Banking
Banks Must Evolve Digital Services Beyond Banking in the Next Chapter of Transformation
Published
1 month agoon
By
admin
Prashant Jajodia, Managing Client Partner & Financial Services Sector Leader, IBM
I am a bit of a banking nerd. I use several banks and often find myself comparing their digital banking services. They are all very good. You can securely check your balance and make a payment on your mobile app with all of them. You can also do many everyday banking tasks like move money, check your statement, and order a new card on your mobile phone without having to call anyone or visit a branch.
This is great – but these services have traditionally been one-size-fits-all, while digital services in other sectors such as retail are offering customer experiences tailored to the individual. Is the banking industry about to catch up?
Digital offerings reaching maturity
Digital transformation in banking has gone through two big cycles. Following the launch of smart phones, banks raced to build a mobile banking app. This was chapter one of digital transformation and it marked a huge strategic shift for the industry. Technology teams in banks suddenly had to be even more creative and plugged in to digital consumer trends.
This chapter was characterised by a big focus on branding. It gave banks a shop front on their new mobile real estate, but customers could hardly do anything beyond check their balance or make a payment on their mobile app. Most banks remained analogue beyond these basic services; you had to call the bank’s contact centre or visit the branch for pretty much everything else.
Then came chapter two, which was about digitising customer journeys. In this phase, banks started to automate key customer journeys and make them available to customers on their mobile apps. Customers could now change their address without queuing at the branch or create a new savings account at the click of a button.
This phase greatly improved customer services, while driving huge efficiencies for financial institutions. Most banks accelerated into chapter two during the COVID 19 pandemic, when they had to rapidly roll out new digital services to support their house-bound customers. Virtual assistants powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) on hybrid cloud platforms, like NatWest’s Cora or TSB’s Smart Agent, helped millions of customers to get help faster. Today, just over two and a half years after the first UK lockdown, most large UK banks have a mature digital offering.
Going beyond banking
So what does chapter three of digital transformation in banking look like?
I think we’re going to see financial institutions deepening personalisation of digital services, with a focus on looking after customers’ financial wellbeing in the broadest sense. In the post-COVID era of high inflation and a cost-of-living crisis, such services will be of real value to customers. The next phase of digitisation will also see banks using AI and automation to absorb rising operating costs, addressing the shortage of vital technology skills in the workforce and making progress towards environmental, sustainability and governance (ESG) goals.
How can financial institutions make this happen? The following three components are essential to any strategy for taking personalised services to a new level and genuinely adding value to customers’ financial wellbeing:
- Build an Ecosystem Beyond Banking: Financial institutions must build an ecosystem of partners and fintechs with diverse expertise so they can roll out new digital offerings for customers faster. Taking this approach, SBI, a large bank in India was able to launch a platform called YONO – You Only Need One – which offers a combination of banking and non-banking services for customers that support their financial wellbeing in different ways. Through a partner ecosystem, banks can also access AI and automation-powered tools that reduce energy use and emissions by leveraging real-time data, and that create intelligent, automated workflows to address skills shortages.
- Hyper Personalisation: Banks have a vast amount of financial data about their customers. With more data moving to the cloud, banks can apply AI to this data and generate insights which can help customers through the cost-of-living crisis. For example, the bank can remind customers of all the subscriptions they’re signed up to which they might not be using. Banks could also nudge customers into saving money based on estimated future cash flow (even taking into consideration the expected increase in energy payments).
- Instant fulfilment: Banks have achieved Straight Through Processing (STP) on most service requests, but when it comes to new product on-boarding (for existing or new customers) the service takes days, sometimes weeks. Instant fulfilment is about reimagining the customer experience and removing the friction and paperwork in the customer journey. For example, there are US-based fintech mortgage lenders that can now make it possible to get a mortgage offer in just eight minutes!
Leveraging the power of hybrid cloud and AI
Chapter three of digital transformation is also about harnessing the power of technologies like hybrid cloud and AI to deliver great customer experiences. In fact, over 70% of respondents to a recent global IBM study said that it would be difficult to realise the full potential of a digital transformation without adopting a hybrid cloud model.
I believe the essential ingredient of the next gen digital platform is an enterprise fabric that sits across a hybrid cloud environment, which is made up of the bank’s microservices (think of them as the superhighways into the bank’s core platforms) and data lakes. Cloud provides the marketplace to host the bank’s microservices and consume third party microservices required to provide the beyond banking ecosystem. Cloud also provides the AI required to analyse the rich datasets available with banks and create insights for the hyper-personalised customer service. Machine learning models will ingest the available internal and external data to provide insights on the appropriate next best actions and nudges for customers.
Adopting a hybrid cloud approach, including the use of industry-specific clouds with built in security and compliance controls, can provide a smooth path to modernising and upgrading existing implementations. When done appropriately, the benefits of application modernisation can lead to increased agility, security, on-demand scalability, and cost savings over time.
