IBM announced a new technology called a crypto anchor verifier; which will allow consumers and businesses to track single object across supply chains. Forbes writer Michael del Castillo explains how this tech could disrupt different industries.
Finance Monthly recently spoke with Rajeev Tandon, CEO of Xavient Digital - powered by TELUS International, about how future competitiveness will be determined by those who make digital evolution a part of their core DNA to continuously adapt ahead of their competitors.
Today’s businesses are focused on digital transformation more than ever before, with many CEOs and CIOs listing it as a top priority in 2018 and beyond. Why is that the case?
Digital transformation or digital enablement - the changes associated with integrating digital technology to enable innovation in all aspects of a business - is increasingly top of mind for many companies because of its significant impact on a brand’s ability to deliver superior customer experiences compared to their competitors. The trend towards digital is also being exacerbated by disruptive companies that continue to shake up traditional business models and steadily gain market share.
In the digital age, consumers want next-gen technology-enabled user experiences today - not tomorrow - from the brands they support. These predictive and hyper-personalised interactions, which must also be available when, where and how they want, are quickly becoming the norm as opposed to a ‘value added’ feature. In addition to making every customer touchpoint and interaction more meaningful, evolving digitally also helps on the back end, improving processes and driving operational agility - critical factors in a rapidly evolving marketplace.
Importantly, companies must recognise that digital transformation has no clear finish line, but must be repeatedly executed in order to keep pace with new technologies entering the market.
What are the top factors driving digital enablement?
Customer experience is arguably the topmost factor driving digital enablement as a captivating customer journey goes a long way in establishing unflinching customer loyalty. In fact, customer experience is becoming increasingly recognised as a fundamental competitive differentiator - even more so than the product in many instances.
Rising competition in this regard has brought dynamic technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain among others to the forefront. When harnessed as part of an overall digital enablement strategy, these technologies can help brands develop a deeper understanding of their customers’ expectations in order to better align their products and services to meet, and oftentimes, anticipate their needs.
Additionally, as tech-savvy Millennials overtake Baby Boomers as the largest segment of the population, brands need to up their ‘digital game’ in order to create engaging user experiences. Whether companies seek to accomplish this internally, or look to develop a trusted outsourcing partnership externally, this is how brands will thrive today and into the future in the new age of the digitised customer experience. Moreover, brands need to focus on delivering personalised services and shorter time-to-market, as both significantly contribute towards delightful customer experiences.
Are there specific industries that should be focused on digital enablement?
Regardless of product or service type, the size of your business or your industry, leveraging some aspect of a digital evolution will enhance your performance. This is because the true power of digital doesn’t live in the technologies themselves, but in how they are selected, customised and integrated with one another and into all aspects of a company, including customer service. Where there are customers, there will be patterns in their behaviours, expectations and attitudes, and digital enablement is about arranging all customer touchpoints into a connected network that is proactive, agile, intelligent and analytical.
Financial services and FinTech are industries where digital enablement has flourished in order to meet the needs of consumers who are continually seeking more efficient, accessible and personalised experiences from their providers. Traditional banks, for instance, can no longer get by with simply a website and an app, they need to be able to offer far more features than the ability to check an account balance to keep up with the new products and services being offered by non-financial brands such as Apple Pay and Google Wallet.
But, when FinTech providers focus entirely on launching new products or rolling out more flexible options, customer service can get left behind. By partnering with a customer experience provider to help sustain the brand experience, FinTechs can balance innovation with exceptional customer service.
All in all, digitally-enabled businesses reduce customer effort, which leads to satisfied customers, increased brand affinity and top-line growth.
What are some of the challenges that businesses face when undertaking a digital enablement strategy?
While some worry about being able to keep pace with the latest technologies, others fear falling in the gulf between the initiation and finalisation of large-scale initiatives, or are hesitant to invest in new technology before they realise a financial return on a legacy system.
These are valid concerns and challenges, however, they should not stop companies from pursuing a digital enablement strategy. Instead, they should inform how you design and execute it, as there are various ways to incorporate many different aspects of digital capabilities into your business.
Digital enablement does not mean that a business needs to transform its operations overnight, nor does it preclude a major initial investment. It is a process and companies can begin by taking small steps, such as integrating a chatbot or an AI-powered analytics platform into their existing operations.
It’s also important to understand that technology adoption alone does not equal digital enablement. The overall corporate evolution, with an emphasis on strategy, operations and culture is the star - technology is the supporting cast. In this regard, another challenge organisations can face is internal resistance to change by employees.
Not everyone welcomes a new way of doing things, and if widespread, this lack of curiosity and experimentation often deprives businesses from discovering new and better ways to operate, work more efficiently and deliver enhanced customer experiences. A risk-averse mindset can be similarly detrimental, so it’s critical to foster a culture that embraces change, has a growth mindset, and is agile. Training and education also go a long way in executing a solid digital strategy.
What are some of the ways brands are leveraging next-gen technology to change the way they do business?
