DIGITAL REVOLUTION DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION AND SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS

Transcription

1 DIGITAL REVOLUTION DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION AND SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS 1

2 FOREWORD Ten years ago, in most countries in Europe, most customers opened accounts at the bank with a branch nearest to their home, and used one bank for all of their financial product needs. Branch-based batch processing of payments was fit-for-purpose. Insurers could set a price based on reputation and risk. ROB HETHERINGTON GENERAL MANAGER EMEA FINANCIAL SERVICES, SAP THE FINANCIAL SERVICES INDUSTRY IS BEING TRANSFORMED, DRAMATICALLY AND PERMANENTLY, BY DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY. SAP Financial Services Forum, Platinum Sponsors: These truths no longer hold. More has changed in the industry in the last five years than in the previous three decades. For example, increasingly, payments are originated by online marketplaces, social media companies, or device manufacturers. Customers compare banking and insurance products online in seconds, creating downward pressure on margins. Peer-to-peer lending platforms are used by banks as a channel to customers. Technology startups are creating simpler, lower-cost models for existing processes. Investors see the potential of these technologies and platforms, and investment in financial technology (fintech) startups tripled in Legacy banks are also exploiting these developments to simplify and enhance the technology that underpins their performance and regain value for their own investors. New banks and niche service providers are adopting these technology innovations to offer greatly enhanced customer experiences and to attack profitable segments in the market. The recent SAP Financial Services Forum in London provided an opportunity for banks and insurance companies, fintech providers, challenger banks, and aggregators to debate, support, and challenge different views on the wave of digital transformation enveloping the industry. This report summarises key discussions on the future of financial services organisations. It also addresses the challenges of providing the right customer experiences, products, and services to meet the needs of customers now and into the future. 2

3 DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION AND SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS The SAP Financial Services Forum 2015 exposed three weaknesses that are common in banking and result from digital innovation: REPORT BY DAN BARNES DAN BARNES IS AN AWARD- WINNING FREELANCE FINANCE AND CAPITAL MARKETS JOURNALIST. IN A 15-YEAR CAREER HE HAS WORKED AT THE BANKER MAGAZINE, THE TRADE, AND BANKING TECHNOLOGY MAGAZINE. 1. A widening gap between service levels and customer expectation, particularly amongst millennials 2. Competition from specialists (bank and non-bank) who are targeting specific lines of business (payments, lending, financial advice, financial management) 3. Operational barriers to the adoption of digital technology The issues were explored with a broad range of financial practitioners, technology experts, and startup innovators, and solutions proposed to each of these challenges. There is some urgency amongst banks to find working solutions. Market analysts have highlighted that financial services institutions are providing a historically low return on equity. That reflects several external pressures: Macroeconomic dynamics such as the low interest-rate environment The regulatory burden that is increasing the cost of capital The reduced ability to extract service fees and commissions from customers The threat from challenger organisations and disruptive technologies 3

4 RISE OF THE EMPOWERED CUSTOMER Banks are challenged to appear relevant to their customers. Millennials in particular view bank accounts as mandatory for employment and education purposes, but not as an aspirational or desirable service that is relevant to their lives. To compete today, banks need to offer a superior customer experience one that makes banking simple for their customers. This means a convenient, relevant, responsive, and reliable banking experience that fits a customer s busy lifestyle and offers personalised service and product advice based on unique behaviours and individual preferences. I believe any bank can build a better app or Web site than Ffrees can afford to produce. But I don t believe that any bank can offer the business model we can with simple, clear, transparent charges. ALEX LETTS CHIEF EXECUTIVE, FFREES Online information and regulation give customers unprecedented levels of transparency and portability across financial products. Internetonly firms can exploit the information superhigh-street on which customers shop for products while connecting culturally with younger customers. The forum saw presentations from several of these organisations. The branchless, digital-savvy Fidor Bank offers all services, including loan approval, within a minute. Deposittaking Ffrees is offering a current account without being a bank. Starling Bank, which has no branch network, is offering current accounts targeted at 20- to 40-year-olds. All three gave compelling arguments for their capacity to succeed over established players, based on product differentiation rather than just a lower cost base. Being digital gets misunderstood, said Alex Letts, chief executive at Ffrees. Banks have deep and old legacy technology structures. I believe any bank can build a better app or Web site than Ffrees can afford to produce. But I don t believe that any bank can offer the business model we can with simple, clear, transparent charges. 4

