Moving towards Banking and Fintech Partnership

By Peter Clark, Regional CIO, Standard Chartered Bank Technology and Operations, Hong Kong

Peter Clark, Regional CIO, Standard Chartered Bank Technology and Operations, Hong Kong

Could you provide us your perspective on the evolution of Fintech landscape over the years?

The evolution has been very rapid in the Fintech landscape over the past couple of years, particularly in some countries. The countries that impress me the most in terms of the speed of evolution are China and India. These countries are quite open to new ideas and trends, and they have tech-savvy customers. Be it big data, artificial intelligence (AI) or blockchain; these technological evolutions are underpinning a lot of these countries' market offerings. They are facilitating the rise of new kind of customer propositions. I am seeing regulators who are very open to leverage these technologies to enhance the customer experience in the net banking area. Today for most of the banks, net banking is a core part of their customer service strategy. Net banking is the cornerstone of excellent customer service today, and all banking functionalities are enabling and integrating it in ways that make the customer experience insightful, fun and simple.

Also, there are a lot of banking organizations that are looking to innovate, trying new things but most of them can't always innovate from within, but they need to look out. We do partner with FinTech companies to develop new solutions for our customers.

Briefly discuss the challenges that businesses face while implementing Fintech solutions.

One challenge for a lot of banks is that they have a business to run and a lot of existing customers to support effectively and efficiently. They have got regulators that are constantly supervising them. But we also want to innovate and the first challenge there is to identify the best Fintech company to partner with because there are so many companies out there and for banks to work with such companies is not easy as the risk that they face is very high. So to find out the right one, we work with some Fintech associations that have connections to hundreds or thousands of Fintech companies. The associations help us in the process; they look up at thousands of companies and then find the best ten to work with. The partnership between banks and Fintech companies brings great advantage for banks as the solutions are often built around business model development, innovation, and revenue generation.

Another challenge is that Fintech companies are all about cultural diversity, but banks are a bit conservative, they tend to be very cautious. Fintech companies mostly invest in young people, the risk-taking generation, so it’s time to bridge that kind of cultural gap by promoting safe, inclusive and flexible culture—where everyone contributes equally and also realizes their full potential.

I think today cios need to be very curious about what's going on in the market and also excited for new technologies and have a passion for doing things a bit differently

Do you have any words or say suggestions for your industry peers or decision-makers from the Fintech landscape?

From my experiences and learning, I would like to advise people that the key ingredient of success is the mindset that brings the change. I think today CIOs need to be curious about what’s going on in the market and also excited for new technologies and have the passion for doing things a bit differently. Not only this, but they also need to be mindful of learning about information technology because everything is very different from the past. I think we need to spend a bit of time in self-educating us. I spend about two to three hours of a week meeting the staff to self-educate myself because when you have a quite demanding job, sometimes you need to take a step back and find out what's happening in the world.

Regarding technical stuff, I think the big challenge for CIOs is to change the way they think, the way they build things and try things. Earlier, CIOs’ job was to keep the systems running as cheaply and securely as possible and making sure the customers are happy. But, the scope has increased now. It’s also about transforming the way you do business and exciting your customers and doing something that separates you from your competitors.

One thing that I also want to touch is that these days, banks and Fintech companies are working together; they are no more rivals to each other. Gone are the days when banks viewed Fintech companies as disruptors, now they are working hand-in-hand. Banking is a very trust-based business, which has a lot of experience, a lot of brand equity and a lot of right disciplines but I think what the Fintech companies can bring in this sector are speed and innovation. I could see in the future a lot of more collaboration to happen between banks and Fintech companies to create new customer solutions.

On the one hand, banks bring regulatory license, understanding of technology and business risks, and reach and scale as they have access to a vast consumer base. On the other hand, Fintech companies offer agility and technical expertise, and the capability of running several controlled experiments and focus on building the best solutions.

Take us through the current technology trends prevailing in the Fintech market.

If we look at customer trends in banking, there are a lot. I mean its digital now, its mobile, personalized and integrated. Customers are now getting financial services in a better way; they can interact with banks easily.

In Fintech market space, blockchain, distributed ledger, AI, open banking, and application program interface (API) are becoming an integral part of it. The blockchain is a type of a distributed ledger. As blockchain is virtually unhackable, reduces fraud, speeds up contract enforcement and increases transparency, it's clear that it is something banks need to address with enthusiasm. Many market players have already started pilot projects to measure the feasibility of adopting blockchain into their ecosystems.

Due to the changing technology, AI has a lot of scope in the Fintech landscape. The growing internet penetration and availability of data are some of the major driving factors behind it. AI-based fraud detection system works 24/7 and identifies any suspicious activity automatically; also the system minutely watches the customer's behavior and can foresee potential frauds.

Another rising trend in Fintech space is open banking that is based on using APIs. It allows third-party developers to build next-generation services and apps around a financial institution. The key reason behind its emergence is its greater financial transparency, which helps Fintech companies to innovate and generate new profit models.