Innovation in technology has empowered companies from start-ups to mature brands, to create disruptions in their industry in order to gain a competitive edge by reimagining the possibilities for their customers. Next-gen technologies are helping them better understand the needs of their customers today and can more accurately predict what they will want in the future in order to guide the necessary improvements to their tools and technology architecture.
AI-powered analytics platforms that aggregate agent-customer interactions from various channels into intelligent patterns are in high demand in an age where customer expectations are at an all-time high. Brands are profiting from these platforms’ abilities to use voice recognition, natural language processing and even sarcasm detection to decipher customer intent with reliable probability to detect critical issues that need immediate resolution and to drive recommended actions.
At the end of the day, successfully implementing a digital enablement strategy also requires having highly-skilled and knowledgeable customer service agents who can fully leverage these new technologies across different platforms and customer contact points. In the months and years ahead, these types of universal agents will continue to be key to providing high-tech, high- touch brand experiences.
About Xavient Digital
Acquired by TELUS International in February 2018, Xavient Digital - powered by TELUS International, provides advanced, next-gen IT consulting and delivery services, including Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered Digital Transformation services, User Interface/User Experience (UI/UX) design, Open Source Platform services, Cloud services, Over-The-Top (OTT) solutions, Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data services, DevOps, and IT Lifecycle services.
With a focus on supporting fast-growing tech, travel and hospitality, telecommunications and healthcare clients, the combined company of more than 30,000 inspired team members is a leader in the customer experience and digital services markets.
Website: https://www.xavient.com/
https://www.telusinternational.com/
Finance Monthly caught up with Alex Corral, the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of preCharge Risk Management Solutions. Founded in 2003, preCharge has since protected thousands of the world’s largest merchants, including Sony Entertainment, Footlocker, BassPro and many other brand name clients. Below Alex tells us more about it.
Tell us a bit about the technology and solution that PreCharge offers.
Since our inception, our technology has protected merchants. If you purchased from a major brand name online, there is a good chance that preCharge reviewed the order. Our goal was always to make identity validation seamless and in most cases, the millions of people we monitored never even knew. For over a decade, we worked with merchants to understand their tools, their needs and their technologies, and those merchants supplied us with their internal processes, as well as with millions upon millions of consumers, which lead to the creation of one of the most advanced identity verification tools online. While merchant service is a fickle industry, and merchants often change providers every 18 months, our average merchant was on board for upwards of five to ten years. Our goal was simple - verify the consumer without the need for them to contend with sending in their ID, calling for verification and jumping through hoops. We are now taking that same technology and offering it freely to consumers in an open-source, stable, audited and compliant solution. Our goal is to offer consumers a way of transacting with each other and not having to worry about whether who they are talking to is legitimate. We do this by offering everyone a free preCharge Wallet, which unlike traditional digital currencies, is centered around a person’s email address. From there, we validate the consumer, and in 99% of the cases, the consumer doesn't even need to send in their ID or other personal information because we are able to use the various data points to track who they really are. In the rare 1%, we will simply ask for some verification through our third-party companies, but preCharge will never see your information. Once a person has a wallet, they can basically ping other users with our utility token; think digital currency. An advantage is that while the wallet does have a unique alphanumeric code like traditional tokens, the core is an email address, so anyone with an email address can either send tokens to another user or simply use the service to validate their identity. We are rolling out an oAuth technology that will allow merchants to freely use the service, validate consumers or even transact business, essentially taking what merchants paid millions of dollars for year after year and giving it away for free. Our feeling is that our merchants help build this network, the consumers are the network; why not give it back to them for free?
What makes PreCharge’s solutions unique?
While there are literally thousands of token options out there, no other is as heavily focused on compliance, auditing and openness as preCharge is. When it comes down to it, someone will become the leader in the token arena, why shouldn’t it be a company that has been building the technology for over a decade? We were helping create tokens even before it was a thing in 2006, with Sony Entertainment and Galanet, and worked with them for years on their in-house game tokens. My guess is that when you consider our history, our partners and our resources, preCharge will become the leading transactional token on the market.
PreCharge has been helping merchants and consumers all over the world before people knew anything about cryptocurrencies - can you tell us more about the history of the company?
I had just sold my marketing company and moved to New York City. In 3 years, we had gone from start-up to over 30,000 clients, and were one of the leading companies in PPC in 2001. During my time there, most of our operations were handled by leading consultants or by our people in-house, but the one thing I enjoyed working on was processing the actual credit cards, I even created a script where every time we would process a credit card, it would sound like a cash register. We eventually had to take the script down, which is a good thing, I guess. Over this period, I had personally processed tens of thousands of credit card transactions and over time, I noticed various patterns and figured, why not automate it? Most consumers are good, honest people, but our job was to focus on the bad actors, those looking to harm others and then simply stop them. I met several people who really liked the idea. We then were able to gather 40 investors, and preCharge grew. Over the years, the system adapted and changed but the goal always remained the same: to seamlessly allow commerce. The sad part is that whenever we would find a bad actor that was a merchant, they would sue to suppress the information, so we were often the target of lawsuits and various litigation issues. Those matters just became a cost of doing business. We put a lot of focus on compliance, audits, third-party reviews and ensuring compliance, and plan to continue that, and with this transparency built into our DNA, people will learn to trust digital currency and those behind it.
