Paolo Culora, Head of Professional and Financial Services at Digital Space, details how the financial services industry is adapting to meet rapid digital change.

However, the introduction of multiple, lengthy lockdown periods combined with a drastic transformation in how and where professionals fulfil their jobs has forced any archaic business practices to change – and quickly. In fact, a recent report by Deloitte revealed that 86% of bankers believe their organisation should continue to invest in digital to gain competitive edge – with a further 43% revealing that their organisation’s current digital capability is far from that of their industry leaders. With that in mind, how exactly is the finance service industry embracing digital change? And more importantly, how are service providers utilising digital solutions to fulfil customer demands, whilst still adhering to complex compliance procedures? 

Digital Trends In Financial Services

Like other industry sectors, financial institutions are continuing to look at different ways in which they can enhance operational efficiencies, whilst improving customer experience – particularly as the use of digital and even social media platforms have transformed the relationship between banks and their clients in recent years.  

As a result, more and more financial institutions are investing in multi-cloud strategies and platforms, together with analytical integration tools and services to integrate into both bank systems and resource centres. Not only do these solutions provide secure access to large quantities of data stored in the cloud, but advances in Artificial Intelligence [AI] are also helping financial institutions to keep track of customer trends and make valuable decisions in real-time.

What’s more, with the increase in remote working, financial institutions have also invested in new technologies to aid both internal and external communication. As a result, applications like Microsoft 365 are being used to drive collaborative working and productivity by enabling users to access, share and edit files securely from any location via a desktop, tablet or mobile, whilst the implementation of Desktop as a Service (DaaS) is being used to maintain ‘business as usual’, ensuring customer experience isn’t compromised by providing agility and accessibility. 

Fast And Effective Implementation 

According to the latest data, the current COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digital change and investment in new technologies by an average of 5 – 6 years. Despite being an industry bogged down in complex approval processes, financial institutions have been able to adapt in accordance with this trend - adopting new agile ways of working and increasing speed to market on many fronts with a ‘shift to the left’ - which means by-passing long, drawn out processes and obstacles to obtaining approval through pre-approved solutions. As a result, financial institutions can now simplify controls and policies to effectively change speed, whilst retaining the right compliance and security measures. This means banks can speed up the release of services from months into hours, increasing efficiency whilst improving customer experience as a result.

Remote, Compliant, And Secure

The evolution of the digital landscape has created concern over compliance and security within the financial industry, particularly with the growing risk of cyber-crime – which has accelerated by 200% following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.  However, as financial institutions become increasingly reliant on technology, data and digital solutions to deliver customer service, it’s clear that compliance processes and procedures need to adapt and evolve in line with this digital change. Key to this is the development of an effective compliance culture, which can be driven by secure technology solutions to enable financial institutions to standardise procedures and processes whilst ensuring all team members – regardless of their location – can keep pace with the latest industry regulations and/or policy changes. 

Final words

Although the financial services industry is now embracing digital change, the continuous evolution of technology means institutions will need to maintain an agile approach – not only in product and customer service delivery, but also to ensure they can continue to change in line with market demand. Ultimately, those who continue to adapt and invest in the latest connected, productive, and secure solutions are the institutions that will maintain competitive advantage – both now and in the future. 

Both Great Britain and the EU have agreed to begin discussions via an informal forum on financial services, but the talks are yet to begin. This had led to Britain's finance ministry calling for the EU to expedite financial services talks, after the London Stock Exchange urged the bloc to avoid protectionism. 

Britain formally left the EU in January 2020, with the transition period drawing to a close in December. This cut the City of London’s financial services centre off from many of the markets it had previously played a central role in. Pre-Brexit, many banks and other financial businesses used London to access Europe. Since Britain's departure from the EU, many of these businesses have established units in the EU to prevent disruption for their EU clients. This has resulted in London losing out on billions of euros in daily euro stock and derivatives trading, which are now instead going straight to the EU.

The forum will not decide on financial market access, but it is seen as a critical part of reestablishing relationships between Great Britain and the EU.

The financial world, in particular, needs to ensure that any action taken goes beyond paying lip service to what’s going on at the moment and do something instead that will instil real change throughout every working environment and day-to-day process. Failing to achieve this will allow systemic discrimination to hide within the structures of the sector and will ensure that we continue to see inequalities remain entrenched in the industry.

The current equality outlook

Earlier this year, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) revealed that more than half of all FTSE 250 companies failed to mention ethnicity in their board diversity policy. In the review, the FRC stated explicitly that there was very minimal reporting on diversity overall and discussion around assessing or monitoring workplace cultures was severely lacking.

This points to the importance of taking a wide view of diversity and not accepting previously narrower definitions of what good practice looks like. The FRC’s review highlighted this, finding that any actions taken around diversity rarely extended beyond gender issues, with race, age, ability and LGBT+ diversity rarely being focused on.

Right now, we’re at a turning point in how we view diversity in the financial sector, making this an ideal opportunity to really set in stone what we want the future to look like.

The stats are equally as telling when it comes to gender, with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) discovering that only 17% of FCA approved individuals are women and that there’s been an increase in reports of discrimination and sexual harassment across the industry. Female representation rises slightly when looking only at senior roles in larger companies, but the number still falls short of a quarter of all higher-ranking positions.

While the stats are an improvement on where the industry used to be only a decade ago - gender diversity at senior management levels in major institutions grew from 9% in 2005 to 18% last year - there’s still a significant way to go before we come anywhere close to a 50/50 split.

Diversity creates better products and services and impacts the bottom line  

By all rights, there should be no barriers to creating more inclusive environments, as there are many

benefits to both employees and businesses of creating a diverse workforce. A frequently mentioned study is one carried out by the Boston Consulting Group, which found that diverse companies generate an average of 19% more revenue. This substantial increase was put down to the practical impact of diversity in a number of areas, such as fostering innovation, helping to win new business and attracting talent. This is by no means a solitary finding. Last year, a survey of 13,000 enterprises by the International Labour Organisation’s Bureau for Employers’ Activities found clear evidence that more diverse business cultures reaped the reward of higher profits.

And by and large, there appears to be little argument among the top level of the finance sector. According to a PwC survey of 410 financial service organisations, their CEOs overwhelmingly agreed that diversity brings direct benefits. The advantages that these CEOs acknowledged included enhanced business performance, improved innovation and enhanced customer satisfaction.

