Financial Services
How to build a vault for your digital wallet
Custody – foundation of the digital assets market? With the rise of platform banking infrastructure and armed with digital banking licenses, fintech startups are quickly bringing traditional and blockchain banking services. These services potentially upend the establishment with new forms of capital formation, liquidity, and efficiencies in payments and managing assets. Institutional investors, crypto hedge funds, […]
Reflections on Sibos 2019
True to this year’s theme of “Thriving in the hyper-connected world”, Sibos 2019 in London was all about the possibilities, approach and risks involved in the society that is constantly on. The following points summarise what was on everyone’s minds and high on the conference agenda: a) People and talent management. Driving a culture of […]
Banks, clouds and castles; the growth of cloud computing in banking
The castle walls of these incumbent banks are starting to open and the opportunities beyond the constrained world of the fortifications are tremendous The growth of cloud computing across all industries has been well documented. Across the board, the barriers to adoption (both perceived and regulatory) are being lowered. When it comes to Financial Services, […]
Open Banking: Cross-industry use cases
The two most common use cases associated with the Payment Services Directive II (PSD2) and Open Banking are account aggregation and payment initiation – typically talked about in the context of benefiting a third-party provider (TPP). However, we know that the ripples of PSD2 are not just limited to the financial services industry. Other industries […]
AI and Banking: Competing with total trust and zero bias
A recent article in The Times highlighted that only half of UK companies have a clear AI strategy in place. There is huge potential for companies across industries to leverage the power of AI to improve their business. The banking sector is no different. But for all its benefits, what makes AI ethical? How do […]
The Future of Breach Preparedness
A crucial element for any organisation’s resilience is the ability to put comprehensive plans and preparation exercises through rigorous real-world scenarios. Scenario planning and training is the norm for the emergency services, armed forces, and airline industry to name a few. Information technology and cybersecurity industries historically have not been at the same level of […]
Getting banks smarter with mortgages
Leading a revolution in the mortgage market Choosing a mortgage is one of the most important financial decisions most consumers ever make. It can also be a difficult one to get right. The days of the 20-year mortgage taken out with the family bank is receding; customers are shopping around for the best deals, both […]
Building certainty into banking services
A customer-focused approach to resilience Every time a data breach hits the headlines, banks and financial services firms echo their commitment to resilience. But the challenge isn’t going anywhere soon: the likelihood and cost of a data breach is growing year-on-year, with financial services a more likely target than any other industry. The world is […]
Overcoming the Cloud Security Compliance Conundrum
The growing demand for increased business agility and cost reductions in relation to IT infrastructure and applications is not a new agenda item for C-level executives. It has, however, remained a priority topic in 2018 and will continue to do so in 2019 and beyond. Compliance with various regulations and cloud security requirements has expanded […]
How to be a conversational bank – Seven steps to smarter customer service
In my previous blog post I discussed the emergence of conversational banking – the use of highly-capable virtual agents, underpinned by customer data and cleverly-applied AI, to make digital banking personal. So how do you get started – and what are the key things to focus on? Technology is already enabling conversational banking. Platforms such […]
Banking with personality
The future of banking is conversational People don’t stand for inconvenience these days. We buy everything from shoes to fridge freezers at the swipe of a screen. We stream films on the day of release and watch entire boxsets in one sitting. We don’t wait to catch up with friends in person – we send […]
Digital Transformation – How to Differentiate and Create Competitive Advantage in the Digital Era
Over 60 years, Information Technology (IT) industry has and continues to transform organisations through digitising and automating tasks and processes. Starting with simple mathematical operations, IT has now evolved to highly complex algorithms that, for example, can compute and predict national demand for utility consumption every few minutes. A by-product of automation is data – […]
Retail Banks Must Get Smart With Artificial Intelligence
Retail banking is changing at a blistering pace. Online only challenger banks like Monzo have shot from 50,000 to 750,000 customers in little more than a year. Physical bank branches continue to close, meanwhile some 670 have already shut their doors this year, 879 last year, according to data from consumer rights organisation Which. Never, […]