Reimagining the future of financial services
Heidi Toribio Regional Co-Head, Client Coverage, Asia, Corporate, Commercial and Institutional Banking
11 Oct 2019
Our industry has constantly evolved – but today, innovative technology is creating opportunities faster than anything we have seen before. And, internally, disruptive ideas are urgently challenging the way we work. It is encouraging us to change old mindsets and values and create a new, more inclusive approach.
At Standard Chartered, new technology has helped us create solutions to entrenched global problems. Using mobile money and digital wallets, we have been able to bring financial aid to refugees in the most challenging situations within hours, where before it took days. We are using blockchain technology for supply chain financing – driving financial inclusion and economic growth in developing economies. We are successfully trialling the use of artificial intelligence to screen the people involved in transactions – checking if they are subject to sanctions, or if there’s a match against lists of high-risk individuals – and we’ve reduced overall human error rates by as much as 50 per cent.
These are but a few examples of how innovative technology and approaches are helping us solve real issues and create better experiences for our clients. But this is just the beginning. To fully capitalise on the benefits of innovation, it’s not enough for banks to just rewire their systems. As an industry, we also have to rewire our culture, and challenge the way we think and operate.
Financial firms are also changing mindsets when it comes to competition and collaboration. At the recent Sibos conference in London, it was clear that banks have become more cognisant of the need to work with others across the industry. Many banks already partner with tech start-ups to deliver solutions that neither party could deliver on their own. In the fight against financial crime, for example, banks are recognising that we can work together to build a more robust financial system by joining forces with technology companies, regulators and experts outside the industry. I am looking forward to continuing this discussion at the IMF Annual General Meetings this week.
In our latest edition of Bankable Insights themed Collaborative Transformation: Reimagining the future of financial services, we share our views on these changes and challenges, and the need to think collectively about the way ahead. I’m excited at the prospect of working together to transform our industry, to reimagine and develop the future of financial services.
Read our Bankable Insights Issue 11