These leaders now need to start actively making these ideals a reality, as the FCA is going to start taking diversity into account when it assesses a firm in order to encourage healthier cultures. Under the new plans, anyone who holds a senior management function will need to be approved and will have to set out everything that they are responsible for, to create greater individual accountability and, hopefully, setting a higher standard of conduct. Diversity is therefore no longer just a ‘nice to have’, but is going to start being a fundamental principle of how financial businesses are run.

Creating the right culture

To overcome the issues facing the industry, each organisation within it needs to have a clear and unbiased understanding of their culture and its potential problem areas. Looking at the issues we’ve explored in this article and how they apply to an individual firm is a good way to start to gain a better picture of how diverse a firm is. For example, what’s the makeup of the board and does this differ to the other levels of the business? Is there an existing diversity policy and does it include all forms of discrimination? Are there processes in place for reporting misconduct and harassment?

One of the most fundamental ways that firms can start paying attention to diversity is ensuring everyone in the organisation feels heard and know that if they do face discrimination, they can do something about it. However, the recent move to a more online world creates a challenge here, as many of the issues of harassment or discrimination that lead to some either staying away from the industry or leaving it are now shifting to digital spaces. In this space, they can be more difficult to manage.

The anonymity that can come from sitting behind a screen can often lead to increased levels of bullying, whether from people who feel separated from the consequences of their words, or simply because people are unintentionally causing harm because they can’t see or properly understand the person they’re communicating with. Either way, if left unchecked in a workplace, this can lead to significant cultural issues that will fester if not properly addressed.

Many HR teams will already have reporting platforms in place to enable employees to safely report instances of discrimination and abuse – whether that’s online or in person. This can help track microaggressions and create a detailed picture of the company’s culture, which they can then use to improve on it. Without clear and safe reporting pathways, it’s very difficult to encourage people to speak up and so those problem areas will continue to remain hidden. More than this, organisations should not only signpost to these platforms but actively encourage employees to use them, with those that do speak out against bullying encouraged and supported for doing so, rather than perpetuating any stigma.

A turning point

Right now, we’re at a turning point in how we view diversity in the financial sector, making this an ideal opportunity to really set in stone what we want the future to look like. To work though, this new understanding of good practice needs to be represented at every level - from the regulations of governing bodies to the attitudes of business leaders, and the understanding of rights and reporting processes by employees. While this may seem like a big step for some, there’s never been more advice, experience, systems and support out there designed purely around changing the status quo and reshaping firms into more diverse and inclusive spaces that work for everyone.

But the growing digital footprint of financial services entities is a double-edged sword, with regulators imposing increasingly stringent and ever-evolving financial promotion and record-keeping rules across the sector to improve transparency and accountability.

 Just as across the economy and other sectors, it’s technology that could offer a solution to businesses, with regulatory technology or “RegTech” solutions emerging as a valuable tool in helping financial services companies stay compliant with digital communications.

Digital communications offer opportunities, but also compliance implications

Technology has radically changed the way financial services firms communicate today, fueled in part by the rise of FinTech challengers that have attracted attention through the convenience of their digitally-powered offerings. Underpinning this has been the potential of online communications channels to help gather engagement data, helping both FinTechs and established institutions to better understand customer needs now and in the future.

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the dependence on these communications channels, as clients look to financial services firms for regular reassurance and updates that their investments, pensions or other interests remain secure despite significant economic volatility.

However, for regulated businesses, the use of such channels has implications for compliance, with MIFID II stipulating strict recording keeping rules, while the FCA enforces stringent regulations around financial promotion. Indeed, the FCA notably fined a claims management firm £70,000 in December 2019 for misleading consumers through its websites and printed materials.

The RegTech industry is expected to grow from US$ 6.3 billion in 2020 to US$ 16.0 billion by 2025, according to MarketsandMarkets.

The extent of these regulations and their bearing on all digital communications for financial services firms is far-reaching. For example, if a financial advice firm decides to undertake a livestream on Facebook about the economic impacts from the crisis, is it clearly stated the content of this isn’t financial advice? If a bank was to tweet information about how it oversees mortgage security during a crisis, is the language clear enough without becoming misleading for a retail audience? And when it comes to investment updates, are firms fairly displaying their performance – taking into account an appropriate benchmark and required timeframe?

So, the challenge remains: how do financial services companies communicate effectively and efficiently while remaining compliant?

RegTech can help

Since the start of the decade, RegTech businesses have used the latest technology to help companies enhance their ability to comply with this wide range of regulatory pressures and their support has seen investment in the sector grow significantly. Indeed, the RegTech industry is expected to grow from US$ 6.3 billion in 2020 to US$ 16.0 billion by 2025, according to MarketsandMarkets.

The growth of this sector is matched by the growing number of regulations that financial services firms must grapple with, as well as an increasing propensity of regulators to enforce them. Indeed, fines issued by the FCA in 2019 soared to £391.8m, a reported increase of more than 550%. As new regulations are certain to arise, with MiFID II under review and the announcement of MiFID III fast approaching, the pressure to comply is increasing.

It’s hardly surprising then that spend on RegTech solutions is rising. Figures from Juniper Research indicate that spending on this sector could top $127 billion globally by 2024, as companies increasingly look for support to help manage compliance burdens.

Our own platform at MirrorWeb is just one example of entities in the RegTech sector that are increasingly supporting financial services companies cope with increased scrutiny by regulators. In our case, we help companies capture immutable records of their websites and online channels, allowing them to keep track of any potential regulatory breaches and evidence what was published and when.

 So, digital communications do present an opportunity, but also a challenge for regulated businesses. The assertiveness of regulators in enforcing compliance in this area is on the rise, so financial services firms need to ensure a compliance solution for the long-term. The regulatory technology sector is a rapidly growing ally to the financial services sector - one that helps these firms to leverage the benefits of advanced digital communication, at the same time as ensuring compliance with fast-changing regulation.

This exceptional situation has exposed some interesting insights in terms of how technology can enable the way we work in our industry. However, it has also uncovered some critical gaps that many companies have to fill in their digital capabilities to truly enable their businesses to be adequately set up for the future.

In today’s world, our new ways of working fall into two ends of a spectrum:

• knowledge work that can be done remotely using technology
• collaborative “agile” work which is done using cross-functional teams (often co-located)

We are only now starting to make this distinction between these two ways of working outside of a traditional office environment, which for financial services, in particular, has long been the norm due to the heavy bands of regulation that envelope the industry and legacy cultures that sit within it.

