, it is safe to say that the past months have accelerated both digital-transformation efforts at banks and digital adoption among consumers. This could be the push both parties needed to prioritize digital banking; as one respondent put it, “I’m hoping this will be the kick [my bank] needs to advance their digital proposition.”

Click here to read the first installment of survey results from the coronavirus and state of banking innovation.