Eyal Nachum of Bruc Bond to Banks::Embrace Openness
Eyal Nachum, Bruc Bond’s fintech guru and board member, has a message to banks: it’s time and energy to embrace open banking as well as the cooperation it might bring. The advantages of working together with alternative providers far outweigh the potential for loss of loosening control, he admits that.
The movement to a more open and interconnected financial world has already begun, with clear steps taken in the European Union plus Asian markets towards this goal. Europe’s Payment Services Directive (now in their second iteration, the PSD2) served since the kickoff shot on the continent. It exposed the banking system towards the entry of so-called non-bank loan companies (NBFI), who’ve taken on large chunks of the labour previously done 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 struggling with downsizing pressures.
However, integration might be taken much further, says Eyal Nachum. If we go through the Chinese giants Tencent and Alibaba, we see 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 allow users to do anything from ordering a taxi, through making interpersonal money transfers, to, in some Chinese provinces, paying electric bills and more. It’s easy 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 check out Singapore, we view the likes of DBS, one from the country’s leading banks, launching its own car marketplace in partnership with sgCarMart and Carro. UOB, another leading Singaporean bank, recently launched its very own travel marketplace. These imaginative pursuits could be a lighthouse to European banks, who should employ whatever possible way to learn from their Asian counterparts, as an example by means with the UK’s fintech bridges, which Mr Nachum recently discussed using the Sunday Times.
Under the PSD2, European banks and banking institutions are mandated to deliver application programming interfaces (API), where other financial institutions (like, as an example, Bruc Bond) can access data and issue authorised instructions on customers’ behalf. Sadly, most banks in Europe have inked only the bare minimum to adhere to regulatory requirements for open banking, in lieu of explore how such initiatives can be incorporated into banks’ strategic plans. This is a short-sighted mistake, says Eyal Nachum.
Banks are passing up on an opportunity to offer their clients and customers which has a service that can actually get people excited 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 financial services. Users has decided to come to expect it, and poorly prepared banks are affected as a result.
There a wide range of paths to an open banking future, and each individual standard bank will need to go for itself which path will lead for the greatest prosperity. Some things, however, do understand. Trying to imitate the Chinese instances of Tencent and Alibaba could be foolish. The regulatory infrastructure is set against it. Instead, we at Bruc Bond believe that close, tight-knit cooperation between financial institutions, service providers, local authorities and business can provide the right path with a bright future.
Such integration provides solutions towards the many woes gone through medium and small-sized businesses (SMEs) due the upheavals inside European banking industry, which Mr Nachum recently wrote about within 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 only be achieved by true, sustained openness. Regulators may help, by mandating information sharing, however the onus is about the actors in the markets themselves to develop frameworks that encourage cooperation. These could be limited schemes in the first place, that grow deeper as trust develops. Doubtless, this could require some feats from 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.