How can financial services innovate and build trust in the digital age?

Round­table atten­dees
Faisal Hus­sain, CTO and CDO, Metro Bank
Alan Pate­field-Smith, CIO, Admi­ral Group
Kei­th Pear­son, head of finan­cial ser­vices go to mar­ket, Ser­vi­ceNow
Jen Tip­pin, chief trans­for­ma­tion offi­cer, NatWest Group

How has the pan­dem­ic affect­ed trust in finan­cial ser­vices?
KP: Before the glob­al finan­cial cri­sis in 2008, a sales-first cul­ture had per­me­at­ed the finan­cial ser­vices sec­tor. The impli­ca­tions of the crash, most notably the plum­met of trust, trig­gered a reori­en­ta­tion back to a cus­tomer-cen­tric and pur­pose-dri­ven approach. Because of the cul­ture change and reg­u­la­to­ry work in the last decade, organ­i­sa­tions were in a very dif­fer­ent posi­tion when the coro­n­avirus cri­sis hit. High­ly cap­i­talised banks in par­tic­u­lar have had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to become the ‘white knights’ of the pan­dem­ic.

JT: We have learnt a lot since the finan­cial crash. Banks, in par­tic­u­lar, have stepped up and sup­port­ed their cus­tomers through this health cri­sis and demon­strat­ed the impor­tant role they play in soci­ety. NatWest cham­pi­ons the poten­tial of indi­vid­u­als, fam­i­lies and busi­ness­es – of which we bank one in four in the UK – help­ing them to thrive. The bank lent more than £14bn as part of gov­ern­ment schemes, and we sup­port­ed cus­tomers with mort­gage and cap­i­tal pay­ment hol­i­days. There have been soft­er ways we have helped peo­ple dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, such as turn­ing an office build­ing into a vac­cine cen­tre and our Edin­burgh head office into a food bank. The pan­dem­ic has rein­forced the pur­pose of finan­cial ser­vices, but with the end of the fur­lough scheme and as the econ­o­my starts to recov­er, we need to redou­ble efforts to help the cus­tomers and com­mu­ni­ties we serve to thrive. Because when they thrive, so do we.

FH: Metro Bank was found­ed in 2010, at the end of the finan­cial cri­sis, to reach the high street mar­ket. Con­sid­er­ing the dig­i­tal-first direc­tion oth­ers were head­ing, it was a bold deci­sion, but human inter­ac­tion helped estab­lish trust. That ini­tial con­cen­tra­tion on stores gave us good cred­i­bil­i­ty, and now, in response to cus­tomer needs, we are adopt­ing a bricks and clicks strat­e­gy. Dur­ing the pan­dem­ic there was a sig­nif­i­cant need to be always avail­able for cus­tomers, hence why dig­i­tal has become crit­i­cal. By offer­ing fast, sta­ble, and secure prod­ucts and ser­vices, we have main­tained trust. Peo­ple talk about an omnichan­nel approach to pro­vide bet­ter cus­tomer jour­neys, but I think there are dif­fer­ent lev­els of trust between chat­bots and in-per­son ser­vices.

APS: The start­ing point for trust is pur­pose, why you exist. Trust is now the num­ber-one facet for cus­tomers in the mar­ket, above val­ue for mon­ey Today cus­tomers are look­ing for proof points, and in the last 18 months, many finan­cial ser­vices have moved from talk­ing to tak­ing action with their ESG strate­gies. We gave our cus­tomers refunds as thanks and also sup­port­ed key work­ers. As an insur­er, we deal with seri­ous inci­dents and dis­tress­ing cir­cum­stances, so our agents, empow­ered by the data at their fin­ger­tips, pro­vide excep­tion­al cus­tomer ser­vice.

How are trust­ed part­ners being embraced to dri­ve inno­va­tion?
APS: Fig­ur­ing out who the right part­ners are comes back to under­stand­ing cus­tomer needs. You have to be relent­less­ly obsessed with the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence, and data must be the beat­ing heart. Data helps you cre­ate beau­ti­ful, per­son­alised expe­ri­ences, and – because DIY solu­tions no longer make busi­ness sense – an ecosys­tem of strate­gic part­ners is cru­cial. The cus­tomer expe­ri­ence is the tip of the ice­berg as it only hap­pens because 90% of the under­wa­ter tech­nol­o­gy is work­ing smooth­ly.

KP: Over the last 10 years, finan­cial ser­vices organ­i­sa­tions have been forced to evolve for the dig­i­tal age but now often suf­fer from a frag­ment­ed tech­nol­o­gy envi­ron­ment. With improv­ing the cus­tomer jour­ney in mind, chal­lenges include inte­grat­ing and inter-con­nect­ing solu­tions while scal­ing at speed. Many dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion pro­grammes fail because of cul­ture and a lack of effec­tive part­ner­ship; you have to select the right part­ners, and once you do, be open and trans­par­ent in your inter­ac­tions.

