Banking vs Tech: the collaboration economy

Speaking to BlueNotes on video in the first of a three-part series on banking and technology, Microsoft Australia MD Pip Marlow and ANZ MD Retail Distribution Australia Catriona Noble agreed while it was rare for companies across sectors to collaborate in the past, it was all the rage today.

"The people we never wanted to work with, now we’re going to work with them."
Pip Marlow, MD, Microsoft Australia

"It’s symbolic of the interconnected world we are living in,” Marlow said, noting almost all sectors were seeing some form of cross-pollination. 

“When you think about the future of say, transportation, it’s not going to be solved by car manufacturers alone,” she said. “Government, business, car manufacturers, they’re all going to need to come together to create what’s possible in the new world.”

Noble said banks had begun to shift their thinking on products like home loans, which have many moving parts.

“Typically as a bank we would have said ‘How do we do all that ourselves and how do we create new revenue streams?’” she said. “Now we’re saying, ‘Actually, how do we just connect customers and make it easy?’ And we operate as a key part of that ecosystem but we’re not afraid of working with other people.”

Marlow said the cultural shift means companies which once were considered competitors are now just fellow players in the ecosystem.

“The people we never wanted to work with, now we’re going to work with them,” she said. “If you’re going to evolve and you’re going to deliver new services to your customers, you’ve got to think differently about the different parts of the ecosystem. “

They also touched on the downside of the old system of living in a bubble; creating space inside ecosystems; and creating new experiences for customers.  Watch the video above to find out more. 

Renee Whitford is a contributing editor at BlueNotes