Enabling daily work with technology

In these first few weeks of the crisis, many of us have rightly been focusing on the urgent business at hand - making sure our people are safe, activating our contingency plans (or putting them in place for some), figuring out how we are going to operate over the few next weeks, or even months given the uncertainty that surrounds this pandemic.

As we start to settle into this new normal, it is becoming increasingly clear that much of the ‘knowledge’ work doesn’t need to be done face-to-face. Technology like Zoom and Microsoft Teams enables many of us to do this work without travel, without offices - with just a phone, laptop, and a decent internet connection to hand.

But it requires us to adapt, to become more comfortable with the idea of being “remote” – where we can discuss and make decisions without physically being in the same room, or equally as important, accessing day-to-day social and support systems over technology; we’ve seen waves of people hosting virtual happy hours and team-building sessions to break up the working week. This change is happening in real-time and poses some very interesting questions over the future of office-based work.

It’s important to remember that a widespread shift to remote working also necessitates investment in technology infrastructure and bandwidth. We’ve all experienced first-hand how technology can get overwhelmed when overloaded. With more people logging on at the same time, pressures are put on infrastructure. We need to put the days of grainy video calls behind us and focus on ensuring our tools and bandwidth can enable this new way of working without unnecessary friction.

 Impact of the Digital gap on employee safety, customer service, and cost

The Digital gap has become apparent in several scenarios. For example, we have seen customer service centres that are highly tech-savvy who are doing a phenomenal job of protecting their people while continuing to deliver great service, while others have limited ability to do so.

The tech-enabled companies have been able to have their employees start working from home practically (and literally) at the flip of a switch. Their telephone technology is cloud-based or cloud-ready, and they use automated workforce management systems that enable them to have the flexibility they need with staff in times of crisis.

Technology like Zoom and Microsoft Teams enables many of us to do this work without travel, without offices - with just a phone, laptop, and a decent internet connection to hand.

On the other hand, those with legacy technology have been slow to respond – they have had people still coming into the office in smaller shifts to answer the phones, lowering service levels for customers and creating potential health risks among employees. Furthermore, these older operating models are more expensive for organisations to operate – historically, there hasn’t been a real priority to replace them.

In this day and age, in our industry, companies must look to transition from these legacy technologies to more cloud-based digital capabilities that enable flexibility and drive tremendous efficiencies. Perhaps this crisis will provide the impetus for making these necessary investments.

What about collaboration in agile?

 Over the past few years, companies in the financial services industry have started down the path of becoming highly collaborative and iterative across their businesses, enabling them to bring ideas and products to market in record time and with real relevance to their customers. The “agile” trend really started in the technology function but has now taken hold and is creating real value on the business side as well.

This collaborative, agile work is currently harder to reimagine with digital capabilities; many companies are experimenting with tools and methods that enable teams to work without being co-located. However, the teams that are in the same room, around the same whiteboard, and working together closely are usually more productive and typically drive better solutions than ones that are collaborating remotely. In the end, there will have to be a calculated tradeoff between in-person collaboration and technology-enabled remote working to drive real value.

Conclusion

 There is a spectrum of how we do work – pure knowledge (highly tech-enabled) to pure collaborative (highly co-located) – this situation has shown us how we can push ourselves further down toward the collaborative side of the spectrum using technology…never fully replacing co-location, but understanding where it is critical to deliver results and where it is not. It has not only exposed opportunities to work in new and different ways in times of crises, but also in the times that follow.

The four-day workweek has been trialled in several regions across the world with Finland’s new prime minister Sanna Marin the latest to announce plans to introduce a four-day week. The move comes as those countries in the know hail 40% increased productivity from working 20% less of the time.

Advocates swear by it, arguing that other benefits of a truncated week are a greatly improved work-life balance and significant reductions in company overheads thanks to lower electricity bills and general running costs. Labour even touted a four-day working week without a corresponding drop in pay ahead of the last election. While such a move would be attractive for some smaller and more domestically based industries in the UK, others that rely on international communications and high-value trading – such as the financial services sector – may struggle to successfully slash office time. Given the UK’s status in the financial world, there would be some major hurdles to overcome should a four-day workweek become reality.

From a business-to-consumer standpoint, customers wouldn’t be adversely affected by a four-day workweek. With advancing technology and the advent of e-commerce, the days of requiring an ‘always available’ bank manager are over. But from a business-to-business perspective, those that make themselves unavailable would inevitably lose out to competitors who maintain five-day availability.

From a business-to-consumer standpoint, customers wouldn’t be adversely affected by a four-day workweek.

The global marketplace is an important factor to consider; the UK’s FS sector increasingly works with clients abroad who expect to receive a world-class service. This means being available when markets are open, and that means functioning five days a week. So how would Britain continue to lead the way globally if they are available 20% less than other regions? It’s difficult to imagine financial companies in China, Singapore, Hong Kong and the US taking a day off. If London went ‘off-grid’ for one day a week, it would almost certainly diminish its standing as a major financial hub. If the UK implements a sector-wide four-day work week, European businesses in Luxembourg, Madrid or Zurich would snap up global clients who expect to have their funds managed, stocks invested and deals done while the markets are open.

Additionally, it’s important to consider whether the type of professional attracted to a career in financial services would want to work just four days a week. These individuals are typically very bright, extremely driven, competitive and ambitious, who relish the challenge of their industry. They are an engaged, close-knit community driven by their own financial reward and by the notion of early retirement. They are typically young adults without major life commitments, working 70 hours or more a week and happy to do so.

The ability to work remotely or to adjust hours to suit your commute and family’s schedule solves some of the challenges associated with working five days a week.

Financial organisations are aware of these traits and ensure they have the necessary facilities to accommodate a 24-hour culture. If you’ve ever visited one of the financial institutions in Canary Wharf, you’ll note that everything an employee could want or need is onsite – from 24-hour gyms, saunas, swimming pools and resting areas to canteens and dry cleaners. Similarly, flexible working has become a standard option for many sectors, including FS. The ability to work remotely or to adjust hours to suit your commute and family’s schedule solves some of the challenges associated with working five days a week.

All of those considerations aside, there’s still the question of whether staff could manage their workload within the constraints of a Monday to Thursday job. It would mean working more hours across the four days to complete the same scope of work, and the biggest hurdle would be managing client communications and expectations. Clients expect quick responses and counsel, regardless of their service provider’s internal setup.

Take Dubai as an example of a stand-out nation that doesn’t work on Friday, with the Middle East workweek running from Sunday to Thursday. Despite the supposed closing of the office on Fridays, calls and queries are responded to in order to maintain good customer relations and remain a global competitor. While Friday working is arguably driven by expats living and working in the country, there is still an implied expectation of availability. Without it, other countries would likely step in and entice clients away from those working with Dubai companies.

