Author: Kelly Switt, Senior Director, Financial Services Strategy, Ecosystem and Strategic Partnerships, Red Hat
The financial services business ecosystem has been radically reshaped in recent years and is arguably more dynamic and ripe for innovation than it has ever been. Banks that take bolder steps to build strategic partnerships have the potential to dramatically transform themselves and the industry. While open banking reforms have encouraged organizations to open up their architectures to each other, there is much potential still to be unlocked: beyond the minimum of meeting regulations by the deadline and exposing the APIs required for aggregation services, there is a vast untapped opportunity for creativity in joint business models. The kind of opportunity that has long since been grasped by web-scale companies and fintech startups.
Deutsche Bank, BBVA, and neobank bunq are examples of banks that have understood the value of creating open finance communities. However, the majority of financial organisations are yet to embrace deeper collaborations that truly take advantage of external parties’ ready-built solutions, which would save time and resources and enable inhouse teams to focus on differentiating their business where it really counts. So how can an organisation break free of legacy structures and attitudes to better integrate and engage with partners?
Step 1: Adopting a growth mindset
Establishing deeper strategic relationships with partners requires a mindset shift for much of the industry. Traditionally, banks have tended to see third parties as vendors, treating the relationship as a transactional exchange, in the context of legal agreements that set forth the provisions and conditions of the services to be provided. Instead, banks need to adopt a growth mindset that encourages organisations to look beyond their own four walls, and embraces participation in a wider community. By engaging with an ecosystem of partners and treating them as a valuable additional set of experts, banks can accelerate problem-solving and reach their business goals faster.
Step 2: Aligning internally as an organisation
Before bringing in a partner to tackle a business problem, an organisation needs to conduct an internal assessment. It’s important for all departments within an organisation (IT, sales, marketing, etc.) to contribute their perspective on unpacking why a problem exists across the organisation: what are compliance and risk issues? What are the technical challenges? In what ways is the business impacted? Once everyone is grounded on why the problem needs fixing, it is a much clearer path to identify both the business and technology capabilities needed to solve the problem – i.e. the tools as well as the people skills. If different departments aren’t set up to engage with each other, it’s time to dismantle barriers and build bridges to ensure everyone is included in this discovery phase.
Step 3: Be open with partners
When the business has galvanised around its key objectives and the capabilities it needs to move forward, the organisation can look at engaging partners that have experience and expertise in the right areas. The more information that is shared with a partner about the company’s challenges, opportunities and goals, the more empowered and committed the partner will be to help meet the desired outcomes. Armed with insights, partners can help connect the dots and invite further parties to a project, leading to a network effect that benefits both the organisation and the wider ecosystem. To ensure that everyone continues moving in the same direction every step of the way, it is crucial to have transparent discussions in which ideas can be exchanged freely, and to make decisions in an open and collaborative way. Disagreement and constructive feedback must be encouraged – partners should be empowered to speak up with concerns – as this is an important part of mitigating risk.
Step 4: Humanise business relationships
Business relationships are personal relationships. The most successful ones are built on mutual understanding of what makes each other tick, what motivates someone to behave the way they do and what drives their performance. Getting to know people on a more personal level can create deep-seated relationships where everyone feels fully invested in driving the project forward. The banking sector may not be known for encouraging vulnerability, but revealing a bit more of the human in us is a key ingredient for building trusted relationships. The pandemic has added urgency to the need for greater empathy to lead people through difficulties, and has shown how people can come together through shared emotional experiences to better manage adversity.
Step 5: Build on a consistent technology platform
The technical foundation for engaging in any new partnership is a strong integration strategy. An organization may need to rethink its system architectures and shift towards open platform models. In the case of using containers to take advantage of cloud scale, establishing a common platform at the base of the technology stack that runs consistently across an organisation can provide more control, security and stability. A common application management layer that is agnostic to the underlying technology and based on open APIs gives internal teams together with partners greater freedom to collaborate, accelerating innovation. It helps avert the risk of ending up with many custom integrations, which can lead to cost overruns, outages or services-related issues for customers.
Unleashing future possibilities
Progress is able to happen much faster when people and teams work together. As more and more businesses in banking and adjacent industries wake up to the opportunities inherent in a move towards greater openness, we will start to see unprecedented innovation in financial services, and myriad other areas of our lives, creating better and more inclusive customer experiences for societies globally. Banks of the future will be assembled, not built.
