agenda

Think Tank

Driving an Omni-Channel Experience in Financial Services

Maintaining a consistent client experience is key to ensuring a consistent client relationship, which in turn leads to greater client retention and spend. Maintaining that consistent experience is complicated by the fact that clients now interact with all providers, not just financial services ones, through a variety of channels that can number into the dozens. It is essential to not have just consistency of look and feel across all channels, but consistency of experience, and indeed to allow individual experiences to occur sequentially across all channels. 

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Think Tank

Rise of the Alternate Lender

The banking industry is one that rarely would be described as ?innovative?, with all players seemingly taking a ?what's good for one is good for all? approach where no-one particularly upsets the status quo in anything but small and incremental ways. If the latest evidence from the European market is anything to go by, however, the potential exists that a major shakeup could be in the offing as a host of so-called ?Challenger? banks are bursting onto the scene. Whether from upstart financial services organizations, of companies entrenched in non-related fields such as retail, new entrants are coming to market that having nothing invested in old school processes, not in the semi-competitive landscape that currently exists. Change is coming and Financial Services CIOs need to look to their own house to ensure the people, processes, and technologies are in place to respond to this new threat.

Takeaways:

• Since the financial collapse of 2008, most consumers have felt an eroded sense of trust with incumbent banks that they do not feel with alternate lenders

• Challengers are not tied to outdated and expensive products, back-end processes, or technology allowing them to cherry-pick and do so economically

• Changes in the UK, Europe, and Canadian marketplaces mean change is imminent in the US

Think Tank

Bank Process Standardization and the Era of Banking as a Service

Banks have historically owned and operated all of the various functions related to the delivery of their services and have used these proprietary operations as business differentiators. Increased regulatory oversight has, however, forced standardization on many of these processes. While there have been benefits to the banks as a result (cost control being one of them), this standardization has created a world of service commoditization, not unlike what has been seen with cloud computing and related ?as a Service? type offerings. The creation of Banking as a Service-type offerings will open potential revenue streams but require that significant technology hurdles be overcome and those CIOs that get ahead of the curve will set their organizations up for success at the direct expense of their less innovative and capable peers. 

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Think Tank

Big Data Analytics and the Impact on Fraud

Financial fraud is, unfortunately a huge business, with annual losses so massive that were Fraud a country, it would have the fifth highest global GDP. While enterprises in the financial services sector have always used analytical processes to detect and limit those losses, as technology moves forward the analytical capabilities that can be brought to bear increase in exponentially in capability and those on the leading edge are able to see, and stop, more fraud in less time. Just as Big Data capabilities are bringing significant business benefit to other aspects of the business, they can to fraud mitigation but several challenges need to be overcome for maximum efficiency. Only by addressing quality, volume, security, and integration challenges and by further ensuring the right staff with the right skills are in place can benefits actually be realized. 

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Think Tank

Moving from Operations to Transformations

The accepted number for the amount of the IT budget that is tied up in operational spend, in paying to maintain technology that has already been purchased, is 80% leaving only 20% for the IT department to use to drive new projects. Because this level of funding is so low, as much as 70% of IT sponsored projects fail. Yet IT departments are being constantly pushed to be innovative, to find a way to embrace new technologies and leverage them to drive business change. How can you do that when your time, money, and effort goes to just keeping the lights on? Join us as we collectively explore this issue and examine some of the successful strategies that are being leveraged by top IT leaders.

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Think Tank

Customer Engagement Trends in Financial Services

As banks around the world, but particularly in North America, struggles to overcome the broken trust with consumers as a result of the 2008 financial crisis, increasingly they are finding that enhanced customer engagement is the lever they must actuate. The complication for the financial services sector however, is that while they are trying to engage more with their customers, those customers are becoming harder to engage as they move to online and mobile banking channels wherever possible. Though these channels offer convenience for the customer, and the potential of cost savings for the bank, they limit interaction. Fortunately for CIOs this makes their role ever more important because interactions, and therefore the opportunity to engage, is occurring ever more through digital channels. As a result, CIOs need to become go-to executives within their organization to facilitate these positive experiences. 

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Think Tank

Living in a (Way More) Regulated World

Over half a decade has passed since peak of the financial crisis and over four years since the passage of Dodd-Frank, the first piece of regulation that was part in place as a response. In the intervening time the only constant has been ongoing waves of regulation that show no signs of stopping any time soon. Financial institutions need to take care that they are not adopting a short-term, piecemeal, decentralized approach to these demands to ensure that they are best able to leverage economies of scale and the insights that come from an integrated approach. Consistent and mature regulatory response programs will allow banks to take a more structured, cohesive, and ultimately more effective approach to each individual regulatory requirement and the CIO will be instrumental in ensuring that those programs operate as effectively as possible. 

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Think Tank

The Evolution of the Private Cloud

Once upon a time applications ran directly on physical hardware. Then the boxes got bigger and more capable and multiple applications were run on the same hardware. There were some resource constraints, but things in general became more efficient. Time passed, things evolved and virtualization was introduced, allowing enterprises to run even more applications even more efficiently on the same hardware. And then the cloud came on the scene, extending the virtualization model to the point that it looked like something completely different, to the point that it became true utility computing. Cloud computing is not just virtualization on a bigger scale and as CIOs prepare their organizations to dive into private clouds at an increasing rate, it is very important to understand what they are and are not, and how they differ from their forbear computer models with which we are all familiar.

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Think Tank

Disrupting Markets with Disruptive Technologies

While the combination of Social, Mobile, Analytics, and Cloud have been present and disrupting IT departments and enterprises as a whole for over two years now, in many ways organizations have still not fully embraced them, have still not fully leveraged them. These new platforms allow organizations radically new ways to go to market, allowing for broad scale deployment of systems of engagement that create dynamic relationships with clients and prospects. Finding the resources, wherewithal, and ability to fully commit to these technologies and the capabilities they create has proven to be a struggle for many, but a struggle that can be overcome by leveraging the right partners that bring the right skills and experiences to bear.

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Think Tank

Cloud Adoption Challenges on a Macro Level

The hype around the cloud is pervasive and can be potentially overwhelming but numerous studies have shown that tangible benefits can be had, whether in cost savings, efficiency improvements, or flexibility enhancements. That said numerous impediments exist to not just realizing that value, but even considering adoption; regulatory issues, integration challenges, business process revamp, and a dozen other challenges can halt cloud projects in their tracks before they get off the ground. In this group discussion we'll explore those inhibitors, understanding which challenges prevent adoption and what can be done to overcome them.

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