Eyal Nachum, Bruc Bond’s fintech guru and board member, includes a message to banks: it’s time and energy to embrace open banking and the cooperation it can bring. The advantages of working together with alternative providers far outweigh the potential for loss of loosening control, he says.
The movement to a more open and interconnected financial world has recently begun, with clear steps taken at the European Union along with Asian markets towards this goal. Europe’s Payment Services Directive (now in their second iteration, the PSD2) served because the kickoff shot for the continent. It showed the banking system on the entry of so-called non-bank banking institutions (NBFI), who have taken on large chunks in the labour previously created by banks. Rather than hurting banks, NBFIs have reduced banks’ workload while introducing additional revenue streams, providing a much-needed buoyancy float with a sector being affected by downsizing pressures.
However, integration might be taken much further, says Eyal Nachum. If we look at the Chinese giants Tencent and Alibaba, we view a model banks may decide to imitate to a degree. The two companies operate Super Apps, WeChat and Alipay, respectively, less difficult more than payment services. These are so-called “lifestyle apps”, which permit users to perform anything from ordering taxis, through making interpersonal money transfers, to, in some Chinese provinces, paying power bills and more. It’s all to easy to imagine the convenience that such centralisation brings.
According to Eyal Nachum, you shouldn’t have to consolidate everything in one location, but tighter integration can be done and desirable. If we check out Singapore, we percieve the likes of DBS, one from the country’s leading banks, launching its very own car marketplace in partnership with sgCarMart and Carro. UOB, another leading Singaporean bank, recently launched its travel marketplace. These imaginative pursuits can be a lighthouse to European banks, who should employ whatever possible way to learn from their Asian counterparts, by way of example by means with the UK’s fintech bridges, which Mr Nachum recently discussed while using Sunday Times.
Under the PSD2, European banks and loan companies are mandated to offer application programming interfaces (API), in which other finance institutions (like, as an example, Bruc Bond ) can access data and issue authorised instructions on customers’ behalf. Sadly, a lot of banks in Europe have inked only the minimum to conform to regulatory requirements for open banking, rather than explore how such initiatives can be incorporated into banks’ strategic plans. This is a short-sighted mistake, says Eyal Nachum.
Banks are missing an opportunity to supply their clients and customers using a service that can actually get people enthusiastic about banking. This is with their detriment and endangers their long-term prospects. To be competitive in 2020 and beyond, banks must accept the platformification of financial services. Users will quickly come to expect it, and poorly prepared banks are affected as a result.
There are numerous paths with an open banking future, each individual financial institution should decide for itself which path will lead for the greatest prosperity. Some things, however, are evident. Trying to imitate the Chinese samples of Tencent and Alibaba can be foolish. The regulatory infrastructure is placed against it. Instead, we at Bruc Bond believe that close, tight-knit cooperation between financial institutions, agencies, local authorities and business can provide the right path to your bright future.
Such integration gives solutions for the many woes gone through by medium and small-sized businesses (SMEs) due the upheavals inside the European banking industry, which Mr Nachum recently wrote about within an article for the Global Banking & Finance Review.
To reach utopia, however, we must build trust. Trust, we mean, between customers and institutions, and between institutions themselves. This can simply be achieved by true, sustained openness. Regulators may help, by mandating information sharing, but the onus is about the actors inside the markets themselves to produce frameworks that encourage cooperation. These may be limited schemes to begin with, that grow deeper as trust develops. Doubtless, this could require some feats in the imagination, when some of the brightest minds engage these issues, they are able to, we’re confident, think of some creative solutions to the issues that vex bankers. The next banking revolutions demands it.