Have you always wanted to be the CEO of preCharge?
No - my goal was never to be the Chief Executive Officer; I am more of a hands-on person. We had hired two CEOs in our past and sadly, the last one nearly destroyed the company. Working with my team and our people, I am doing what I can to be the kind of CEO people can be proud of, and hope to continue to do that until preCharge reaches the point where a more experienced and savvy CEO comes along.
What do you think the future holds for Blockchain and cryptocurrencies?
I find most things in life are evolutionary, meaning they are bound to happen. It's pretty easy to project - space travel, quantum computing, digital currency, all inevitable solutions. What most people tend not to realise is that we've always had digital currency, as long as people transacted business digitally. When you send money through a Money Transmitter like Western Union or use your credit card online, you are in fact doing it digitally. The only difference with cryptocurrency is that it's open and secure, for all to see. People lost trust in the closed loop natures of payment systems and frankly, I don't blame them. I have first hand witnessed some pretty horrific things banks do, and frankly, it's sad. Digital currency is an absolute; governments and many banks are trying to suppress it, but you can't. The very nature of digital currency is that it's open and secure; it's just applying value to one form of digital currency over another, and as it stands, people will ultimately find that they can trust an open source and public system over any government or bank, which is what everyone ultimately wants. preCharge is simply the medium to make that happen.
What lies on the horizon for PreCharge?
We are working to build out a partner network, where people can train and educate others on financial management and digital currency. We plan to focus a lot on teaching people - from high school students, all the way up to regulators, as to what digital currency really is. We want to show people that it's there, it's real and although you may not be able to touch it, it’s the very thing governments have been doing for decades. We already have several classroom visits set up, and are looking to build out more. We have a number of online certifications planned, where people can learn about it online in their free time. Ultimately, we want to educate people on what it is and what it is not. Not so much teach people about preCharge but rather, what is Blockchain technology, what is digital currency and why is it so important. Ultimately if we can do that and prove to people that it's real, then maybe they will find they can trust an open system as a means of validation, and hopefully the solution they ultimately trust is preCharge.
I am happy to see the industry starting to mature, and we plan to be there when they graduate!
Website: https://www.precharge.com/
Positive Technologies has announced its latest report from its own audits of web application security: Web Application Vulnerabilities in 2017. The results, collated through the security firm’s automated source code analysis through the PT Application Inspector, detected vulnerabilities in every single web application tested in 2017. Among the key findings, 94% of applications had at least one high-severity vulnerability, demonstrating that websites are a critical weakness for organizations.
Breaking down the detected vulnerabilities by severity level, most (65%) were of medium severity, with much of the remainder (27%) consisting of high-severity vulnerabilities.
Leigh-Anne Galloway, Cyber Security Resilience Lead at Positive Technologies said: “Web applications practically have a target painted on their back. A large number of unfixed, exploitable vulnerabilities is a windfall for hackers, who can use these flaws to steal sensitive information or access an internal network. Fortunately, most vulnerabilities can be discovered long before an attack ever happens. The key is to analyze application source code.”
Financial services are at greatest risk
As expected by Positive Technologies experts, finance web applications (46% of all tested web applications) were at the greatest risk, with high-severity vulnerabilities found in 100% of tested banking and finance web applications.
In fact, web applications at banks and other financial institutions, as well as governments, draw the most attention from hackers, as confirmed in a series of Positive Technologies reports.
Denial of service is especially threatening for e-commerce web applications, because any downtime means missed business and lost customers. High-profile e-commerce web applications receive large amounts of daily visits, increasing the motivation for attackers to find vulnerabilities to turn against users.
Attacks targeting users are the most dangerous
Positive Technologies assessed the potential impact of every detected web application vulnerability and compiled a list of the most common security threats. The number-one threat is attacks that target web application users. Alarmingly, 87% of banking web applications and all government web applications tested by Positive Technologies were susceptible to attacks against users. Users of government web applications in particular tend to not be security-savvy, which makes them easy victims for attackers.
The most common vulnerability across the board was Cross-Site Scripting (affecting 82% of tested web applications), which allows attackers to perform phishing attacks against web application users or infect their computers with malware.
Other critical vulnerabilities also find their way into government web applications. For example, security assessment of a web application for a Russian local government revealed SQL Injection, a critical vulnerability that could allow attackers to obtain sensitive information from a database.
(Source: Positive Technologies)
Finance Monthly speaks with former tech entrepreneur Gary Moon, who turned tech investment banker 16 years ago. He is currently the Managing Partner of the boutique investment bank Nfluence Partners, which focuses on M&A and capital formation advisory across various technology, media & telecom sectors, as well as having a new growth capital fund for mission-aligned businesses.
What challenges arise in advising clients on their M&A strategy given the fluctuating nature of the sector?
