Transforming Financial Services:
Technological Innovation and Cultural Change
February 11, 2021
Event Highlights
On Thursday, February 11, Bloomberg hosted a private virtual roundtable to discuss how financial services leaders are embracing technological innovations to transform the client experience and optimize performance enterprise-wide. The discussion was led by Alison Williams, Senior Analyst, Global Banks & Asset Managers, Bloomberg Intelligence, with senior technology and business unit decision-makers from leading financial services organizations. As thought leaders, participants shared how they are innovating their respective businesses to successfully lead and compete in a digital world.
PARTICIPANTS
Roshan Awatar, Data and Analytics Strategy Director, Lloyds Banking Group
Ankit Bhatt, Executive Vice President, Consumer Chief Digital Officer, U.S. Bank
Eric Caen, Chief Digital Officer, Crédit Agricole Group
Sumeet Chabria, Global Head of Business Services, Bank of America
Jean-Philippe Desbiolles, Global Vice-President for Data, Cognitive & AI – Financial Services, IBM Global Market
Sophie Heller, Group Chief Operating Officer, Retail Banking & Services, BNP Paribas
Mathew Mehrotra, Chief Digital Officer, Personal, Business Banking and Wealth Management, North America, BMO
Celie Niehaus, Chief Compliance Officer, BBVA
Peter Serenita, Chief Data Officer, Scotiabank
MODERATED BY
Alison Williams, Senior Analyst, Global Banks & Asset Managers, Bloomberg Intelligence Research
Click here to view the video of the full discussion.
Here’s what they had to say:
The conversation opened with a discussion on the purpose and use of advanced technology. How are advances in data management and AI being employed? There was agreement that technology should be customer-centric. As Sumeet Chabria, Global Head of Business Services, Bank of America stated “AI has the ability to leverage data and give you insights.” He pointed out that “if used responsibly with a clear focus on the customer, the customer need, it is a very powerful tool to enhance customer experience.”
For the industry as a whole, there has been a breaking down of the walls between the technology and business teams, with the goal of providing new products and services for customers. Peter Serenita, Chief Data Officer, Scotiabank, described this process, “We reorganized ourselves in a way where we brought together both the data organization and the analytics organization and moved that right into the business. And so this way we were very much aligned with the business priorities, very much aligned to the customer servicing mentality.”
One advantage of using technology for customer engagement is that it creates a feedback loop in which the base of knowledge is expanded and used to further enhance the quality of service. Sophie Heller, Group Chief Operating Officer, Retail Banking & Services, BNP Paribas shared, “When we have a conversation with a customer it’s usually full of very rich data. And so one of the use cases also we’re working at is going to have automatic conversation minutes of the conversation so it can really feed the knowledge system and automatically store that information so that we can reuse.”
Mathew Mehrotra, Chief Digital Officer, Personal, Business Banking and Wealth Management, North America, BMO, agreed that technology enables customer service to be more proactive. He shared how BMO makes customers aware of potential cash shortages, as an example, “So we deployed a proprietary experience that helps customers within a pretty well-defined window identify that there’s a negative cashflow event coming and recommends pretty specific solutions for them to resolve that need, whether it’s a transfer, or deferral of a payment, or whatever the case may be.” He noted that this service has been really well-received and added “And it’s only really possible to do this because of this technology.”
As another example of how technology helps customers, Ankit Bhatt, Executive Vice President, Consumer Digital Officer, U.S. Bank shared that “And we can identify areas where customers can start saving, which is a really important part of managing your financial health and mental wellness. So that’s another example of how we at U.S. Bank are thinking about using AI and data to really help our customers.”
Eric Caen, Chief Digital Officer, Crédit Agricole Group, points out that advanced technologies are assisting businesses as well as consumer customers. Crédit Agricole Group distributes and manages government loans to businesses and has experienced unprecedented demand. Eric shared that “technology helped us a lot on how to reach each company proactively. And it was over half million loans that we have to push for and propose solutions for, so technology helped a lot.”
Jean-Philippe Desbiolles, Global Vice-President for Data, Cognitive & AI – Financial Services, IBM Global Market, summarizes the trend of the increasing use of technology throughout the business. He observes “more and more we see that it is going deeper within the business processes. And by the way, it is impacting the front office, it is impacting the back office, the middle office.”
Celie Niehaus, Chief Compliance Officer, BBVA shared her perspective on this trend, “There has to be rigor and discipline in testing and validating those models, a model governance process needs to be in place as well. And we’ve got to make sure that we’re using it for the benefit of all not just the organization, but for our employees, making sure they understand how to use it, how they can tweak and fine tune, and then ultimately making sure that we’re also taking care of the customer in the end.”
There was general agreement on the importance of ethics and responsibility in the use of data and AI. Roshan Awatar, Data and Analytics Strategy Director, Lloyds Banking Group stated, “I think being transparent as an organization is good.” He explained, “And the more the customers see that, they’ll know what we’re doing with their data, how we’re making decisions, which for us, being the UK’s largest retail bank, is super important.”
This Bloomberg Roundtable was Proudly Sponsored By
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