Ultimately, the implementation of a four-day workweek in the UK’s FS sector would require an industry-wide roll out legislated by the government. Investment bankers and hedge-fund managers only make up a small portion of the financial services sector that depends on global markets. The same is true for commodity traders, insurers and professional services with clients in the FS sector. Without their buy-in to a four-day workweek, there will always be gaps in the market that other providers will identify and offer their services. If London wishes to retain its status as a leading financial hub globally, then it is unlikely that the four-day workweek will see the light of day in the FS sector.

What is the current state of digitalisation in the Middle East? 

We need to consider that digitalisation is an important driver of transformation in the financial services space globally. Additional dynamics such as low-to-zero interest rates, a challenging global economic environment (US-China trade war, coronavirus, etc.) and changing regulatory environments add to this challenge. Moreover, in the Middle East, markets are highly competitive due to the number of financial services players present. In combination, these dynamics put the traditional business models of banks and insurance companies into question.

Many established financial services players have started experimenting with digitalisation, often with the aim to improve customer experience through new forms of interaction such as chatbots, facilities to conduct business online (e.g. insurance renewal) and financial planning tools such as mortgage calculators. In addition, some financial institutions have started replacing their legacy core systems, ranging from full replacement of the core system to light-core system and middleware connected by a host of API-linked systems.

Digitalisation is a topic that continues to occupy substantial mind-share with financial services executives on transformation projects and as a strategic challenge to their market positioning.

What is happening beyond the existing financial services players?

Digitalisation also allows players from outside the financial services space to make inroads into banking and insurance, often leveraging highly developed customer insights. One example in this regard is telecom providers moving into financial services in a bid to broaden their traditional offerings. They leverage extensive information about customers for businesses such as micro-lending, crowdfunding, credit scoring and others. Other players in highly customer-centric industries are considering similar models – retailers are a good example.

The current low-interest-rate environment not only threatens traditional business models in financial services but also serves to push the emergence of FinTech companies as direct challengers to financial institutions.

The current low-interest-rate environment not only threatens traditional business models in financial services but also serves to push the emergence of FinTech companies as direct challengers to financial institutions. They are fueled by cheap money seeking return and the substantial efforts of governments to attract new industries in their bid for economic diversification and development. FinTechs are interesting not only because they seek to innovate, but also because they have a different risk profile: where established players need to get their digital strategy right in order to not jeopardise existing business and employment, FinTechs can take a stab at one specific problem time and again. In the worst case, they go out of business when they run out of capital. The founders then have the choice to pivot and take another stab at the problem with a new company – so long as they manage to continue raising funding. Fail fast approach to innovation is now becoming a norm and many corporates are in the early stages of figuring out how to embed this in their own organisations.

As the popularity of FinTech in the region increases, banks are no longer bound to innovate internally. Instead, they may carry out the process through partnerships with the startups. Currently, the choice between organic innovation and partnership stands as a crucial decision that could have a significant impact on the outcome of substantial effort and investment. Therefore, firms must be cautious about the advantages and disadvantages of each option before making a decision.

How has digitalisation affected the banking and finance industry in the Middle East? 

Digitalisation has a substantial impact on the financial services industry in the Middle East. Just think of three key developments: drive towards simplicity, development of best-of-breed partnerships and the innovation strides of regulators.

Moving from complexity towards simplicity is prevalent in many industries. In the automotive industry, the combination of internal combustion engines and fuel is being replaced by a combination of electric motors and battery packs. The key to optimising electric motors and batteries is in the software that manages the systems, hence, Tesla's ability to improve performance over-night through software updates. Similarly, the financial services industry is increasingly making use of flexible, lighter cores that are complemented by a variety of other systems – held together by software that connects and makes sense of the data. There are a number of providers of such light tech-stack solutions that enable new forms of partnerships that allow for digital onboarding, personal finance management and digital loyalty programs to be provided from various sources, held together by a flexible middleware.

We are also noticing the rise in multiple FinTech arms of big established players from non-Financial Services sector like telcos, retailers, logistics, etc. across the region.

So we are talking more about a patchwork of partnerships and integrations that are emerging as a solution?

Yes, developing best-in-breed partnerships has become a key advantage: the usage of SDKs and APIs allows real-time connectivity between systems from a variety of specialised providers. This enables a fast and flexible roll-out of services compared to cycles of pure in-house development. One important effect from this is an increase in the overall level of product quality if the technical aspects are properly resolved. Another important effect is to reduce the advantage of pure size for financial institutions and thus to further increase competitive pressure in the market. As a specific example, consider telco providers partnering with financial institutions to provide micro-lending via a smartphone app like Tamam.life in Saudi Arabia.  Originating from such simple beginnings like microlending and wallet solutions, telcos can build strong offerings to become serious digital banking contenders.

This is welcomed by many regulators in the Middle East, it seems?

Innovation strides by the regulators are an important driver of innovation overall. The Middle East has seen a massive increase in activities of the regulators to attract, encourage and adopt innovation. Open banking regulations are one example of the introduction of innovation through regulation. Regulatory sandboxes are another, very relevant example as they allow new players to test new business models and partnerships without the full burden of comprehensive regulations. In free zones, there have been deliberate strides in creating a robust innovation culture paired with light regulation so that startups have a home for experimentation. Some free zones then aim to bridge and communicate with the regulators to slowly migrate these innovations into the mainstream economy. None of these dynamics would be possible without support from the regulators.

Does it seem like there is more to come?

Online and mobile banking indeed changed the industry. However, they represent how customers access banking services instead of a change in the core workings of a bank. We think that this presents a real opportunity and threat at the same time. As FinTech and BigTech become more important threats to traditional players in the industry, banks must consider the way they innovate. In this respect, we believe that banks should pursue "real across the value-chain innovation" rather than "superficial front end services".

These three developments are just the start of how digitalisation is changing the financial services space in the Middle East. A look beyond towards the US, China and Europe provides some perspective of what is yet to come, including fully digitalised banks and insurers, algorithmic support in core processes such as claims management or credit scoring and much more. Take China for example - just to name one example, Ant Financial operates Alipay, the world's largest mobile and online payments platform as well as Yu'e Bao, the world's largest money-market fund. Ant Financial also operates credit payment company Huabei, as well as an online bank called MYbank. In 2015 Ant Financial launched Ant Fortune, a wealth management platform. Another example is Ping An, the insurance company that has developed from a brick-and-mortar insurer into a veritable tech platform over the past decade or so. These super apps and large-scale platforms are only in their infancy in the Middle East. They are mostly a matter of creating scale and cooperation between players, and will sooner or later also land in the Middle East.