If you are not active in the market across a significant number of assignments, it can be difficult to understand the nuances of what drives buyer behavior in various technology sectors where valuations can range from < 1x revenues to > 16x revenues. You need strong historical understanding and pattern recognition on how technology adoption cycles impact M&A. With the lack of an IPO market, consolidation of middle market companies by the tech elites and significant increases in private equity activity in the tech sector, the dynamics of what attracts various buyers and the valuations that they will pay shift regularly as well.
What have been the trends in the corporate M&A sector in the US in the past twelve months?
Over the past year, we’ve noticed that strategic acquirers are more selective and require a higher degree of strategic value to transact. The long-term trend of pursuing companies of more meaningful scale has continued, while a mix of deal consideration to ensure management continue for several years post-acquisition is also increasing.
What issues can bring a deal to a standstill? How would you overcome these?
The biggest and most common issue is missing revenue forecasts. While one can be optimistic, it is more important to have a realistic set of projections that can be delivered within a few percentage points of accuracy. The other common mistake for companies that are not well advised is not getting in front of bad news. Diligence teams are thorough and you can count on them to find any outstanding issues. Better to deal with them up front than to have a surprise as you are trying to close a transaction. Otherwise, not only will you have to deal with the issue, but you’ll also have to deal with the breakdown of trust given the lack of disclosure.
What advice would you give to a company considering a potential merger or an acquisition?
Make sure that the most likely companies to acquire you know who you are in advance through partnership or other market-based activity. The majority of transactions happen between companies that know each other in advance. It also provides you potential competitors in the sale process, as you do not want to be in a position where you are only negotiating with a single party for your acquisition.
What are the companies that Nfluence works with?
We work with expansion and growth stage companies across a number of sectors within TMT including both venture ecosystem and entrepreneurially financed. We are also excited about working with growth stage companies in the purpose economy - mission-aligned and/or impact-driven. These companies tend to have unique requirements from capital formation to acquisition and liquidity and we are spending a lot of time working in and developing this ecosystem.
About Gary Moon & Nfluence:
Spun out in 2018, Nfluence was originally founded in 2011 as the Technology, Media & Telecom (TMT) group at Headwaters MB. Gary Moon and his partners built Headwaters into a top 10 technology-focused boutique investment bank ranked by closed transactions in 2017. Over the past 12 years, Gary and the senior team at Nfluence have managed the completion of nearly 200 transactions, repeatedly demonstrating tenacity, creativity and effectiveness on behalf of their clients. Gary has been a strategic and financial adviser to numerous technology and growth firms and has extensive experience with both institutionally financed and founder financed ventures. Gary has advised on client exits to such prominent companies as AT&T, Cisco, Equifax, Microsoft, Nuance, Tyco International and WeWork, and has helped firms raise growth capital and complete private equity recapitalizations from name brand institutional investors.
Prior to joining Headwaters, Gary was the Managing Director of Europe for Ridgecrest Capital Partners, a boutique investment bank focused on technology mergers & acquisitions. In this capacity, Gary led the efforts of the firm in growing the European practice which ultimately comprised a significant percentage firm’s revenues. Prior to joining Ridgecrest, Gary led the Mobile, Wireless and Communications Technology practices for Viant Capital, a boutique investment bank in San Francisco. Prior to embarking on his advisory career, Gary was the founder and CEO of Luna Communications, a North American focused wireless systems integration firm. Luna Communications was sold to a publicly traded competitor, where Gary became the CTO and Managing Director of Client Services.
Wesbite: http://nfluencepartners.com/
In a report published titled "The Future Of Banking: Islamic Finance Needs Standardization And FinTech To Boost Growth," S&P Global Ratings says it believes the global Islamic finance industry will expand slowly in 2018 and 2019.
We think standardization and financial technology (fintech) could help accelerate the industry's growth in the short to medium term. In particular, standard Sharia interpretation and legal documentation could simplify sukuk issuance, while making room for innovation. Fintech, on the other hand, could stimulate growth by making transactions quicker and easier.
However, fintech could also disrupt the market. "In the medium term, we envisage some disruption in the payment services sector, an increase in the number of people using financial services, as well as greater use of regulatory technology for Sharia compliance, and blockchain to support transaction traceability and identity protection," said S&P Global Head of Islamic Finance, Dr. Mohamed Damak.
"We expect the Islamic finance industry will grow by only about 5% on average over the next two years, owing to tepid economic conditions in certain core markets," added Dr. Damak.
We foresee only a marginal influence of fintech on our Islamic bank ratings over that period. We consider that Islamic banks will be able to adapt to their changing operating environment through a combination of collaboration with fintech companies and cost-reduction measures. We also believe that regulators across the wider Islamic finance landscape will continue to protect the financial stability of their banking systems.
(Source: S&P Global)
Nearly 9 in 10 technology professionals believe blockchain technology will be as transformative for business as the internet has been.
New research from Intrinsic Insights commissioned by BTL Group has revealed that after reduced costs, the main benefits of blockchain technology are greater data security and protection against cyber threats.
At a time that concerns over data are at their highest, blockchain technology is considered a very adept way to provide greater privacy.
