Latest Cloud reports and research: Finextra Research

Report

Personalisation-as-a-Service: Harnessing Data in the Banking and Payments Industry

A Finextra Research Impact Study in Association with FICO and Amazon Web Services (AWS). As customers increasingly experience more consistent, personalised treatment from companies across a wide variety of industries, it is natural for them to expect—and require—the same of financial services providers. Consumers do not want disjointed experiences across auto loans, credit cards, and HELOCs any more than they want them when shopping for different categories within the same online retailer. Aside from consistency, 84% of customers revealed that being treated like a person, not a number, is important when winning and retaining business. That’s according to Accenture Global Consumer Pulse Research, which also found that 73% of consumers expect specialised treatment for loyalty and anticipate rewards for past interactions, as well as for sharing their preferences or personal information. However, only 22% believe that customer experiences are tailored effectively by organisations, and 50% fewer consumers perceive their bank as a trusted partner today than in 2018. Thus, there is a significant opportunity for savvy financial services companies who can meet consumer expectations. At the same time, financial institutions that fail to satisfy those standards are in jeopardy, as customers are re-evaluating their choice of financial providers given an increasingly diverse and non-traditional range of alternatives. Ultimately, consumers want financial providers to offer personalised services and integrated offers that address their most relevant needs at the right time, such as when they are buying a car, getting married, purchasing a home, continuing their education, etc. The financial institutions that can anticipate customer needs and deliver service that is personalised and consistent across channels will be well positioned to thrive in the digital age. Download your copy of the Impact Study below to learn more.

30 October 2020 526 downloads

Report

The Tipping Point of Cloud and Risk Management in Capital Markets

A Finextra Research Impact Study in Association with Numerix and Amazon Web Services (AWS). Capital markets firms are acknowledging that the cloud is a catalyst for establishing competitive advantage and the financial services sector has been taking steps to prioritise digital transformation. To meet customer requirements and remain competitive, financial services organisations must increase their agility, reduce time to market for new products and services, and address the spiralling total cost of ownership (TCO) of their IT infrastructures. Today, it is evident that all roads lead to the cloud. Download your copy of the Impact Study below to learn more.

05 October 2020 435 downloads

Report

Increasing Resilience in Collaborative Financial Services

Data is the lifeblood of every business. In the rapidly evolving ecosystem of financial services, the establishment of a robust and efficient cloud-based information management platform to govern this data is integral to a firm’s ability to remain resilient in uncertain times while building market share. While the financial services industry increasingly leverages the value of data, the way in which it is collected, stored and deployed is evolving to keep pace with customer expectation, regulatory demands and seismic innovation in technology. Collaboration between banks, partners, customers, or third-party providers represents a key shift in financial institutions’ approach to data, yet, ensuring the systems that are in place work to both protect and share data between these players is challenging to navigate. Building cloud-based information management systems from the ground up is often an unrealistic premise, particularly in financial services. Firms operate with pre-existing systems, and the reality remains that these legacy systems will build the backbone or springboard from which resilient information management systems will emerge. It is vital that firms understand the need to collaborate with external providers to extend the availability of this data across diverse hybrid environments if they are to effectively implement these technological advancements. Directives and regulations pushing banks to open access to their information assets puts a hard deadline on the calendar for such projects and means that those which act early can benefit from being first to market with solutions that not only meet compliance requirements but capitalise on new opportunities. Interoperability is a fundamental tenet of this collaborative ecosystem. It is the ability of financial institutions to work collaboratively with providers to deliver this type of efficient, secure and resilient data management platform which will determine their success in this new information-sharing climate. Download the full white paper below to find out more.

16 September 2020 84 downloads

Report

Sustainable Finance Live - Investment and Asset Management ESG Solutions

A Visual Record from the Sustainable Finance Live workshops. In June 2020, Finextra Research welcomed industry experts to Sustainable Finance Live, the first virtual, interactive workshop to discuss how financial services firms and technology companies can achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. Debunking the myth that revenue cannot be generated through trustworthy implementation of ESG measures, this co-creation event targeted the subsector of investment and asset management and explored specific challenges and opportunities, following a lean back, lean in and learn model. The workshop defined what investors require in order to track and securitise with confidence and what asset managers need to build portfolios that institutional investors will select. Diving deep into the practical challenges of investment and asset management, the sessions considered data access and reporting, with speakers providing advice on how to embrace sustainable finance. With a top down approach, a clear focus of the sustainability components and trying to infer the process of assessing the following, the workshop focused on: The investment gap in new technologies and models Information acquisition through third party suppliers to help the risk function Incentivisation schemes to promote better sustainability norms The role of technology in validating ESG activities Download the full report below to find out more.

27 July 2020 272 downloads

Report

Is Request to Pay the System for a World of New Norms?