JT: Peo­ple often think that large organ­i­sa­tions are not agile enough to change at pace, but in the last 18 months, we have been able to respond very quick­ly to meet cus­tomer demands, in part because of our tech­nol­o­gy part­ners. For instance, we built a ful­ly auto­mat­ed plat­form that has enabled over £8bn of loans through the gov­ern­ment scheme in only six days. The ser­vice that we pro­vide cus­tomers is increas­ing­ly reliant on mul­ti­ple chan­nels and how they inte­grate. We need to lever­age the best tech­nol­o­gy to deliv­er seam­less cus­tomer ser­vice and deep­en rela­tion­ships in the dig­i­tal world. That means we have to pick expert part­ners. But it’s a two-way rela­tion­ship, and the open­ness of the infra­struc­ture that we’re build­ing, through APIs, makes this col­lab­o­ra­tion pos­si­ble. For exam­ple, we have part­nered with fin­techs to ver­i­fy cus­tomers quick­er using self­ie tech­nol­o­gy.

FH: I love the open-source mind­set when it comes to part­ner­ing. While prod­ucts or ser­vices are not per­fect imme­di­ate­ly, iter­a­tive evo­lu­tion is pos­si­ble in a col­lab­o­ra­tive ecosys­tem of trust­ed part­ners. This approach is a depar­ture from the old ways finan­cial ser­vices inno­vat­ed. Sup­pli­ers can no longer come to your door and ask you your require­ments and offer to build it. Instead, part­ners are lean­ing in, being more proac­tive. Also, with the rise of cyber­crime and fraud, we have to share knowl­edge across the finan­cial ser­vices com­mu­ni­ty, as with­out ade­quate secu­ri­ty, trust evap­o­rates.

What are the upcom­ing chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties for the finan­cial ser­vices sec­tor?

APS: The US mil­i­tary phrase ‘vuca’ – an acronym for volatil­i­ty, uncer­tain­ty, com­plex­i­ty and ambi­gu­i­ty – cap­tures the world in which we now oper­ate. Every­one has their favourite wor­ry. The east is lead­ing the way in finan­cial ser­vices. Super apps – a cen­tral appli­ca­tion from which cus­tomers can buy most prod­ucts and ser­vices – are made pos­si­ble thanks to the dynam­ic over there. We haven’t seen super apps in the west yet, but it would quick­ly dis­rupt the mar­ket if they were intro­duced.

FH: For me, there are wor­ries and oppor­tu­ni­ties around APIs. By design, they open us up, make our data move faster, pro­vide quick­er authen­ti­ca­tion. But as soon as they unlock that data, it is exposed. If we don’t man­age that secu­ri­ty, it will be hard to main­tain trust, and dis­rup­tors could take advan­tage. Addi­tion­al­ly, I firm­ly believe that the finan­cial ser­vices sec­tor needs to edu­cate peo­ple, young and old, to enable greater finan­cial free­dom.

JT: I am opti­mistic about the future and see a huge oppor­tu­ni­ty to use data and tech­nol­o­gy to build on the good work in the last year and a half. How­ev­er, finan­cial ser­vices firms must con­tin­ue evolv­ing and adapt­ing to the dig­i­tal age and meet their cus­tomers’ pre­ferred chan­nels. For exam­ple, before the pan­dem­ic, we had few­er than 800 video bank­ing calls a week. Now we reg­u­lar­ly do over 13,000 video calls a week. And we are look­ing into mar­ket­ing on Tik­Tok. Ulti­mate­ly, we are seek­ing to devel­op deep­er rela­tion­ships with cus­tomers and using data to be their proac­tive, sup­port­ive part­ner.

KP: The impres­sive way the finan­cial ser­vices sec­tor has sup­port­ed cus­tomers dur­ing the pan­dem­ic shows that we have come full cir­cle: firms are again gen­uine­ly pas­sion­ate about help­ing cus­tomers and doing the right thing by their employ­ees as well. Peo­ple see straight through a lack of authen­tic­i­ty and trans­paren­cy and, with ESG top­ics ris­ing in impor­tance, finan­cial ser­vices must be use­ful to human­i­ty. It’s a huge­ly excit­ing time to work in this sec­tor.

To find out how to accel­er­ate cus­tomer and oper­a­tional work­flows in finan­cial ser­vices dig­i­tal­ly please vis­it servicenow.com/finserv

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