A low-interest future poses major challenges for central banks around the world.

What are the key challenges that financial services in the Middle East face? 

The first key challenge for financial services players in the Middle East is customer-centricity. Banks and insurance companies have traditionally been cumbersome to deal with – and many still are if you just think about the average claims experience or mortgage application. Simple processes like KYC and document collection are often still manual and e-signatures are not considered legal means of transaction yet with applications such as eSignOnline waiting yet to be adopted. Products are developed mainly from the perspective of financial institutions' and the legal environments' needs when customers may require entirely different solutions for their needs. The second key challenge is scale, or rather the lack thereof. With the exception of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and to some degree the UAE, markets in the Middle East are mostly small in size (both in terms of GDP and population). This limits the ability of companies to grow and to, therefore, invest in new technologies. This is a particularly significant issue in the insurance space but by no means less important in banking. The third key challenge is the transformation of organisations and along with this, the skills, mindset and capabilities of employees. This includes, for example, the acceptance of new working styles, agile management methods and the embracing of innovation by an industry and workforce which has traditionally been very conservative.

If we look at customer centricity, what specifically needs to be done?

Being able to adjust interactions to the specific demands and needs of customers is key for customer-centricity – ideally down to the level of the individual customer. This is what financial institutions are not very good at, which opens opportunities for more customer-centric organisations such as telcos, retailers, native online players, and others to create viable value propositions. For example, not many financial institutions in the Middle East analyse their NPS or their customer complaints registries in a structured and continuous manner for improvement potential. Social media posts (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) are mostly ignored as a means for gathering customer feedback – and these are low hanging fruits. Augmenting this through platform use and technologies can help in making substantial progress towards understanding their customers better and deeper.

This is where the scale problem comes into the mix. Domestic markets in the Middle East are often comparably small in terms of the addressable market. In addition, some are (over-)saturated with financial services players and therefore faced with strong competition. This combination of small scale and often fierce competition limits individual companies’ ability to justify the required substantial investments into new technologies and innovation. The obvious solution of consolidation has been on the cards for over a decade now – but it yet has to happen at scale. As an alternative option, some players are already considering pooling and partnering as viable options to enable themselves to utilise technology, e.g., across the value chain in insurance to enhance the customer experience.

Can you give a specific example?

Open Banking is an interesting example because regulation is forcing banks to share data with not just other banks but any unaffiliated businesses looking for that data.  This data portability has created several innovative business models like DAPI (a UAE born company), the first financial API in MENA that lets FinTech apps leverage open banking by initiating payments and accessing real-time banking data. But that is just the beginning, Open Banking will fundamentally change the landscape of banking and insurance.

Technology and digitalisation also allow regulators to become faster and more focused themselves.

Yet, this will raise an entirely new set of questions around ownership and usage of customer data, level playing fields, channels to the customer and many more. Will banking and insurance truly become open, or will the incumbents create artificial barriers to protect their data? Many a new business model is hidden in the answers to these questions.

In what ways have regulatory pressures and the low/zero-interest-rate environment in the Middle East affected the financial services sector? 

A low-interest future poses major challenges for central banks around the world. Their initial measures to reverse negative interest rates were heavily criticised and more recent interventions, such as a graduated interest rate (introduced for example by the ECB), indicate that monetary remedies are reaching their limit.

The low-interest environment changes the dynamics of the game at two levels – the first one is the traditional business and revenue model in the financial services space as it is based on interest (or a profit markup in Islamic Finance that is at least loosely oriented on interest). On the second level, low-interest rates lead to a diversion of substantial funds into more risky asset classes such as early-stage funding and venture capital, which in turn fuels a growing number of challengers in the banking, insurance and asset management sectors. As a result, low-interest rates endanger the profitability of the incumbents and prop-up their competitors of tomorrow.

Regulation, on the other hand, is here to stay, albeit likely in a different shape. Mis-selling of financial products, the protection of consumer interests and rights (especially in a world where the product cycle is faster), the stability of the overall financial system and other dimensions warrant continued scrutiny by the regulators. Regulators will continue to focus on stability (capital adequacy, illiquidity, etc.), security (AML, Sanctions, Cyber, etc) and financial inclusion.

Technology and digitalisation also allow regulators to become faster and more focused themselves. This may lead to the current approach of creating relatively comprehensive licenses with extensive compliance and reporting requirements being replaced with a more nimble "a la carte"-approach for regulation. The regulatory sandboxes are the first step in that direction. To fully enable and support digital transformation, regulators will have to think about creating larger markets than the ones in existence today. This may require solutions such as passporting of financial services, a realisation amongst players that their individual positions are untenable and therefore they have to find (institutionalised) partners incl. through M&A and consolidation. What we have seen work in Europe can also work in the Middle East if the framework conditions are right.

The sector needs to accept that the changes brought about by digitalisation are real, fundamental and that they’re here to last.

What do you think are the best solutions for financial institutions to address these challenges and navigate digitalisation effectively? 

First and foremost, the sector needs to accept that the changes brought about by digitalisation are real, fundamental and that they’re here to last. Once this realisation arrives in board rooms and executive management floors, the real work of transformation and change management starts. Addressing digitalisation is as much a question of creating the right mindset as it is of implementing new technologies.

To make a very simple and straight-forward example, certain Silicon Valley companies have KPIs on business model failures. They measure managers successes and failures. Too many successes and not enough failures mean that the managers are not pushing far enough. This is an interesting mentality at the very edge of management and meant to create an innovative culture by design. Could Middle Eastern financial institutions adopt a model of this nature?

However, the realisation of a changing world also allows rethinking business models in financial services, as the boundaries between financial services and other, adjacent industries, become less pronounced – think of the impact of self-driving cars on insurance. As banks and insurers are more closely integrated into the surrounding industries, customers can have a more seamless experience – think of microlending at the point of sale with just a swipe. This gives rise to platforms centred on customer needs, and financial services providers are natural candidates to organise such platforms due to the overarching nature of the services they offer, and the broad understanding they have of the economies and customers they serve (even if the latter is not apparent today).

