At Bank Innovation 2014 in Seattle this past March, Accenture‘s head of wearable technology, Brent Blum, asked the audience, “Why don’t more banks partner with design firms?”

Why not indeed?

Capital One, at least, has taken Blum’s advice and hired Dan Makowski, a designer with Google’s advanced technology and projects team, away from the Silicon Valley tech giant. JPMorgan Chase has also been reported to be hiring Silicon Valley talent, though not specifically in design.

Put bluntly, this is essential for banks going forward. 

Richard Fairbank, CEO of Capital One, has called the bank a technology company, and said, “Digital is who we are and how we do business.” The bank also has multiple innovation labs, and invites entrepreneurs to visit for cross-fertilization of ideas.

Design of the online and mobile experience will be one of the most important jobs at the bank of tomorrow. Chris Skinner, in the May 2014 edition of his book Digital Bank, describes the idea of thinking in channels misguided. We are beyond multichannel and omnichannel into the territory of “no channel,” Skinner says, for the simple reason that customers don’t think in terms of channels. Neither should banks.

Similarly, at NextBank USA, which took place last month in Boston, presenters emphasized the importance of design, specifically with mobile apps. Brett King even went so far as to list “User Experience Designers” as one of the most important banking jobs in five years.

Designers that can craft a seamless customer experience on top of the bank’s technology platform will begin to be in exceedingly high demand among forward-looking banks — or at least, they should be.