COVID has massively accelerated adoption of digital banking services. Two-thirds of adults globally use digital payments, according to a report by the World Bank, and banks now have far more customers using their mobile banking services than pre-pandemic times. The only way to retain them is to reimagine personalised digital service experiences – and take them beyond banking.
Banking
The Future of Capital Markets: Democratisation of Retail Investing
Published
5 days agoon
March 18, 2023By
editorial
Nicky Maan, CEO of Spectrum Markets
Over the past decades, global capital markets have undergone tremendous changes. There have been significant technological advancements as well as a radical overhaul of regulation both in terms of the universe of new requirements and their enforcement regime. Those paradigms, however, aren’t the only ones that have changed at the outset of this millennium. A baby boomer generation is about to retire and enjoys the bequest of pay-as-you-go pension systems in many countries plus the financial heritage of the post-World War II generation who had saved most of their money. While the impressive global welfare development of the last 50 years is undeniable, next generations have to get used to a much higher degree of uncertainty and a much stronger need for self-determination in many aspects, including personal finance.
The Covid-19 pandemic is an often-cited incidence when it comes to explaining the significant growth of retail investing. While it certainly had an accelerating effect, it’s not the sole reason for the increased participation of retail investors in capital markets. Rather, it’s a development that’s been in the making for some time now, with digitisation playing a key role as the enabler of the unprecedented level of access the retail investor enjoys today.
The rise of modern, user-friendly apps has made it easier than ever for individuals to get involved in trading. At the same time, retail investors’ level of sophistication has increased significantly, thanks to a higher level of financial education and a much more demanding attitude. They have a much better understanding of overall market mechanisms and are seeking a broad range of trading features once reserved for professional traders. This is true also for investment products that are more sophisticated, like securitised derivatives.
The emerging class of retail investors is heterogeneous, with distinct motivations, investing behaviours and financial goals: by participating in the capital markets, they can take ownership of their financial future, not only to ensure retirement and long-term financial resilience, but also to improve their socioeconomic status. Retail investors across the world have been flocking to financial markets in greater numbers over the last few decades, as the value of assets has trended upwards and the opportunity to grow wealth has been made available to a broader population. New companies are using improved technologies, innovative platforms and services, and products to widen access.
In this context, maintaining investor engagement and trust in capital markets has become more crucial than ever. The need to cater for the demands of retail investors is driving innovation and the development of investment solutions that benefit everyone. The impact of this trend – also referred to as the democratisation of investing – is no longer being ignored by the industry.
While this shift is creating a new era of financial empowerment and stability, it also presents new challenges that must be addressed. Moreover, despite all the significant progress, there are still gaps in investor protection, information reliability, personalisation, and financial literacy, that prevent retail investors from fully obtaining the benefits of the capital markets. To tap into the full potential of retail investing, the industry must build a responsible and sustainable ecosystem, leveraging technology and innovation to address these challenges and provide retail investors with the tools they need to achieve their financial goals.
To better understand the implications and solutions for a more responsible retail investing ecosystem, access, education, and trust are the critical components[1]. First of all, retail investors need access to investment solutions that are outcome-oriented and easily accessible. Alternative investments, such as private products, should be made available, but with a focus on responsibility and sound financial practices. Secondly, education must be tied to financial health and investment and retirement planning, providing practical, actionable information. Companies and policymakers must approach financial education in a way that resonates with retail investors to provide a general understanding of why and how to invest. Finally, trust is paramount in the capital markets, and the industry must work together to build and maintain it by providing access to reliable information and being transparent about performance, data breaches, and fees.
In conclusion, the capital markets are undergoing a fundamental shift, one that requires the financial sector to adapt quickly and proactively. Retail investors are driving this change, and it is crucial for the industry to better serve and support these individuals by leveraging technology to help bridge the gap and provide individuals with the tools they need to achieve their financial goals.
[1] Source: report by Accenture and BNY Mellon on the retail investing market: https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_of_Capital_Markets_2022.pdf
Banking
How poor data governance is crippling banks
Published
2 weeks agoon
March 11, 2023By
editorial
By Philip Dutton, CEO and Co-founder of Solidatus
It may have started ‘Dear [Chief Executive Officer]’ and ended ‘Yours sincerely’ but the tone in swathes of a letter from the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) to UK-based banks felt more in keeping with a note from an angry headteacher to the parents of a wayward pupil.
Delivered earlier this year, the seven-page document (PDF) contained instructions on a wide range of topics including credit risk, operational risk and resilience, model risk, and financial risks arising from climate change. And the message was loud clear: banks need to get their houses in order.
As CEO and Co-founder of Solidatus, these subjects are closely aligned with my areas of interest.