The change of mindset in the board rooms and on executive floors of financial services players often starts with something as simple as an inspirational experience innovation in other places first-hand. This doesn’t have to be Silicon Valley as there is enough tangible, down-to-earth innovation and transformation going on elsewhere. Organisations then have to go through honest stock-taking of where they are - they have to understand what their assets are (tangible and intangible - incl., relationships, knowledge, etc. - idea of an asset repository) and where their liabilities are (financial and non-financial such as a legacy core system that doesn’t allow for change). On this basis, they can then determine the strategy going forward, which should integrate their existing business and any new businesses - it really is more of a bank strategy rather than a bank's digital strategy. The important element here is to make the strategy process tangible through an approach that aims to create minimum viable products that allow for quick testing with customers followed by the according adjustments in iterations, as well as the inclusion of partners in the process.

There are sweeping changes in banking which are changing the landscape and most of these innovations are coming from outside in. The ubiquity of the internet has produced warehouse/basement bankers who are disrupting without any legacy burdens. The regulators are sometimes sleeping through the change and in odd times struggling to catch up. For the sake of a brighter future, we hope everyone wakes up to this new reality.

Below Zoe Wyatt, Partner at international tax specialists Andersen Tax, discusses the inevitability of blockchain, whilst exploring banks' attitudes towards the emergence of new financial technologies, and highlighting how the two can, in fact, work hand in hand.

The first industrial revolution in 1780 began with mechanisation. It was followed by electrification in 1870, automation in 1970 and globalisation in the 1980s. Today, we have digitalisation of the industrial process and tomorrow there will be ‘personalisation’ (industrial revolution 5.0): the cooperation of humans and machines through artificial intelligence (AI) whereby human intelligence works hand-in-hand with cognitive computing to personalise industrial processes.

This might involve the creation of bespoke artificial organs operated by computers talking to one another, automation of the manufacturing process, or self-executing contracts (smart contracts), and so on.

John Straw, a disruptive technology expert involved in developing the 5.0 model, recently claimed that blockchain could render the financial services industry irrelevant, thereby killing off the City of London and constricting the tax revenues that fund the NHS. Straw makes some headline grabbing comments, but do they have any substance?

Blockchain is the technology that underlies cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, and whilst it has existed for approximately ten years, it remains relatively new.

In simple terms, blockchain is a digital archive of information pertaining to an asset, individual and/or organisation. But this is no ordinary digital ledger.  Its technology features:

• the ability to validate data entered on the blockchain as correct and complete at the time of creation;
• data that cannot be changed; new blocks of data are added sequentially and chained to the last block. The story the data tells can be added to, but its past cannot be modified;
• multiple parties must consent by a majority or pre-defined basis on the validity of additions to the blockchain;
• multiple copies of the data, in encrypted form, are stored on the computer systems of numerous globally disseminated individuals/organisations participating in a particular blockchain network;
• respecting the privacy of that data;
• although there is potential for a malicious attack on a specific computer to successfully change data held on its copy of the blockchain, other participants in the blockchain network would be alerted and the true blockchain restored. In this sense, the blockchain is immutable
• an accessible audit trail.

These characteristics diminish the role of intermediaries who are traditionally used to validate data and ensure that it is kept safe. Therefore, Blockchain has myriad potential applications: investment in blockchain start-ups, which are developing solutions for the financial services sector, is staggering.

Blockchain has myriad potential applications: investment in blockchain start-ups, which are developing solutions for the financial services sector, is staggering.

Technical issues exist in overcoming scalability, transaction speed, and energy consumption. However, these will be resolved in the near future as companies develop ways in which the blockchain can be stored ‘off-chain’. This will ensure that it does not need to be downloaded entirely by a node to verify a transaction using AI, amongst other tech, to guarantee that the immutability of blockchain is not undermined. It also creates scalability and reduces energy to such a degree that even the idle computer in a car or mobile phone can be used to verify transactions.

Blockchain technology can be deployed by the financial services sector to:

• Assist with almost real time settlement and reconciliation of transactions as the intermediaries used to verify and authenticate parties to a transaction and the source of funds are removed
• Program self-executing commercial agreements
• Trade stocks and shares in real time
• Reduce costs for financial transactions through efficiency gains
• Remove time limits and payment failures
• Track financial transactions, preventing fraud and money laundering
• Diminish exposure to currency movement
• Minimise risk of inflation or currency depreciation where it is separate from the state and/or bank.

Although blockchain technology has the power to change the entire traditional banking system, it does not represent disaster for the City of London. Although traceability of transactions and, therefore, tax evasion cannot yet be mitigated entirely,  blockchain can indeed help to resolve some critical tax evasion and avoidance issues.

HM Treasury has already developed a proof of concept for VAT using blockchain technology. This should eliminate large swathes of VAT fraud. Given the advent of digital identity, tighter anti-money laundering (AML) procedures administered on blockchain and a widely adopted digital currency, tax evaders will have nowhere to hide.

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Blockchain and smart contracts have the capacity to completely transform the audit and tax industries, including multinational corporations’ in-house CFO/finance functions. When coupled with AI technologies, this will enable the digital preparation of accounts and tax return, and the performance of audits. In turn, this facilitates absolute tax transparency, making it easier for tax authorities to raise and conclude enquiries more efficiently into, for example, transfer pricing on intra-group transactions.

Most importantly, the tax and regulatory systems need to evolve somewhat faster than we have so far seen on other new business models and supply chains.

To realise these benefits, seamless interoperability of different technologies is required, together with cooperation between multiple parties, as opposed to a single banking system. This will allow for comprehensive management of the risks that Straw prophesises.

1. Technology innovation will transform international payments.

In today’s connected world, consumers are no longer willing to put up with delays and hefty fees for processing cross-border payments. As customer demand for frictionless on-demand payments grows, payment providers and banks will be competing to offer ever faster cross-border payment services to their customers. This will drive the wider adoption of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies, enabling financial institutions to transfer low-value payments in real-time at a fraction of the cost incumbent processes are taking. This technology can enable financial institutions to move money around the world in the same way that we exchange information over the internet, so 2020 will be a tipping point for driving efficiency and innovation in cross-border payments.

2. The rise of banking-as-a-service will drive stronger competition in the market.

With banks having to juggle the relentless pressure of faster innovation while keeping down technology costs, we’ll see more financial institutions turning to cloud providers to help radically reduce IT costs.

