SIBOS19: fintech takes one for the team

Speaking to ANZ Institutional on podcast, Dobson, Banking Services Lead at ANZ, said the customer-focussed nature of the innovation coming out of fintech forced banks to compete on that level - to the benefit of all parties.

" Fintech has drawn the attention of bankers away from doing business with each other towards doing business with their customers.”

“I think we can thank fintech for that,” he said. “[That emergence] has drawn the attention of bankers away from doing business with each other towards doing business with their customers.

“The nature of the conversations and the impact of fintech… has been to focus our attention more and more on customer solutions, [which] are inevitably technical in their nature and digital in their character.”

Dobson made the comments as part of a roundtable discussion in the lead up to the Sibos 2019 banking conference in London – a forum he describes as the “Mecca” of financial services - alongside Michael Lim, Head of Financial Institutions, Transaction Banking, and Jackie Kallman, Head of Payments Industry at ANZ.

You can listen to the podcast below.

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Kallman says the mindset of fintech has shifted banking back into a place where the customer experience is paramount, rather than simply processing payments for payments’ sake.

“I think fintech really has changed the story for us and challenged us in some real ways,” she said. “In terms of meeting customer needs and recognition that payment is part of an end-to-end service. The payment is not the end game.”

Lim agrees and believes this is a trend which will only increase.

“We've historically talked about payments over here on the left and trade over here on the right,” he said.  “But actually… these things are coming together because ultimately it's about the end-to-end experience for the customer.”

Foundation

Dobson expects the fintech theme to dominate the conference – suggesting it is perhaps better characterised as a technology conference, reflecting the rapid transformation in banking operations over the medium term.

“Even in… the last two or three years we've… been having much more sophisticated conversations and not just talking about blockchain by itself or AI by itself but in fact talking about the integration of those technologies across a range of solutions for customers,” he said.

“The sophistication of the conversation has definitely drawn the conference more toward one that resembles a technology and almost a fintech conference.”

The panel also touched on how the digital shift is changing banking’s relationships with regulators, the resulting growth of collaboration among banks and the growing importance of digital identity. Listen to the podcast above to find out more.

Shane White is Content Manager for ANZ Institutional

This article was originally published on ANZ’s Institutional website