“In a world of increasing concerns over the security and integrity of our data, individuals and businesses are realising the inherent benefits that applications built on blockchain technology can provide when keeping people’s data private,” said Dominic McCann, CEO of BTL Group. “This research also illustrates just how many businesses are looking at using blockchain and of those that are yet to explore it, there is a significant proportion looking to do so in the next two years.”
After two years of high profile and successful blockchain projects, learning how blockchain can be developed better, on Monday 23rd April, BTL Group will be test launching Interbit its multiple blockchain platform - a next-generation platform that has unique “chain joining” capability specifically created so that developers and businesses can quickly, easily and securely build applications.
Tackling these issues head-on, after two years of development and investment, Interbit’s unique “chain joining capability” has the capacity to inter-connect many thousands of Interbit blockchains per solution, in completely private, secure and horizontally scalable manner, addressing the shortcomings of.
A token-free blockchain platform, Interbit has been developed for ease of use. Whether users be a global enterprise, business innovator or software developer, the platform has been written in JavaScript to produce a level of simplicity that is efficient for users and requires no need to learn new programming languages or tools.
Tom Thompson, CTO of BTL Group Ltd. said: “After two years of successfully completed high profile proof of concepts, significant investment and committed development, we are ready to release our Interbit platform for testing and feedback. What we have built is a next generation blockchain platform that allows users to benefit from our chain joining capability by easily and quickly building fast, scalable and secure blockchain applications. Developers can be up and running on an Interbit blockchain within minutes.”
(Source: BTL Group)
The Internet of Things (IoT) is all around us. From providing doctors with patient data in real time, to tracking vehicle performance, to automating building systems, IoT is transforming businesses and enabling organisations to create entirely new systems and services, engage customers and drive growth. Below Richard Smith, Regional Manager at SOTI, gives us a brief on the top three industries ready for IOT transformation in 2018.
Despite the huge rise in connected devices, there are still some industries that are hesitant to adopt new technologies, regardless of the business benefits. With nearly 20 billion devices[1] predicted to be connected to the IoT by 2020, it is essential that organisations invest in new IoT technologies to keep up with evolving customer demands.
With IoT’s growing maturity comes new approaches, business models, and solutions that will see organisations ramping up deployments and incorporating this technology into their products, processes and workflows.
Almost every industry can benefit from investing in IoT but the important thing to consider is that IoT cannot be deployed in silo. Connecting a business from a technology perspective is all about leveraging mobile (where the business information resides) with IoT. Mobility has taken functionality way beyond the four walls of a business but IoT stands to amplify this.
The communication between mobile and IoT allows even more information to be connected to back office systems even without the need for human intervention. As the adoption of this technology continues, these three industries are ripe for IoT transformation.
Healthcare
IoT has taken healthcare by storm. From wearables that track patient health, to providing remote care to patients who live in isolated areas, the shift towards the digitalisation of the healthcare industry has seen more healthcare workers getting connected and relying on mobile devices. The biggest benefit of IoT in healthcare is to keep patients out of the hospital by providing more effective home care. This is helping to reduce re-infections but also reduces costs, especially when it comes to monitoring patients with chronic illnesses.
Mobile devices are enabling doctors, nurses and other healthcare practitioners to monitor patients outside of the hospital; wearable devices track pulse rates and motion sensors and trackers protect more vulnerable patients. These remote patient monitors provide richer information in a timelier fashion. The ability to now track patients over a 24/7 period - compared to an hour’s assessment in a hospital room – can not only help to diagnose illnesses quicker, but can also measure the effect of treatment. If a medication impacts the patient’s readings, a doctor can be aware of this problem before a patient tells them.
This method of patient tracking not only reduces the complexity for the healthcare facility in offering an exemplary level of patient care, but also reduces the cost. Wearable devices are extremely cost effective and the accuracy of the data reduces patient time in the hospitals, which has another positive impact on costs.
As more and more medical devices become internet-connected with this evolving technology, it is vital that the healthcare industry ensures its compliant with data protection laws when it comes to the transportation of this data. Operators must ensure that medical grade devices are configured effectively, that passwords and encryption is in place and that the connection between the devices is secure to protect patient data from potential hackers.
Transportation and Logistics
Whether by air, ground or sea, transportation and logistics are essential components to many enterprises’ productivity, and access to real-time data is critical. There is a growing reliance on IoT and mobile devices to provide visibility into the supply chain right through to personnel, equipment and transactions that enable enterprises to better support peak operations in real time.
Transportation and logistics businesses are focused on maximising supply chain efficiency to sustain profitability and efficiencies. IoT has already begun to disrupt this industry through systems that are able to sense and respond to vehicle usage and changes in real-time, managing downtime to operate fleets at the lowest possible cost.
IoT provides the ability to track where vehicles are in their route, ensuring they are delivering packages and goods on time and being able to reroute trucks based on live situations such as accidents, road closures or weather conditions. With workers constantly on the move, visibility into where these assets are, and what they are doing can improve business operations.
With the announcement of driverless trucks, IoT will play a major role in tracking vehicles on their routes, deploying preventative maintenance, observing driver behavior and monitoring vehicle security with the goal of improving the bottom line.
