Typically, my Friday columns on About That Ratio highlights three thoughts from the previous week; case-in-point, “On Fee Income + Staying Relevant.” To vary things up, I’m expanding today’s piece by looking to five of the leading financial technology companies for inspiration. In no particular order, something I learned from each specific to financial institutions’ efforts or opportunities to build for the future.
(1) Let me open with this visual representation about “engaging with digital consumers.” Infograhphically speaking (their words, not mine), Infosys took a look at the complex behaviors consumers display when sharing their personal data. Specifically, the technology company polled 5,000 “digitally savvy consumers” in five countries about how they trade personal data in the retail, banking and healthcare sectors. Their resulting study shows the key challenge facing business is to navigate the complex behaviors consumers display when sharing their personal data.
(2) Given these digital consumers’ growing use of smartphones — and comfort with their built-in cameras — image capture is a logical next step for bill enrollment and payments via mobile devices. So it makes sense that Fiserv recently launched “Snap-to-Pay” — a feature that enables consumers to pay bills with a snap of their smartphone cameras. Essential bill information, such as the company to be paid and the amount due, is captured by taking a picture of a paper bill and then used to automatically populate the appropriate fields on the smartphone screen. Yup, another cool addition to the payments space.
(3) Competing with Infosys and Fiserv for financial institutions’ business and loyalty is FIS, the world’s largest provider of banking and payments technology. For the third year in a row, the company achieved the No. 1 ranking on the FinTech 100, an annual listing of the top technology providers to the financial services industry compiled by American Banker, Bank Technology News and research firm IDC Financial Insights. As I perused their site, I paused on their mobile prepaid solutions to see what they offer for the un-banked and under-banked consumers. These potential customers represent a significant opportunity to financial institutions, and the suite of mobile offerings offered by FIS looks to robust and user-friendly.
(4) I’m a loyal American Airlines frequent flier (1,417,248 program miles to-date and going strong) and frequent user of their mobile app. So when I saw that American Airlines Federal Credit Union completed its conversion to a new core processing system offered by Jack Henry & Associates earlier this week, I took note. While I’m not a customer, I knew about the credit union thanks to in-flight magazines and connections through DFW. What I didn’t realize is the size of the Texas-based credit union. It has more than $5.6 billion in assets and operates as the thirteenth largest in the United States. Likewise, I didn’t realize that Jack Henry & Associates’ products and services are delivered through just three business units, with one supporting more than 750 credit unions of all asset sizes.
(5) Thinking about the airlines makes me think of government control and oversight (hello FAA, TSA, etc). Just as some try to treat the airline industry as a public utility (it is not), so do some look at the banking space (again, it is not). Still, increased regulatory involvement and tighter credit markets require greater emphasis on IT governance and risk compliance. For this reason, numerous North American and European banks rely on Cognizant for risk management solutions across their operations in credit risk, operational risk and market risk. As they share in Tackling Financial Crime, financial institutions seeking new revenue streams have “taken refuge in technologically advanced IT-enabled solutions… to stay ahead of the competition.” However, the increasing use of plastic money, e-commerce, online banking and high-tech payment processing infrastructure has opened up new opportunities for financial criminals. Hm, how to end on a positive. Perhaps a link to the governance, risk and compliance solutions bank officers & directors might want to learn more about to defend against such cyber crime…
Aloha Friday!
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