With faster payments going live in the UK in 2008, one could regard the decade-long recovery from the financial crisis as being a journey towards realtime payments. The last few years has also seen the advent of Open Banking, firstly in the UK and subsequently across Europe and elsewhere. Request-to-pay (RtP) is an example of harnessing Open Banking to serve financial institutions, SMEs and consumers in removing some of the frictions relating to sending and receiving payments for lenders, businesses and individuals. Ahead of its introduction later in 2020, RtP was billed as an integral tool to the transformation of the payments landscape across the world. RtP is being widely promoted in the UK, Europe, the Nordics and the USA, all of which have active industry programmes. This paper will explore the opportunities for lenders, businesses and consumers provided by RtP as well as the hindrances and challenges that would need to be addressed to move to widespread adoption. Download the full report below to find out more.

13 July 2020 973 downloads

Report

Charting a Core Transformation Roadmap to a Future Unknown

The bulk of critical and sensitive data are kept in a bank's core. Today's core needs to process and operate in real time, and support multiple digital channels. There are different routes and many factors that need to be considered, such as budget, workforce skills, and huge cultural change in terms of new working methodology and enterprise-wide buy-in. Where the firm wants to focus its goals in the new digital world it inhabits, and on what core tenets it wishes to compete inform the transformation decisions the bank makes. Finextra interviewed several industry leaders on the subject of core transformation and what it takes to build a future-proof bank, discussing the approach to change and the management thereof, the use and deployment of new technology and cloud services, how strategic partnerships can play the most valuable part, and crucially, how to deconstruct and rebuild a business while answering the demands of real-time digital client services and a yet-to-be-determined future. Download the full report below to find out more.

24 June 2020 979 downloads

Report

Wealth Management: Driving Transformation through a 360° Client Lens

A 360 degree customer view is fast becoming essential for financial organisations and wealth managers to compete and win in the digital economy – but integrating the vast and changing data sources is often a major challenge. In recent years, advances in technology, as well as global digitalisation, have ushered in new capabilities for banks, enabling them to understand their clientele better and, hence, serve them in a more efficient and tailored fashion. The customer 360 view has become a familiar term as organisations utilise increased data analysis to capture holistically customer behaviour and account patterns leading to more intuitive offerings and responses, stronger security and faster processes. It is the ‘who, what, why, when and where’ of customer lifecycle management. Wealth management, hitherto later to the digital party than other financial services segments, is recognising the benefits to be gleaned from data-led transformation – both those operating independently and those part of larger banks. Growth, leaner operating functions, easier compliance processes and cost savings are just some of the benefits to be had. Cloud is called upon to deliver new and differentiated service levels and organisations are increasingly looking for new and scarce skillsets. This Finextra paper, produced in association with MarkLogic, is based on several discussions with senior financial services and wealth management experts covering key business and technical drivers for creating the need for a 360 degree customer view, the challenges to be overcome in the process and the long-term benefits to be gleaned as a result. Download the full report below to find out more.

18 June 2020 558 downloads

Report

Instant Payments: Why Covid-19 is Bringing the Roadmap Forward

Business continuity has never been a more valuable asset for financial institutions. Fundamental changes to 'business as usual' as a result of Covid-19 have exposed the need for resilient, reliable, and efficient systems to maintain essential payment services and protect the interests of all ecosystem participants, from consumers to the largest corporations. At the same time, in the lead up to the European Single Market Infrastructure Gateway's (ESMIG) 'big bang' migration at the end of 2021, EU financial institutions are understandably consumed with ensuring that they are appropriately equipped to manage the systemic changes the migration will demand. While ESMIG provides a hard deadline to work towards, every institution bears unique targets and objectives, making the structure and execution of these plans more challenging than ever. In this context, it might seem that the adoption of real-time or instant payments—immediate settlement of account-to-account payments on a 24x7 basis, domestically and cross-border—should reasonably take a back seat to more pressing existential concerns. After all, while the ESMIG migration is mandatory, instant payments are not, and financial institutions could be forgiven for focusing solely on compliance-driven projects at the expense of optional ones. This impact study will outline why the reverse is true: that in fact, the move to instant payments takes on an increased urgency in the coronavirus age. It explores the benefits of instant payments for banks' internal operations as well as their customer value propositions. It also examines shifting approaches to business case development, and the increasing relevance of cloud and as-a-service models for instant payment processing. Find out more by downloading your copy below.

11 June 2020 639 downloads

Report

A Panorama of the Changing Banking Landscape in EMEA

Fintech players have proved that mass-market growth is achievable and are now providing other financial service entrants with a blueprint of how to scale exponentially. What sets the newer banks apart from incumbent providers is that they adapt their offering to meet the needs of their users. There is no universal formula for success that can work across all business models, and across the entire EMEA region. The most common way of generating revenue is charging customers, which would work well in a startup model as these organisations are unencumbered by legacy infrastructure and cost structures. However, untrusting customers want more than an improved customer experience, and companies need to establish revenue sources that can be diversified over time. Additionally, banks must give their customers a reason to bank with them. This research paper by Finextra, in association with Mambu, gathers the views of several experts from Bain Capital, Barclays, Citi, EY, OakNorth, Santander InnoVentures, SEB, Starling Bank and Tink on how to build a bank in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Download the full report below to find out more.