Cloud-based solutions are ideally placed to easily and cost-effectively plug into emerging blockchain networks, AI engines and other developing FinTech innovations. As such, using cloud-based technologies will create a strong competitive advantage for agile, forward-looking financial services providers that embrace digital innovation - intensifying market competition around the globe. Cloud-platform companies like 10X and Thought Machine are great examples of this new paradigm that is being adopted by banks, and we’re likely to see more similar players entering the market in 2020 and beyond. As a result, on-premise “museum” banking technology will be increasingly displaced by more agile, affordable cloud-based fintech solutions.

With banks having to juggle the relentless pressure of faster innovation while keeping down technology costs, we’ll see more financial institutions turning to cloud providers to help radically reduce IT costs.

3. This will be the year of new cross-currency consumer payment solutions:

In 2020, we’ll see a rise in new consumer purchase solutions for tourists and travellers that enable cross-currency payments, without requiring cards or card rails. For example, such solutions could enable a Japanese tourist visiting Thailand to make purchases using a mobile app or QR code, triggering an immediate cross-border payment from their Japanese yen account to a Thai baht merchant’s account. Blockchain technology, combined with digital assets, will be a key driver in this innovation. Such payment services could have a huge impact on the payments market, bringing untapped opportunities for payment providers in the new year

4. In-app micro and wallet payments will become mainstream.

As technological innovation helps bring down the cost for processing cross-border payments, the business case for micropayments is becoming more viable. Traditionally, micropayments have been confined to messaging apps like Telegram and Line, but with big tech companies introducing payment services of their own, the case for micropayments will soon expand far beyond that. In 2020 we can expect to see a surge of developers flocking to blockchain and digital assets do develop solutions to satisfy demand for in-app, real-time micropayments. For example, micropayments can be applied across multiple use cases and industries: from incentivising players in the gaming industry to creating new payment models for the streaming of online content or paying for energy/electricity bills.

5. The shift toward low-value, high-volume payments will help SMEs break into new markets much faster.

The cross-border payments market today is not set up for small businesses. In fact, international payments are often slow, prone to errors and accrue extremely high costs. Moreover, international payments are not even readily available in some emerging markets. This is a huge setback for small businesses looking to expand operations and scale internationally. The good news is that new blockchain technologies can address all these challenges and enable SMEs to invoice and receive international payments immediately, in small amounts, and with 100% certainty.

The adoption of blockchain technologies has the potential to be a game-changer for SMEs globally - enabling them to improve cash flow and reduce the cost of running a business while freeing up precious capital for reinvestment. As a result, 2020 will see a rise in international payment services for SMEs across emerging markets, helping them to expand and process immediate payments around the world and improve access to new markets.

But as the attack surface expands with the growing use of social media and external digital platforms, many FinServ security teams are blind to a new wave of digital threats outside the firewall.

Here Anthony Perridge, VP International at ThreatQuotient, discusses how all businesses need to fully understand the threats they can face on social media and how to prevent them, and specifically how FS’s can protect their institutions online.

More than three billion people around the world use social media each month, with 90% of those users accessing their chosen platforms via mobile devices. While, historically, financial services (FinServ) institutions discouraged the use of social media, it has become a channel that can no longer be ignored.

FinServ institutions are widely recognised as leaders in cybersecurity, employing layers of defence and highly skilled security experts to protect their organisations. But as the attack surface expands with the growing use of social media and external digital platforms, many FinServ security teams are blind to a new wave of digital threats outside the firewall.

Social media is a morass of information flooding the Internet with billions of posts per day that comprise text, images, hashtags and different types of syntax. It is as broad as it is deep and requires an equally broad and deep combination of defences to identify and mitigate the risk it presents.

Understanding prevalent social media threats

Analysis of prevalent social media risks shows the breadth and depth of these types of attacks. A deeper understanding of how bad actors are using social media and digital platforms for malicious purposes is extremely valuable as FinServ institutions strive to strengthen their defense-in-depth architectures and mitigate risk to their institutions, brands, employees and customers.

To gain visibility, reduce risk and automate protection, leaders in the financial industry are expanding their threat models to include these threat vectors. They are embracing a data-driven approach that uses automation and machine learning to keep pace with these persistent and continuously evolving threats, automatically finding fraudulent accounts, spear phishing attacks, customer scams, exposed personally identifiable information (PII), account takeovers and more.

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They are aggregating this data into a central repository so that their threat intelligence teams can trace attacks back to malicious profiles, posts, comments or pages, as well as pivot between these different social media objects for context. Network security teams can block their users from accessing malicious social objects to help prevent attacks, and incident response teams can compare their organisation’s telemetry of incidents with known indicators of compromise to mitigate damage.

Employee education is also a critical component of standard defences. Raising awareness of these threats through regular training and instituting policies to improve social media security hygiene with respect to company and personal accounts goes a long way to preventing these attacks in the first place.

A Checklist for Financial Institutions

This checklist that encompasses people, process and technology will go a long way toward helping FS teams better protect their institutions, brands, employees and customers.

1. IDENTIFY the institution’s social media and digital footprint, including accounts for the company, brands, locations, executives and key individuals.
2. OBTAIN “Verified Accounts” for company and brand accounts on social media. This provides assurance to customers that they are interacting with legitimate accounts and prevents impersonators from usurping a “Verified Account.”
3. ENABLE two-factor authentication for social media accounts to deter hijacking and include corporate and brand social media accounts in IT password policy requirements.
4. MONITOR for spoofed and impersonator accounts and, when malicious, arrange for takedown
5. IDENTIFY scams, fraud, money-flipping and more by monitoring for corporate and brand social media pages.
6. MONITOR for signs of corporate and executive social media account hijacking. Early warning indicators are important to protecting the organisation’s brand.
7. DEPLOY employee training and policies on social media security hygiene.
8. INCORPORATE a social media and digital threat feed into a threat intelligence platform as part of an overall defense-in-depth approach. This allows teams to ingest, correlate and take action faster on attacks made against their institution via social media.

Here Jake Holloway, Chief Product Officer for Rizikon Assurance at Crossword Cybersecurity PLC, explains why Supplier Assurance Frameworks are becoming more-and-more essential in the new world of operational resilience.

More recently, the introduction of SMF24 under the Senior Managers and Certification Regime has put the ownership of resilience firmly in the boardroom.  Those in the new SMF24 role need to have complete visibility of the operational risks that might exist not only in the organisation, but also within its own supply chains and partnerships.  As we have seen with recent IT outages and high-profile cyber security incidents, it is not always the institution itself that is at fault, but it is them that faces the critical attention of their customers, the media and the regulators.

