Banking

HOW CAN CLOUD-BASED ANALYTICS HELP BANKS DRIVE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION?

By Paul Jones, Head of Technology, SAS UK & Ireland

Fintechs are turning up the heat in retail and corporate banking. As smaller, more agile providers have entered the banking market, customers are getting used to a higher level of service – a personalised, digital experience that guides them to make quicker, smarter decisions about their finances. For traditional banks to compete, they need to transform the way they operate. On the retail banking side, that means digitising customer-facing services. No queuing in branches, no paperwork. And when customers apply for a credit card or loan, they get a decision in seconds.

Meanwhile, on the corporate side, the aim of transformation is often to enable an everything as a service (XaaS) strategy, building smart packaged offerings such as treasury as a service or risk management as a service, which the bank can both consume in-house and provide to enterprise clients.

Data-driven digital transformation

To foster this type of digital business transformation, banks need to redesign both internal and customer-facing processes to embed data-driven decision making. By integrating intelligent automation and decisioning capabilities into their operations, banks can eliminate paperwork and manual processing. This will greatly improve service levels to customers while keeping the cost-to-serve to a minimum.

The creation of these data-driven services depends on the ability to design, build, test and deploy processes that embed predictive models using both well-established statistical methods and new artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) techniques. The development life cycle for these models is inherently experimental. It’s vital to try different approaches, test the results, and iterate on the candidates that offer the greatest potential. To remain relevant in the digital age, organisations must deliver such experiments with agility and speed.

The obstacle of legacy infrastructure

The problem is that banks’ traditional IT architectures – built around legacy on-premises systems – are a uniquely bad environment for developing these models. Due to the experimental nature of the models, it’s very difficult to forecast what type of infrastructure banks will need for upcoming projects. For example, different machine learning algorithms run best on hardware that has been optimised for that category of model building. If you invest in a cluster of servers with a particular configuration of memory and processors, it may only be suitable for a small subset of the work you actually need to do. And every time you need to change your approach, you’ll face high fixed costs and a long lead time to get the right infrastructure in place.

Instead, you need an IT architecture that allows you to set up experiments quickly and manage them flexibly. When an idea doesn’t work out, you should have the ability to fail fast and cut your losses. And when an idea succeeds, you need to get it into production rapidly and roll it out for enterprise-scale deployment.

The promise of cloud-based analytics

The cloud is the perfect environment for these exploratory projects. It gives you the freedom to spin up almost any type of infrastructure within minutes, and either scale it or shut it down instantly depending on the results.

Cloud environments also free you from dependencies on departmental silos and the quirks of your internal network. They give you a green-field site where cross-functional teams can collaborate freely, enabling you to build models that combine domain knowledge from different areas of the bank and create opportunities for XaaS offerings that would never have been possible in the past.

Regulatory hurdles

While most of the major public cloud providers now offer a range of analytics-specific infrastructure services, they come at a price. Once your data and models live in a particular proprietary cloud repository, they can be difficult to get out again. You’re locked into their infrastructure for the foreseeable future.

Besides the commercial implications, this lock-in poses a major regulatory problem for banks. According to the latest consultation paper on outsourcing and third-party risk management from the Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA), regulators expect banks to be able to port any outsourced services over to another provider or bring them back in house without any risk to business continuity.

The right tool for the job

I’ve had conversations about moving to the cloud with CIOs at banks of various sizes, and this issue of portability has been a recurring theme. They are looking for analytics solutions that work with any vendor and run on any cloud platform – or move between platforms – without significant disruption. In fact, since many banking use cases involve analysing data that is too sensitive to store outside the internal network, one of the most-requested offerings is a hybrid cloud/on-premises solution. Banks could then perform experimental projects with anonymised data in the cloud and then bring the successful models back into their own data centre for deployment in production.

Finally, while there’s a lot of buzz around AI/ML techniques, it’s important to recognise that they are not always the best option. Traditional statistical methods can be equally powerful, cost less to maintain, and can be easier to explain and audit – an increasingly important capability, as a recent legal case in the Netherlands demonstrates. My advice is always that banks should look for a single platform that gives equal support to both statistical and AI/ML modelling techniques and provides easy-to-use visualisations that make models easier to interpret. This allows your data scientists to pick the best tool for the job. And makes it easier for you to ensure the safe and responsible use of your data.

We’re working with a number of leading banks to power their digital transformation initiatives and build towards the XaaS future in the cloud. Find out more about what’s possible with cloud computing.

Banking

SEIZING THE OPEN BANKING OPPORTUNITY

Nick Maynard is a Lead Analyst at Juniper Research

Open Banking has made significant progress in 2020, having recently launched across much of Europe and now starting to emerge in other markets too. And there are two primary reasons why Open Banking is disrupting the banking industry so much:

Banks have begun to discover the real competitive advantage of a more open approach to banking. Offering a superior Open Banking experience to customers can be a compelling differentiator from other competitors as part of a wider digital app experience. Open Banking also creates a level playing field in markets where regulatory intervention has led to Open Banking deployment. As all banks are required to deploy APIs in this scenario, the situation is the same and does not put any one particular bank at a disadvantage.
Legislation – for example, in October 2015, the European Parliament adopted PSD2 (the revised Payment Services Directive). By early 2020, major banks in the EU had adopted Open APIs. There have however been many cases of late deployments of APIs and problems with the availability of APIs.

Nick Maynard

The Disruption Factor

Open Banking is a major disruptive factor for banks. The reason for this being that it opens up account data to both AISPs (Account Information Service Providers) and PISPs (Payment Initiation Service Providers), which can attempt to carve out a role in the banking area.

