Eyal Nachum of Bruc Bond to Banks – Embrace Openness
Eyal Nachum, Bruc Bond’s FINTECH GURU and board member , features a message to banks: it’s time to embrace open banking and also the cooperation it may bring. The advantages of working together with alternative providers far outweigh the potential for loss of loosening control, he admits that.
The movement to some more open and interconnected financial world has already begun, with clear steps taken in the European Union as well as in Asian markets towards this goal. Europe’s Payment Services Directive (now in its second iteration, the PSD2) served because the kickoff shot around the continent. It opened the BANKING SYSTEM for the entry of so-called non-bank banking institutions (NBFI), who have taken on large chunks of the labour previously made 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 experiencing downsizing pressures.
However, integration could possibly be taken much further, says EYAL NACHUM . If we look at the Chinese giants Tencent and Alibaba, we see a model banks may wish to imitate to some degree. The two companies operate Super Apps, WeChat and Alipay, respectively, less complicated more than payment services. These are so-called “lifestyle apps” , that allow users to accomplish anything from ordering taxis, through making interpersonal money transfers, to, in a few Chinese provinces, paying bills and more. It’s simple to imagine the convenience that such centralisation brings.
According to EYAL NACHUM , you don’t have to consolidate everything in one place, but tighter integration can be done and desirable. If we look to Singapore , we see the likes of DBS, one in the country’s leading banks, launching its own car marketplace in partnership with sgCarMart and Carro. UOB , another leading Singaporean bank, recently launched its own travel marketplace. These imaginative pursuits can be quite a lighthouse to European banks, who should employ whatever way possible to learn from other Asian counterparts, as an example by means of the UK’s fintech bridges, which Mr Nachum recently discussed using the Sunday Times.
Under the PSD2, European banks and finance institutions are mandated to deliver application programming interfaces (API) , where other loan companies (like, for instance, BRUC BOND ) can access data and issue authorised instructions on customers’ behalf. Sadly, a majority of banks in Europe have inked only the least to abide by regulatory requirements for open banking, instead of explore how such initiatives might be incorporated into banks’ strategic plans. This is a short-sighted mistake, says EYAL NACHUM .
Banks are missing an opportunity to provide their clients and customers having a service that could actually get people pumped up about banking. This is on their detriment and endangers their long-term prospects. To be competitive in 2020 and beyond, banks must accept the platformification of economic services. Users will soon come to expect it, and poorly prepared banks will be affected as a result.
There are lots of paths for an open banking future, every individual traditional bank will need to decide upon itself which path will lead on the greatest prosperity. Some things, however, do understand. Trying to imitate the Chinese instances of Tencent and Alibaba will be foolish. The regulatory infrastructure is scheduled against it. Instead, we at Bruc Bond believe that close, tight-knit cooperation between loan companies, companies, local authorities and business offers the right path to a bright future .
Such integration provides solutions for the many woes gone through by medium and small-sized businesses (SMEs) due the upheavals in the European banking industry, which Mr Nachum recently wrote about in an article to the Global Banking & Finance Review .
To reach utopia, however, we have to build trust. Trust, we mean, between customers and institutions, and between institutions themselves. This can simply be achieved by true, sustained openness. Regulators will help, by mandating information sharing, though the onus is around the actors inside markets themselves to develop frameworks that encourage cooperation . These might be limited schemes firstly, that grow deeper as trust develops. Doubtless, this may require some feats of the imagination, but when some from the brightest minds engage these issues, they can, we are confident, think of some creative solutions on the issues that vex bankers . The next banking revolutions demands it.