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LEADER TALK: In Conversation with NIRAJ SINGHAL, Senior Vice President & Head – International Consulting , NTT DATA SERVICES
LEADER TALK: In Conversation with NIRAJ SINGHAL, Senior Vice President & Head – International Consulting , NTT DATA SERVICES

March 30, 2022

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  1. What does innovation mean across B, FS & I?

 

Banking is necessary; Banks are not.” This phrase accurately summarizes the need for banks to reinvent themselves to adapt to a world where consumers require better and faster service, and where market and stakeholder pressures require constant improvement to remain competitive. It is not surprising that nearly all banks mention innovation as critical to their long-term strategy.

 

Today, customers anticipate a seamless experience through relevant content available online and offline. Customer preferences are also progressively changing as they use social media channels to make purchase decisions. Firms must invest in building a presence across social media channels and create content and decision-enabling tools that guide buyers. Hence, the first pillar of innovation involves engaging with customers.

 

Data is the new oil. Data is a valuable resource with potential to create smart interactions as well as develop digital-native products. This requires customers to share their personal information with banks and financial institutions. Leveraging and managing customer data in a safe and consistent manner is the key to innovation.

 

Embracing connected ecosystems to amend business models and further offer new opportunities for revenue is of utmost importance to financial institutions. It’s essential that organizations collaborate rather than compete with other members of the value chain. For example, Start-ups and Fintechs will help financial institutions to imbibe innovation as part of their organization culture.

 

Hence, innovative financial institutions of the future will foster customer engagement, leverage data securely and ensure collaboration within an ecosystem to maximize profits and client satisfaction.

 

  1. What hurdles must we overcome on the journey to greater innovation?

 

The Financial Services industry is deeply rooted in tradition and legacy. Long-standing processes, systems, and methods are intensely ingrained into how organizations operate. In my view, the two prominent forces driving banks to change are threat to their revenues and competitive existence.

 

One of the main hurdles to innovation is legacy infrastructure, which means that minor enhancements to performance become a huge undertaking. Another is communication failures, which stand as a substantial barrier that institutions must overcome. Even while new technologies become available, tradition and culture cause resistance to change and a fear that innovation will lead to people redundancies.

 

I would recommend a 3-step mantra to break out of this rut. Firstly, start by baselining where you are and where you aspire to go. It is important to practice incremental innovation; a practice which can lead to immense improvements in the long run. Secondly, celebrate early successes and adopt the “fail fast, fail often” mindset while changing long-head beliefs. Finally, focus on execution rather than detailed planning. This will show quick results and foster a ‘can do’ attitude.

 

  1. How do Fintech start-ups impact the sector?

Fintechs have fundamentally re-imagined the delivery of Financial Services. They provide brilliant customer engagement at affordable prices by unbundling offerings, creating context-specific financial products, and increasing transparency.  

 

Fintechs are digital-by-design because they are Neo and therefore, unburdened with legacy systems and processes, unlike larger financial institutions. Fintechs earn trust through better customer service and referral-based client acquisition. The majority of the Fintechs cite enhanced customer centricity as their key competitive advantage compared to larger financial institutions that focus more on operations.

 

Financial institutions can turn the threat of Fintechs into an opportunity through collaboration and co-existence. Growth of Fintech ecosystems can help Financial Institutions externalize parts of their innovation function, as they wait and see which new offerings gain traction before deploying their own enhanced solutions. Also, growth of Fintechs provides Financial institutions with a “portfolio” of capabilities that can be leveraged to rapidly deploy new digital offerings.

 

 

Niraj Singhal

NIRAJ SINGHAL, Senior Vice President & Head – International Consulting , NTT DATA SERVICES

  1. What will a financial center of the future look like?

 

The financial center of the future will look very different from today. Changing consumer expectations, new regulations, emerging technologies, and adoption of new business models, will shape the future of banking in ways that can only be imagined today.

 

Embracing digital will be a critical imperative to succeed in this changing business environment. The key strategy for banks and financial institutions will be to make consistent, sustained, and bold moves through technology-enabled transformation. Accelerated pace of technology innovation is giving rise to new business models at an even faster speed. Gaining a competitive advantage in the future will not come from being big, but rather, from being agile and nimble. Players in the industry will need to harness the power of digital forces to innovate in smaller, bolder cycles.

 

Disruptive technologies such as Cloud, Analytics, Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Computing as well as trends around gig economy and crowdsourcing, will urge financial institutions to revisit their talent landscape and reimagine ways of working. They will need to work towards creating new operating models to integrate a digital and human workforce.

 

Institutions of the future will use the power of data to improve customer engagement and interactions. They will need to optimally utilize the platforms and the data for growth and success. Orchestrating an effective ecosystem strategy will be critical to succeed in a connected world. 

 

  1. What is the role of the Metaverse in banking in the foreseeable future?

 

Interest in augment and virtual reality technologies for customer engagement and training is growing. Awareness of the immersive technology and its potential applications has soared recently with big announcements of several global institutions.

 

Most obvious example where the Metaverse may impact banking is in customer interactions. Many banks already offer video meeting services, and employ interactive teller machines (ITMs), which employ video connectivity and more robust functionality than ATMs.

 

The next logical step in the digital customer experience could be launching new products using virtual reality. In a Metaverse, adapted to customer needs and complying with regulations, product managers can virtually create customized digital products onsite while interacting with the customer. It will be completed in an instant and will require strong cloud computing capabilities, a high degree of Artificial intelligence, and possibly an automated smart contract approval process.

 

The Metaverses that use gamification and other immersive technologies will enhance the day in the life of a customer and allow banks to embrace and fulfil their customer’s financial goals and aspirations in unique, highly personalized ways.

 

 

 

 


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