30 April 2020 1186 downloads

Report

The Information Advantage: Driving Opportunities and Mitigating Risk in a Hyper-Connected World

What's next for business in this world of digital services and data? Collaboration, interoperability and a trusted network in which to operate came to the fore as the key factors to support business growth and financial services transformation during a recent roundtable, held under Chatham House Rule. The roundtable was hosted by Finextra, in association with OpenText, and brought together payments and industry stakeholders to discuss the pertinent issues and drivers around digital and operational transformation. The themes have percolated and resonated in follow-up discussions since. Delegates discussed the pressing challenges as well as opportunities, and how to solve them in order to improve the landscape for commerce. Download the full report to find out more.

09 March 2020 417 downloads

Report

The Future of Cloud: Powering the Financial Services Industry

Strategic Insights and Best Practices for Success in the Cloud. The pace of change in the financial services industry is unprecedented. Regulatory oversight continues to expand with more stringent reporting and security requirements, emerging technologies are disrupting consumer expectations and the ecosystem is constantly evolving as new players enter the market. As a result, financial institutions are redefining their business models to deliver the capacity, agility and technology design they need to attract talent, be competitive and drive growth. From banking and payments to capital markets and insurance, cloud has become the new normal. In this paper, financial institutions, technology providers and consultants share their strategic insights and best practices for success in the cloud. From building a solid foundation to exploring the cutting edge, they discuss industry trends and specific use cases for stages throughout the cloud adoption journey.

19 February 2020 1001 downloads

Report

Avoiding Improvisation: A 3-Step Guide to Harmonising Electronic Identity Verification

Challenges to due diligence compliance come in multiple forms - biometric, document validation, electronic identity verification - making this a vast and varied area of concern for financial institutions. Research by Fenergo states that fines levied on financial services firms for KYC, AML and sanctions-related breaches since the financial crisis total nearly $26 billion. However, due diligence is inherently complicated for global companies required to meet the regulations of multiple countries and regions. The chief compliance officer of a global organisation has an incredibly complex job. This role could be compared to that of an orchestra conductor ensuring that all areas of the business are following the sheet music of regulation properly and that everyone is keeping time and playing their part. This is a point study of the key considerations companies should make in their due diligence requirements in electronic identity verification (eIDV). Download your copy of the imapct study below to find out more.

08 January 2020 315 downloads

Report

The Critical Role of Cloud in Digital and Operational Strategy

The operational challenges facing financial services firms are only increasing - from regulatory requirements to new entrants and now open banking and digital transformation - all at a time when competition has never been stronger. Fortunately, cloud computing services are constantly improving and maturing. Now banks can get more than cost-savings from their use of the cloud. It can improve cost management, enhance data security and data management, reduce operational risk, and enable banks to migrate to a more decentralised, digital and collaborative operating model. However, there are issues that banks, both new and old, must consider to optimise their use of the cloud, such as cultural challenges, skills shortages and operational obstacles. One way to overcome these challenges and ensure the most effective use of cloud technology is for banks to work with a growing number of expert organisations to support and manage their cloud migrations and digital transformations.

27 December 2019 929 downloads

Report

How to Protect and Grow in the Fintech Industry

A 3-Step Guide to Generating Revenue and Becoming Profitable. A monetisation strategy must be devised so that the company can decide what value will be created and who will pay, whether it is the customer, thirdparties that want access to the consumer or third-party beneficiaries who can derive value from the user. There is no universal formula for success that can work across all business models. The most common way of generating revenue is charging consumers. This would work well in a startup model as these organisations are unencumbered by legacy infrastructure and cost structures, so new financial services entrants can charge fees that are lower than what customers are accustomed to paying, while at the same time, continuing to create better user experiences. However, untrusting customers want more than a better customer experience and companies need to establish revenue sources that can be diversified over time. Additionally, financial services providers must give their customers a reason to bank with them and this can be done by ensuring defences are built against financial crime, providing analytically driven decisions and streamlining the lending process. With this in mind, there are three important steps to be taken to proceed towards long term profitability.

09 December 2019 426 downloads

Report

Fraud Detection: Embracing New Technologies for Frictionless Payments

Payments fraud is a significant challenge for banks and is set to become more problematic as payment channels and payment services providers (PSPs) proliferate, regulation reshapes the way payments are transacted and the world migrates away from cash towards electronic, often real-time, payments. In Europe, the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) allows third party developers to directly interact with a partner banks’ customers, raising questions about the use of customer data by the third parties and extension of the security boundaries. This trend towards open banking is being adopted elsewhere in the world, including in Australia, the US and Hong Kong. In the increasingly networked ecosystem of payments, identifying fraudsters will be a challenge, but under PSD2, financial institutions are required to monitor all transactions for fraud-related activities. The traditional, silo-based approach to fraud detection is fast becoming obsolete. For too long, banks have lagged in their ability to align fraud detection with the speed of transactions as payments move away from cash towards CNP (Card Not Present) transactions. The financial industry is shifting towards real-time data analysis, deploying artificial intelligence, machine learning and Cloud capability to transition towards a digital ecosystem. Banks must ensure they stay ahead of the increasing technological threat from criminals and fraudsters.

30 November 2018 841 downloads