Retail
Retail is one of the most fast-paced industries globally. According to Accenture[2], the IoT movement offers retailers opportunities in three critical areas: customer experience, the supply chain and new channels along with revenue streams.
IoT is already being used in retail, but 2018 will be the year where this technology really transforms the customer experience. We’ve already seen an increase in customer touchpoints – such as in-store tablets and online chatbots – but this will evolve rapidly over the next 12 months as shops become even more connected.
For example, we will increasingly see sensors being used for inventory management, allowing a connection to be made from back-end inventory to in-store and online. Also, the in-store customer experience is transforming to meet the demands of the digital consumer – as such, beacons will be used to push relevant messages at point-of-sale and sensors will be in operation to track patterns to develop better instore layouts
Consumers are now taking these features of the technology into account. According to our own research[3], 67 per cent of shoppers are more likely to shop at a store that integrates technology and over two-thirds believe retailers that utilise more technology enable a faster shopping experience.
What’s most exciting for the coming year is how extensive the applications of IoT in retail are. Robots will stack shelves, freeing up staff to add value to the customer, while smart mirrors will let customers virtually try on clothes and connected beacons will send out personalised offers to consumers immediately as they enter the shop.
Future-proofing IoT
This year will be a breakthrough in IoT usage and applications across a wide variety of industries. The ubiquitous nature of IoT will be evident and the technologies driving the usage will continue to emerge and evolve to meet the important needs of deployment, distribution and security.
SOTI MobiControl is an enterprise mobility management solution that secures and manages IoT devices, offering geo fencing functionality to track devices, allowing remote management and keeping both the device and connection secure.
As with any early technology deployment, the standardisation of IoT will be a critical consideration across all industry sectors, to avoid fragmentation and allow integration of all business operations that need to be built in.
Each industry will be uniquely impacted by IoT but essentially they will all experience a more streamlined business process because of increased connectivity, reliability and efficiency taking business connectivity to the next level.
[1] https://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2636073
[2] https://www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/Accenture/Conversion-Assets/DotCom/Documents/Global/PDF/Dualpub_14/Accenture-The-Internet-Of-Things.pdf
[3] https://www.soti.net/media/269478/retail-infographic-2018.pdf
Banks are increasingly using your data intelligently and effectively. Let’s find out how far they can go. Julius Abensur, Head of Industry and Financial Services at Relay42, explains.
Technology has advanced at a rapid pace in banking and our demands have changed, making our data – and banks using it properly to benefit us – more important than ever.
Through various utilities, facilities, transactions and experiences, banks have more opportunities to break down traditional barriers to offer us a more seamless experience across channels and outcomes, rather than products and functions. By using our data effectively, they can deliver us a unique journey, based around our personal interests and most frequently-used channels. The benefits to banks are clear; customers who are fully engaged bring an average of 37% more annual revenue to their primary bank than customers who are disengaged.
To achieve the levels of engagement and loyalty we now expect, banks need to ensure they are using our data wisely and responsibly in order to nurture our trust. If banks aren’t using our data to provide us with a better and more valuable user experience, it won’t be long before we stop sharing it altogether. This will only be made easier in light of regulations such as GDPR and PSD2, which are placing stricter rules on how banks use our information.
So how can banks use our data more effectively, while maintaining our trust?
Merging the real and digital worlds
Impending regulation changes are slowly pushing banks and disruptive fintech start-ups to collaborate, rather than compete, and this is opening up a whole new world of opportunities for us as customers. Banks possess a stronghold of customer data ripe for delivering personalised and useful experiences, and by partnering with fintechs who specialise in innovative, agile technologies, they can deliver true value.
For example, let’s say that a customer (we’ll call him Bill) has just paid for dinner at a restaurant with his friends, and they all want to split the cost and pay Bill back. By partnering with the right fintech and sharing customer data across platforms with a smart data platform, the bank can make this repayment process easier by enabling Bill to distribute payment requests through an online chat service via a single link. By using this link, Bill’s friends can then repay him instantly regardless of who they bank with.
By using data management technology to responsibly share data across different platforms, banks can launch intelligent customer experiences and solutions relatively quickly across both the real and the digital world. This offers clear advantages for customers, who can now use more intelligent services to increase convenience. And this is just the beginning.
Connecting with other industries
When it comes to delivering truly beneficial experiences, banks need to be looking beyond the industry they serve. We all have a vast range of interests that can be capitalised upon through the sophisticated use of data, and this can be achieved by connecting with other industries.
Take the travel industry, for instance. As seamless partnerships between payment providers, booking interfaces and airlines become ubiquitous, travel and financial services leaders need to take a sideways glance to carefully choose trusted partners, value propositions and technology.
To translate this into a practical example: Let’s revisit Bill. Bill has a Global Travel Plus credit card, which is issued by his bank and connected to a global airline, granting him rewards and discounts when he travels. The bank has also created a service called the Travel Plus app, which offers relevant recommendations related to Bill’s journeys and behaviours, and is orchestrated by the bank’s customer journey technology.