AISPs: These new vendors are able to access transaction data and balance information, as well as related information. This has, in particular, led to the rise of vendors such as Emma, Yolt and Connected Money. These vendors combine information from multiple sources, adding value to the user.
PISPs: In this case, the vendors are able to leverage Open Banking API connections to initiate payments directly from the bank accounts in question. This means that these players are able to bypass traditional payment methods, such as cards. Vendors such as American Express and PayPal have already launched solutions that have taken full advantage of this action.

PSD2 Changes

Generally, the implementation of the new PSD2 European regulation for electronic payment services effectively reduces the entry barriers for new digital players. It also opens up banks to the potential for competition, enabled by their own APIs. This allows these players to compete with existing services in fields currently offered by the banks. In the case of AISPs, it is possible that third-party applications could displace the role of the apps from incumbent players, which would dilute the bank’s relationship with their users.

As with any fundamental change to markets in the banking area, there is the potential to bring a number of both opportunities and challenges to consider with Open Banking.

Open Banking Opportunities & Challenges to Consider

Source: Juniper Research

Banks and other parties that are looking to become involved in the Open Banking ecosystem must weigh these opportunities and challenges carefully. Open Banking certainly needs a more collaborative approach than traditional banking models, which will require significant effort to make them successful.

The Forecast for Open Banking

The total number of Open Banking users is set to double between 2019 and 2021, reaching 40 million in 2021 from 18 million in 2019. The ongoing Coronavirus pandemic is increasing the need for consumers to have the clarity of combining their accounts and gaining insight on their financial health, and also boosting momentum in the adoption of Open Banking.

This extraordinary growth is being driven by Europe, where the regulator-led approach to Open Banking has created a standardised market, with low barriers to entry. This contrasts with markets like the US, where a lack of central regulatory intervention is limiting growth potential.

Open Banking – Delivering Opportunities and Threats

It is worth noting that Open Banking can be both a threat and an opportunity for traditional banks. While Open Banking exposes user information and access to potential competitors, this threat has the potential to affect all players in the market equally. Consequently, established banks must create innovative Open Banking services that will provide benefits for the user, while also attracting customers from less innovative competitors.

Payments will be critical to the emerging Open Banking ecosystem; accounting for over $9 billion in transaction value in 2024. However, payments in this ecosystem are at a particularly early stage. While eCommerce is dominated by card networks, there is the potential that this role will be eroded over time by ‘direct from account’ payments. Consequently, card networks should look to offer Open Banking-enabled payment services, in order to offset the risk of future disruption.

Open Banking Users in 2021 (m), Split by 8 Key Regions: 40 Million

Source: Juniper Research

Banking

2021: THE NEW-NORMAL LIFECYCLE FOR BANKING

Laura Crozier, Global Director of Industry Solutions, Financial Services at Software AG

It would be impossible to talk about predictions for the banking industry in 2021 without mentioning the cataclysmic impact that 2020 and the pandemic has had on people, businesses and countries.

Unlike with the global financial crisis, banks have been able to step up as “good guys” this time around, rebuilding their reputations as well as accelerating digital transformation. One of the main outcomes is increasingly smart, efficient online payments.

In 2020, the banking industry innovated like never before. This is the new normal. Overall, customers and society will be the beneficiaries from the changing industry. Here are my predictions:

Reputations are reborn

Banks across the globe pulled out the stops to integrate and adapt systems and processes to help customers during the pandemic. They offered accommodations in loans, assisted governments with the distribution of financial relief, and supported consumers by upping contactless spending limits and virtual deposits.

In 2021, banks will risk losing that rosy glow as economic circumstances drive them to deal with non-performing loans, mortgage foreclosures, layoffs etc. But, beyond their role in society as providers of capital and liquidity, banks will invest to sustain their reputations as trusted and good corporate citizens and use their power to persuade their customers and providers to adopt higher environmental and ethical standards. This will be in the areas of bank carbon-neutrality, sustainable financing, serving the unbanked, diversity and gender equality (as the number of women running a major global bank will double from one (Jane Fraser at Citi) to two). It’s a start.

Coming of age in the way of working

Back in Q1, when bank employees cranked up their laptops on their dining room tables, banks that were strategically undertaking business transformation accelerated their efforts. Those that were tactical, or on the fence, now understand with painful clarity that this work must be undertaken strategically.

Cracks in process and the way of working and their resulting risks can be crippling. Especially from a back-office perspective, it is not enough to rely on “organisational memory” and collegial proximity for work to get done right. Advanced banks pushed the boundaries of remote work, and the proof of concept was successful. So, they’re doubling down on developing digital twins and moving to the cloud. They’re adopting the hybrid office/WFH approach to reduce health risks and reduce cost permanently. The watercooler will never be the same.

The death of cash

Ok, maybe the rumours of the death of cash are a bit exaggerated since there will always be the need for cash (and, to some extent checks; the USA, for example, cannot seem to live without them). But the pandemic has permanently changed the way that consumers and small businesses bank, and the demotion of cash has been accelerated by a decade by the pandemic. For example, the Norwegian central bank said that cash payments in that country have plummeted to just 4% of transactions since March.

Implications? It will be critical to continue evolving payments to be smart, safe and flexible to compete in new world, in both retail and commercial banking. Also, the permanent change in the mix of channels will see banks’ face-to-face engagement with customers fade. Branches aren’t going to go away entirely, but they will be reserved for high value activities – by appointment only. To compensate, the personal touch has to be delivered digitally and intelligently.

The role of the bank as a “financial wellness partner” is being born. Banks will use customers’ data, not just to personalise and differentiate banking experiences, but to make recommendations for products and services beyond traditional banking from across their ecosystem to serve their customers well. Just as customers own their cash (physical or digital), in the future they will demand that they own their data (and can share it with whom they choose). Then retail and commercial clients will share their data in return for value.