A new era of supplier risk management for the financial sector

In order to manage risk and build healthy supply chains in the financial sector, the right supplier assurance processes need to be in place.  This could be seen as a challenge for procurement teams and the supplier onboarding process, but it reaches much further, with risk assessments needed across areas as diverse as anti-money laundering, the Modern Slavery Act, Health & Safety, GDPR and cyber security to name but a few.

Each of these areas impacts institutions in different ways, and indeed may require specialist expertise to assess the risks.  Cyber security is a great example, where a weakness such as an unpatched VoIP phone or laptop, may be exploited in one supplier to reach back into the financial institutions themselves.

Normally, supplier assurance and procurement teams would stay well away from such technical and complex areas.  For instance, with cyber security, where supplier due diligence requires a cyber security assessment, it’s happily handed over to specialists – whether internal or external.  Any reports, risk acceptance or remediation activities are left with the specialists while supplier assurance teams focus on the core of financial risk, insurance cover, regulatory standards, governance and so on.

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Building a Supplier Assurance Framework

Institutions need a different approach to reduce risks associated with suppliers, vendors and other third parties.  One that combines the supplier assurance and procurement team’s approach based on good practice, controls, evidence of governance and commitments to improvement, with the deeper technical understanding of other teams.  Supplier assurance and procurement teams have a far greater role to play in this than they may imagine through the implementation of a Supplier Assurance Framework.

A good framework, starts with the need for supplier assurance and other departments to gain an improved understanding about each other’s domains, objectives and responsibilities.  A starting point is for them to jointly develop Supplier Impact criteria that systematically assess how much inherent risk every supplier or third party may have in that departments sphere.

Each supplier can then be measured against these criteria, and their supplier impact level established.  A different approach for each level of impact should be agreed jointly and completely standardised across the organisation. For example, for suppliers with a Very High impact, the supplier should be expected to demonstrate a high level of internal controls.  For cyber security, for example, this should take the shape of obtaining or working to achieve high standards such as ISO27001, IASME Governance or NIST.  This means it’s the supplier’s responsibility to show a serious level of control rather than the hard-pressed cyber security team’s responsibility to dive into hundreds of hours of audit work.  It also has the benefit of being easy for a non-cyber specialist to determine if the standard is present or not.

Where a technical assessment is needed, such as a penetration test or at least a “pen test” report from a credible third party, then the supplier assurance team can be responsible for managing that this takes place – handing over the responsibility to the cyber teams or external testers where needed.  This ‘management of risk’ role cannot be handed over though, as tempting as it is when the talk gets incomprehensibly technical.

The approach at each level of supplier impact should also contain the ongoing levels of compliance required in order to maintain good risk management.  Again, the supplier assurance team can timetable these ongoing reviews and focus on the governance of third-party risk – whether cyber, continuity, financial or regulatory.

Total risk visibility for the SMF24 role

What really helps is that the different teams involved in supplier risk start to use shared information systems to record and visualise supplier risks.  We have seen users creating really impressive supplier scorecards showing a combined view of financial, cyber, GDPR, slavery and other risks all on one simple chart for each supplier.  For the person in the SMF24 role, this creates a shared understanding of the totality of risk from each supplier and helps specialist teams, such as IT, and the supplier assurance team understand how their worlds fit together.

The SMF24 role completely changes the emphasis on operations from management to proactive resilience, but to achieve that the right supplier assurance framework, processes and technology need to be in place that give the boardroom the visibility it needs to control, manage and measure their exposure.

But it’s not just about convenience at home. With recent research revealing that 91% of businesses are now investing in voice technologies, the benefits of using them are being realised by offices all over the world. Whether it’s easing administrative duties or enabling companies to provide a smoother, more convenient customer journey, voice technologies are changing the game.

However, not all sectors are reaping the rewards just yet. Whilst financial services (FS) companies have led the charge in some areas of technological adoption and know-how when it comes to voice technologies many of these organisations have a long way to go. By failing to embrace change and invest in voice-led innovation, FS businesses really are missing out on a world of possibilities, says Mark Geremia from Nuance.

Time is money

Earlier this year, a research report discovered that speech recognition technologies could save FS businesses a staggering £40,000 per employee each year. Although not the sole answer to increasing productivity, it was found that these technologies can actually be used to speed up over half of the tasks currently being undertaken by employees within these organisations.

Speech recognition technologies could save FS businesses a staggering £40,000 per employee each year.

Responding to emails, writing Business Studies papers, writing up meeting notes, crafting client communications and recommendation letters... All are jobs on the to-do list which, although important, eat up precious time unnecessarily. And, as the saying goes: in business, time is money.

By deploying speech recognition technologies, the time and therefore cost associated with these administrative duties is reduced significantly – from an average of 275 minutes to just 73 minutes per day. As a result, the burden often associated with admin is reduced and employees are able to channel their efforts into other areas of the business or take on a higher number of clients to create additional income.

Of course, there are some tasks for which speech recognition cannot be used. Client meetings will always require the human element, as will product and provider research. But, given that we talk up to three times faster than we type, there is an undeniable potential for speech recognition to support productivity within FS organisations.

But that’s not the only benefit voice technologies could bring to FS businesses.

Looking after your most valuable asset

In today’s gig economy, employee expectations are at an all-time high and loyalty is far from guaranteed. If FS businesses are not meeting these expectations, they risk losing their talent to their competitors.

The goal for every business, regardless of size or sector, is to create a workforce which is happier and – therefore – more motivated. Achieving this will likely lead to increased investment from individual workers and a boost in overall business productivity.

Voice technologies can support these efforts for FS businesses by granting employees the tools they need to do their jobs effectively. If implemented in a way that involves employees from the offset, encouraging transparency and ensuring that they are aware of all the potential benefits - voice technologies can help to engage an entire workforce.

In fact, recent research showed that employees working in environments where advanced technologies – such as voice solutions – are in widespread use are 56% more likely to say that they are motivated at work. This could have a huge impact on overall business output.  After all, everyone knows that a happier workforce is a more productive one.

Employees working in environments where advanced technologies – such as voice solutions – are in widespread use are 56% more likely to say that they are motivated at work.

Looking ahead

In today’s competitive landscape, there’s no denying that increasing employee productivity is a core goal for any business – regardless of size or sector. It’s almost a given that those failing to meet this goal will miss out.

By providing employees with the tools which will enable them to effectively use their time and do their jobs FS businesses can boost productivity significantly.

Voice technologies could offer an answer to some challenges which have plagued the financial industry for years. With these solutions playing an ever-increasing role in our personal and professional lives, it’s time for FS businesses to realise their potential and embrace the power of voice.