Through intelligent cross-pollination of insights and data, the bank can deliver a suite of offers based on Bill’s loyalty and customer value, including frequent flyer points and hotel discounts. Then, through contextual retargeting, Bill’s bank can send financially-related recommendations for his next trip to Barcelona, from the best insurance rates to lock-in forward Euro rates. This kind of data-driven personalisation is what we now crave, and simply would not be possible without banks connecting with other platforms and industries.
Stitching data intelligently
Data is undoubtedly the key to delivering the innovative, highly personalised banking experience that we are all seeking. For banks, the benefits are clear - customer retention is around 14% higher for companies that effectively apply big data and analytics to deal with velocity.
However, if banks are to achieve this then they need to make sure they use our data intelligently. As we have explored, using data management technology can go a long way to effectively stick data together to create a single customer view — the foundations for orchestrating right customer experiences — for the right people. Additionally, partnering with companies both inside and outside of the financial sector can open up new opportunities for next-generation loyalty and engagement.
From AI to all things IoT, Russell Bennett, Chief Technology Officer at Fraedom, discusses with Finance Monthly the top five technologies that are already making waves in the banking sector.
Over the past five years, technology has fundamentally changed how the financial services sector operates. Many retail banks already successfully cater to customers’ digital needs. Business banking is now beginning to follow retail’s lead – and here we outline five of the top technologies transforming commercial banking today.
- Biometrics and security
When adopting new payment methodologies, banks must strike a balance between ease-of-use, ease-of-access, and security. We’ve already seen that consumer payment methods using biometric authentication becoming mainstream and it won’t be long before corporate clients expect the same.
Extending this functionality into corporate cards has the potential to make commercial payments more seamless and secure. Mobile wallets that defer to personal attributes to make secure payments on cards offer a potential route forward.
- Artificial Intelligence
Automation is dramatically increasing the number of financial transactions in an organisation. However, while it can track and store more processes than humans can – and more accurately – it currently can’t provide the next level service many clients are coming to expect of their financial partners: planning and modelling.1
AI is rapidly establishing itself as the missing piece of the puzzle that takes the data flows created by automated transactions and knits them together to discover patterns. All this is important to commercial banks because patterns in spending and efficiency can potentially deliver valuable insights to help clients improve their financial health.
- APIs
Customers’ demands, and expectations are moving rapidly, so there is growing pressure on the banking industry to provide new, easy-to-use, frictionless digital services fast.
Application programming interfaces (APIs) provide the technology to exchange customer data with other parties in a simple and secure way2, facilitating rapid innovation in products and services. Creating new applications such as voice banking, P2P, loan processing and risk management and using APIs as building blocks, is now seen as the best way to keep up with the innovation challenges facing the financial industry.
Fintechs have dominated the API landscape by creating apps that have challenged and often surpassed solutions made by the banking industry.
To keep pace, banks now need to either invest heavily to develop this technology themselves or partner with fintechs in a bid to be more effective and efficient.3 By working together and taking advantage of APIs, banks and fintech firms can enhance the customer experience much more than either entity could do on its own.
- ePayables – Crossing over from the Consumer to the Commercial World
The use of different payment types is partly a response to the consumerisation of our financial experience. Corporate clients can’t understand why payments should still be a laborious process of raising invoices and purchase orders, requesting printed cheques or bank transfers and creating lengthy payment terms.
Instead, the immediacy of a card – real, virtual or embedded in an app – ties all the above elements together. It gives unsurpassed traceability and is easy to add to financial management software.
Historically, paying by using a card has been seen as a debt generator. However, using payment cards as a substitute for invoice terms makes them a useful tool both to enhance a company’s working capital positions and to improve traceability, security and the level of control that can be placed on business spend.
- Expense Management Systems (EMS)
An Expense Management Systems (EMS) is just one of many tools that can be brought together into a single financial view, helping businesses gain greater control over expenditure. Unlike written expense policies and separate transactional management software, an EMS embeds expense policies into the technology, allowing real-time reconciliation and approvals to take place.
Up to now, retail banking has been ahead of the game in embracing new technologies and digital disruption but corporate banks are now grasping the need to take advantage of the latest technologies to ensure commercial clients reap the same rewards - from workflow efficiencies through to intuitive, mobile first experiences, a trend that is only likely to accelerate in the future.
How are banks meant to co-exist, work with or become the initiators of fast-developing fintech when most are so caught up in legacy systems? Below Finance Monthly benefits from expert insight from Kyle Ferguson, Chief Executive Officer at Fraedom, on the potential avenues banks could focus on in the pursuit of tech advancement and the maintenance of a competitive edge.
Legacy systems are seen to be the most common barrier preventing commercial banks from developing fintech applications in-house. That was a key finding of a recent survey conducted by Fraedom. The research that collected the thoughts of shareholders, middle manager and senior managers in commercial banks revealed that more than six out of ten (61%) of banks are being held back by this technological heritage.
The banking industry has historically found it difficult to make rapid technological advancements so in some cases it is unsurprising that older systems are holding them back. However, with this in mind, smaller fintech firms have already started to muscle their way in to help assist retail banks with providing a more comprehensive range of services to consumers.
