It is striking how discussions around automation have changed in the past few years. As Brian Burke, Research Vice President at Gartner, said: “We have seen an evolution from process automation towards automation at the business ecosystem level.”
In July, we had our first Automation Session, when we spoke about automation on an operational and tactical level, more specifically, we talked about RPA. RPA is what Huw Williams refers to as a point solution, a technology to fix a problem or implement a new service quickly.
Today this is no longer enough in the engagement with your customers. So we organised a second Automation Session on November 5th, titled “Hyperautomation — Investing in Resilience without compromising on digital experience”. I was worried that the conversation would get too technical. …
Last week, I shared the top-10 stories of The Banking Scene’s website of 2020. It was great to look back and see which stories were most successful and why they were so special to me.
When I look at Medium, I see a different list, which is great, because it makes me look back to other great, special moments.
Here we go, the top-10 of The Banking Scene Medium stories of 2020:
1: The long term impact of COVID-19 on our payments industry
Looking back at this blog of April 7th, I am glad to see that these predictions still make sense on the longer term. …
2020 was an exceptional year. Luckily, some certainties remained, like Chris Skinner’s daily updates on our industry, on fintech and the economy in general.
However, even there, you and I have noticed a few particularities in the blogs. Take the example of the Fintech karaoke series, and Chris’ conversations with the Elephant in the room, who represented the economy, and the Bird. The Bird only spoke in Morse, and he represented the future. You can find these blogs here: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 and even part 6.
In the beginning, I thought ‘is he getting insane?’, being locked-in at home for too long. Yet, the Elephant and the Bird did send a few very insightful messages on the future, our economy, and what is going on in our day-to-day life. …
On December 3rd, The Banking Scene collaborated with Finastra to find out what open finance means and how it will impact financial services. Together with Jonathan McPhail, Global Solution Lead, Corporate Banking, we investigated the opportunities of open finance and what the best scenarios are for banks going forward.
From open banking to open finance
Open banking is one of the most discussed agenda items of the last couple of years in financial services. With median spending in Europe between €50 million and €100 million, banks are betting big on it, and finding a return on investment (ROI) is challenging.
With open finance, the industry is looking ahead, going the extra mile to find the required ROI on open banking investments. Open finance uses the same mechanics like open banking: publicly available APIs, authentication, secure connectivity in a consented way etc.… and applies them to a much broader set of products and services, not just transaction information, and payment initiation like it is demanded by the regulator, according to Jonathan. …
Dear reader,
November was a month of inspiration, a month where we shared 6 new inspiring bank blogs that we bundled in this newsletter for you.
Have a look at what inspired us and let it ignite new ideas and concepts to help you in making customer experience of banking better in the future!
P.S.: if one day, you like to share something through The Banking Scene publication, please give us a sign!
Hyperautomation — Essential in Every Bank’s Strategy
By Rik Coeckelbergs, Nov 10, 7min. read
“When organisations start brainstorming about automating the employee and customer journeys, hyperautomation comes in. Hyperautomation acts as a platform, as the glue between different technologies, departments and data sets that a bank has in its organisation.” …
At ’SWIFT’s ‘Community Update — Focus on Europe’, The Banking Scene spoke to Axel Weiss, Head of Payments at the German Savings Bank Association (Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband/ DSGV) about the latest trends in payments and what the impact of SWIFT’s new strategy is for their members. Weiss was one of the panellists in the session “Customer Insights: The Evolution of Our Platform to Enable Instant Cross-Border Payments”.
We had a great conversation, and I came away with a number of interesting insights, including how the German market is structured and why SWIFTs new strategy is a game-changer, for banks of all types and sizes, including local retail and savings banks. …
On November 26, we invited David Versteeg, Chief Digital Officer at Van Lanschot Kempen, to investigate how digital transformation looks like at a wealth bank. Whether you look at digital transformation in retail banking, wealth banking or any other industry, the biggest challenges are the same: good, consistent leadership and making sure every employee stands behind the transformation to make it a success.
Yet, Van Lanschot Kempen’s digital transformation journey is quite unique from what we heard in the sessions before and a true inspiration for everyone with a passion for banking and digital transformation.
In Het Financieele Dagblad, Richard Bruens, Director Private Banking, said on October 27 that “it is not Van Lanschot’s mission to make rich people richer. Our role is to maintain and grow wealth for everyone starting from 10.000€.” This societal purpose is important in the bank’s identity and strategy, according to David. The bank manages three labels and four business lines. …
This story builds on a previous blog, called “Shaping the Future of Financial Services — The Power of Collaboration”.
Earlier in October, we invited Saskia Devolder for an intimate session to explain all about SWIFT’s new strategy and the development of a platform to shape the future of financial services.
With a focus on Europe, the cooperative invited its stakeholders on November 17 and 18 for a community update, to give more context to its new strategy and more details on its new platform.
A global platform solution to connect local solutions?
Instant payments and open banking determine today’s discussions in the payments industry. Pushed by the regulator, most European countries have adopted both, unfortunately, each with their own, cost-effective solutions. …
Today, November 24th is a big day for KBC. They launched Kate, a virtual assistant, to assist its customers anywhere, anytime. Johan Thijs, CEO of KBC, explained a few weeks ago that Kate will not just be a chatbot: “Ultimately, all product and process development and updates will be driven by Kate. Interaction between the branches, KBC Live (our remote contact centre) and Kate will be maximised to boost the pickup rate of Kate-driven solutions.”
At our Afterwork session last week, we invited Karin Van Hoecke, General Manager (Digital) Transformation and Data of KBC Bank Belgium, to discuss their digital transformation. …
SME companies are one of the major groups of bank customers. To facilitate services for small and medium-sized enterprises, banks implement cutting-edge software and make it available to them. Many banks attract business customers by offering additional services to ease the operations of a company.
Guest blog by Ksenia Goncharova, Sales Manager, Financial ServicesComarch Benelux
SME funding — an immense financial gap to be filled
According to the “European SMEs: Filling the Bank Financing Gap” report prepared by Euler Hermes Global, there was a financial gap in 2019, understood as the inability to acquire funds by small and medium-sized enterprises despite the ability to use them for further growth. The gap value is estimated to reach 400 billion EUR. This is the difference between the needs reported by SMEs and available bank credits. …
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