Phil Dutton
But, along with a few paragraphs on data, the section that really caught my eye focused on risk management and governance, something that, when done right, mitigates the risk of fines and creates money-making or money-saving opportunities – but we’ll come the specifics at the end.
Part of a wider discussion on financial resilience in the letter, it’s something the issue has been bubbling under as an unresolved going concern ever since the global financial crisis of 2007 and 2008.
Global problem
And that’s the thing: while these frustrations were aired by the Bank of England, this is a worldwide systemic problem. Yet despite warnings from regulators, banks continue to fall short on data governance regulations, the Bank of England’s intervention simply being the latest piece of criticism of their approach to risk management, data governance and production controls for regulatory reporting.
Effective governance ensures that data is consistent and trustworthy and doesn’t get misused. It should be a priority for any organisation dealing with wide-ranging information across multiple systems, particularly in regulated industries. But it’s a disturbing reality that most banks have inadequate standards, resulting in weaker security infrastructure, poor decision-making and lack of compliance.
So why are most banks so reluctant to invest in improving their data governance standards, preferring to take a more reactive approach and waiting until they’re pulled up by regulators?
In this article, I go on to suggest answers to this question, setting them in the context of the top data governance challenges banks face, what needs to happen to improve data governance in banks, and whether the PRA’s letter is likely to have any impact.
Data governance challenges
The root cause of these problems is that most banks’ governance practices over the years haven’t kept up with the pace of change in technology, the proliferation of data or the number of systems used to hold this data and the ever-increasing set of regulations that create obligations.
Rewind 25 years or so, and a small tech stack with IBM at its foundations would be simple to manage, the flow of data between systems being sufficiently limited to keep track of without tearing your hair out. But those days are behind us, and now there’s a tendency for banks to have their heads in the sand rather than face and respond to the new reality.
This careless attitude could cripple their businesses, either through fines or simply because the data you need to make informed decisions is getting lost in the clutter.
This governance-centred section of the Bank of England’s letter focuses on counterparty risk management, chastising banks that “despite regular messaging from the PRA on the subject, these events [Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and volatility in the nickel and long-dated gilt markets] demonstrated that firms continue to unintentionally accrue large and concentrated exposures to single counterparties, without fully understanding the risks that could arise”. But the problem stretches far beyond this into general business negligence.
At its core, poor data governance presents multiple challenges, including:
• Lack of visibility into your full landscape of data sources, usage patterns and/or control gaps;
• Your suite of tools and platforms not meeting your needs across internal and external stakeholder groups, meaning they’re not future-proofed for an evolving regulatory landscape;
• Implementation of change programmes being slow and hampering strategic business objectives;
• Badly thought-through or non-existent integration of compliance into business processes and controls, with linkage to regulatory obligations; and
• Limited insight into regulator expectations and interpretation of requirements.
The goal is to drive operational efficiencies and risk mitigation. But how?
Improving your data governance
Governance is a multifaceted discipline. It boils down to better embedded practices and processes, but these must be combined with the right software solutions, ones that allow you to truly manage the infinite complexity through operational blueprints of active metadata. Leveraging your existing data and systems captured across your bank in context to provide insights from the past to create action plans in the present to achieve the desired future state.
Relying on Excel is negligent and relying on 1st or 2nd generation data governance platforms is no longer acceptable.
Ultimately, it’s taking the first step of data discovery. To do that, you need to:
• Automate the capture of lineage and understand the connections between processes, data, controls and reports to applicable regulatory obligations;
• Connect existing catalog information, such as asset inventories, data dictionaries, processes, risks, controls, and other enterprise taxonomies and/or hierarchies;
• Trace internal risk appetite framework(s) to policies and standards to external regulatory requirements; and
• Link self-assessments, internal audit and external examiner results.
And that means using more versatile software.
What will the impact be?
You might be seeing the light, but I’m left asking: will the Bank of England’s letter have a significant impact across the sector?
Well, yes and no. The letter itself doesn’t explicitly lay out what the consequences of non-compliance are. It also only has official oversight in the UK.
To counter that, though, the law is already well known, even if not reiterated here. If you’re not complying, it’s more likely a question of when, not if, the regulators will come knocking. Furthermore, the Bank “will continue to work closely with our regulatory counterparts on these topics”; the UK isn’t an outlier here.
And this is before we look at the sheer increased efficiency of smart data governance. With the right software used well, your efficiency savings can be immense. 90%+ cost savings aren’t unheard of when it comes to mapping and monitoring your data and systems, with the resulting data discoveries you make creating huge opportunities not just to save money but to make money.
So, whether this letter itself has any impact is moot; the world is moving towards an imperative to improve governance regardless.
When better governance also gives you a competitive advantage and improves data discovery, why wait to get your house in order?
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