Banks now have the option to negotiate the obstacle of legacy systems through partnering or outsourcing selected services to a fintech provider. Trusted fintech firms are offering banks the chance to reap the benefits from technical applications that can lead to more revenue making opportunities, without taking the large risk of banks taking the step into the unknown alone.
However, a shift does appear to be on the horizon with only 26% of commercial banks not outsourcing any services 41% of respondents globally stated that their bank currently outsources payment solutions to fintech partners. This was in comparison to 33% who say they do the same for commercial card management solutions and 26% who claim to do so for expense management solutions.
It was also interesting to note that banks are planning to ramp up their fintech investment over the next three years, with 77% of respondents in total believing that fintech investment in their bank would increase. This feeling was especially strong in the US where 82% of the sample stated this belief opposed to 72% of those based in the UK.
This transitionary period is great news for ambitious fintech firms. Banks are starting to realise that established fintech providers can make a big difference in areas of their business by providing technical expertise as well as in-depth knowledge of local markets.
It’s all about selecting key, digital-driven services that will help retain customers and entice new ones. The ability to offer card expenditure and balance transparency can reduce risk and costs for issuing banks. It is a service that can be joined on to an existing business with little overhead costs.
This is just one of several ways that partnering with fintech firms can bring substantial benefits. This increase in agility also helps banks to speed up service choices and improve customer satisfaction.
Forming a partnership can provide banks with a way around the issue of coping with legacy systems and avoid implementation costs. By forming a partnership, outsourcing banks buy in to a product roadmap that will keep their offerings ever relevant as fintechs develop the technology required.
The partnering approach is becoming more appealing to commercial banks. They understand their customers value their reliability, trustworthiness and strength of their brand. But increasingly, they also understand the importance of encouraging innovation to remain ahead of the technology curve, while recognising it is not the bread and butter of their business.
While legacy systems appear to be the most common factor in preventing banks from creating in-house fintech applications, the study did also reveal that a lack of expertise - recognised by 56% of respondents was also a major stumbling block.
To innovate and grow, banks and fintech firms alike must have employees that understand the technology – developers, systems architects and people with a record of solving problems. Taking a forward-thinking approach to recruitment is key.
If they want to attract and retain the best talent, organisations need to be listening, adapting and trusting each other to work together to resolve issues and frustrations. We believe all the above elements will become increasingly important in any successful business.
Overall, the research represents growing strength within the fintech sector and it is great to see that more banks are beginning to see the value in partnering with a fintech provider. In turn, this is delivering a better service for banks and customers alike and it is a trend that I expect to continue as banks fight to keep on the pulse of technology in the sector.
Financial sector leaders feel more positive than peers in other industries (89%) about tech change within their organisations, according to Fujitsu’s Tech in a Transforming Britain report. Despite half (50%) saying banks will not exist in their current form in a decade, an overwhelming 95% believe technology is the key to driving their organisation forward.
Seven-in-10 financial sector leaders believe technology will enable them to overcome many of the socioeconomic issues they are facing today. This is an idea that their peers agree with; over a third (37%) of business leaders are banking on financial services to innovate and drive change in the UK, while almost half of business leaders (45%) believe banks are changing the most in the UK today.
It’s a change both consumers and leaders in the industry are keen to see continue. Consumers want to see Artificial Intelligence (13%), biometrics (15%) and a 5G mobile network (10%) implemented to improve their experience in banking over the coming year. With banking leaders looking to Artificial Intelligence (42%), biometrics (35%) and robotics (32%) in the same period it is clear that there is alignment.
“Financial services is clearly seen by the public as a sector that has and continues to be transformed by technology,” said Mike Foster, Managing Director, Financial Services Sector, Fujitsu. “This perception is fully justified. The majority of financial services organisations have not only embraced technology, but are seeing benefits with workforce productivity, operational efficiency and in driving business growth. As further transformation of the sector looks inevitable – for example through the introduction of new pieces of regulation such as PSD2 and rise of blockchain technology – it is vital that organisations consider how new technologies can shape their futures and ensure they are ready to compete in a diverse marketplace.”
Improving employee productivity (47%), operational efficiency (38%) and fuelling business growth (37%) were the key internal benefits financial leaders attribute to technology today.
There are challenges ahead, however. While the financial services sector is aware of the benefits of technology, they have concerns. More than half of the sector’s leaders (55%) say cybersecurity is their biggest operational challenge today – higher than the average across industries (48%). Access to talent in a new digital world is also an issue; 56% say a lack of skilled employees has the potential to impact growth and revenue most within their business.
Foster continued: “Banks have led the digital charge for many years, a fact that is recognised both amongst their peers and UK consumers. Many assume this means there is nothing left for them to implement, yet, with almost half saying their competitors are doing more to drive the UK forward, this is clearly not the case. While there are a wealth of digital tools and services available for consumers, there is a need for banks to collaborate to begin to address their digital future. Whether that’s coming together to address cybersecurity risks, or working together to address the skills gap, the focus must now be on the internal demands to ensure success.”
(Source: Fujitsu)