5 DIGITAL BANKING AND THE DIGITAL BANK According to an SAP-sponsored report by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), in EMEA, 65% of bankers view virtual banks as significant rivals, 61% worry about payments services, and 48% see retailers as future competitors. In the last quarter of 2014, the top five banks in the United States reported a cumulative US$40 billion profit, yet none of them could clear 13% return on equity. This indicates that they are destroying value for shareholders, despite the headline figures on returns. By contrast, banks delivering superior customer experience are also delivering higher rates of deposit growth and higher rates of performance. To compete effectively, banks needed to work on three levels: 1. Customer experience. This must be of a consistently high quality, and if customers are device-agnostic, then a bank must offer true omnichannel capabilities. 2. Collaboration. Business should take an ecosystem and collaboration perspective, even providing products from outside of the group where they are the best fit for a customer s needs. 3. Agility. This key priority affects the response times of platforms and the decision-making process, which may require industrialisation of decision-making capabilities. As this implies, banks must offer digital banking from a customer-service perspective, but also digitise their end-to-end business processes. Kevin Hanley, director of design at RBS, believes that banks are facing disaggregation (as they no longer own the end-to-end value chain) and disintermediation (as new entrants attack specific parts of the business), with payments perhaps being the most obvious example. He concludes that it is important for banks to respond to these challenges through innovation and the leveraging of new technology. Hanley comments: We estimate that around 4 billion mobile transactions will take place this year with non-bank service providers, which is about 15% of the total market share. That is up from around 4% three years ago. Transforming a traditional bank into a digital organisation requires following methodical processes that take technological innovation from the pilot phase through to development while working within the organisation s existing services. Evaluating new technologies and starting pilots are the easy part. The hard part is identifying how a financial services institution can adopt and industrialise innovative technologies. There are four factors that affect a financial institution s capacity to incorporate innovative ideas: attitude toward risk and applying strong governance and processes; embedding change into the culture and sponsoring innovation at board level; exhibiting determination to get the project off the ground, with a learn fast and try again attitude; and fostering a collaborative and trusting environment for people. 65% 61% of EMEA bankers view virtual banks as significant rivals of EMEA bankers worry about payments services 5

6 SMART NETWORKS The capacity to connect devices to the Internet spawned the Internet of Things (IoT). This enabled the BNP Paribas insurance arm, Cardif, to offer its device. It uses sensors to track environmental factors, such as air quality, within a client s home to alert both customer and emergency assistance should any risk event, such as a fire, occur. Similarly, telematic devices in motor vehicles inform the driver s insurer of any behavioural risks directly from source. The IoT is transforming the business of insurance from purely modelling risk to monitoring risk in real time, thereby driving responsiveness and predictability within an insurance product s lifespan. Equally, financial services organisations can use digital technology to connect partners and services to increase efficiency and reduce costs. The platform from Concur, now part of SAP, demonstrates digital automation by creating a network of apps and services via the Internet. These pass data from one to another, reducing the need for paper documents and the rekeying of data, avoiding data silos. Commercial banking representatives further explored collaboration to uncover its potential where there is operational overlap. Once a client has chosen its desirable banking partners, these partners can get together to work on best practices and identify lessons learnt a model that commercial banks in the global transaction services space are taking seriously. Financial services organisations can use digital technology to connect between partners and services to increase efficiency and reduce costs. 6

7 CONCLUSIONS Traditional financial institutions, including banks and insurers, will need to change on several levels in order to become truly digital organisations. True transformation demands: Adapting services, products, and business models to put the customer at the centre of all activity Embracing collaboration and the benefits of participating in and leveraging networks Digitising beyond channel orchestration to include digitisation of end-to-end business processes that adapt to customer expectations and optimise the cost base Meeting the requirements of real-time data, automation, and processing to create the agile, responsive platforms that are crucial to collaborating and competing in the new world of financial services As Ross Wainwright, global head of financial services at SAP, said: Digitization is a doubleedged sword. If embraced, financial institutions will transform and overcome. If digitization is ignored, survival of financial institutions will be challenged and businesses will run the risk of becoming irrelevant. Digitization is a double-edged sword. If embraced, financial institutions will transform and overcome. If digitization is ignored, survival of financial institutions will be challenged and businesses will run the risk of becoming irrelevant. ROSS WAINWRIGHT GLOBAL HEAD OF FINANCIAL SERVICES, SAP 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affi liate company. All rights reserved. 7

8 SAP SE or an SAP affi liate company. All rights reserved. 8