IBS Intelligence Global FinTech Interviews

Paper-based financial workflows have proved to be ‘not fit for purpose’ in a remote working world, especially where complex financial instruments are concerned. Digitisation of workflows can increase efficiency but more tellingly, in light of Covid-19, can also make sense from a health and security perspective, as Jesse Chenard, CEO of Monetago explains.

Crown Agents Bank is a UK regulated provider of wholesale FX and cross-border payments services. CEO Albert Maasland discusses how digital technology is allowing Africa’s emerging markets to leapfrog traditional financial processes and how the efficiency and effectiveness of digital payments technology is standing up to the impact of Covid-19.

Coronavirus is dragging the world to the digital ‘extreme’ – whether we like it or not. However, with the UK already on its way to becoming a cashless society, will COVID-19 be the catalyst for the UK to fully embrace digital payments? And if so, how does the digital payments industry unite the nation on such a divided topic? Sunniva Kolostyak speaks to Luc Gueriane, Chief Commercial Officer at Moorwand.

There has been much talk of a ‘new normal’ with regard to working conditions and remote working but what has that meant in practice for many businesses? And have they got it right? Many companies are not geared in terms of tools, processes, mindset and employee engagement to make the most of the opportunities now being presented. New consultancy Ideologic has been established by Jared Whitaker, former Head of Sales Strategy and Enablement at global FinTech provider Fiserv to help companies define their New Way of Working Strategy, implement against it, and then monitor the impact of the changes.

Finacle is Infosys product subsidiary Edgeverve’s core banking product, used by banks across 100 countries, serving more than 1 billion customers. Arun Krishnan of Finacle discusses how Covid-19 has opened up the gates to faster innovation in banking and payments and how the pace of change is actually increasing despite the pandemic – could this be blockchain’s big moment? The competition is now about who can roll out digital solutions in the most helpful, accessible and secure manner.

The Covid-19 pandemic is fundamentally changing the business model of client management for private bankers and wealth managers. Face to face client meetings are effectively off the table, meaning that having the right digital solutions has become key for wealth managers wanting to serve their clients with relevant and timely information (even more then before). Digital transformation is no longer a “nice to have” but a “must-have”.

Covid-19 has created the prime opportunity for banks to adjust their strategy. But not through continued job cuts as they are not sustainable in the long term as experienced employees are needed to help steer out of the current situation. As European banks, in particular, continue to lose market share to their Wall Street rivals, Vikas Srivastava at Integral explains to Sunniva Kolostyak at IBS Intelligence why he believes that banks should first and foremost evaluate their technology strategy.

The supranational Financial Action Task Force has recognised that geolocation data is a necessary part of digital identity and KYC verification. Separately, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority recently included geolocation data as one of the criteria to be used for the purpose of KYC/territorial compliance for AML. If a taxi driver (Uber), barista (Starbucks) and waiter (Doordash) all know their customers’ location, says Geoguard, it’s time that bank/eWallets/eBrokers do too, for the purposes of preventing fraud and other financial crimes via a stronger digital identity.

FinTech entrepreneur Peter Ramsey is carrying out an investigation into just how well the UK’s leading challenger banks stand up against their traditional counterparts in terms of customer experience. How? Simple, he set up 12 bank accounts and directly compared how the banks performed as he attempted to open an account, make a payment, freeze a card, etc. So, are the challengers just clever marketeers or are they truly outperforming their established competitors? And what is ‘built for Mars’?

How do you turn a crisis into an opportunity? Suntec CEO Nanda Kumar offers his views on how banks can take the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic and turn it into an opportunity to reinforce customer trust and value, reducing the risks to their business. While taking a back-to-basics approach to customer-centricity, he also advocates a low-risk approach to digitisation without the need to replace functionally stable legacy core systems.