DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION: BEYOND BANKING Bank-assurance KBC Group is pinning its digital-first strategy on its proprietary AI – and it isn’t limiting its sights to financial services. Tom De Witte, CIO International Markets at KBC Group, and Non-executive Director of KBC Bank Ireland, explains how it’s navigating the technology choices to achieve its aims With core markets in Belgium, Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Ireland, it could never be said that bank-assurance KBC Group doesn’t have reach. And with KBC Mobile recently named the world’s top banking app – chosen from 135 banking apps in 17 countries – it’s not short of stature, either. But could it be the first of Europe’s ‘old guard’ banks to become a super app? The award from independent research agency Sia Partners that put KBC at the top of the banking app pile, noted the large number of third-party services, simulation tools and full online capabilities available for many types of financial transaction and life admin via KBC Mobile. Of course, the all-important ‘delightful UX’ was present, too.
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TheFintechMagazine | Issue 22
In addition, the award noted the broad connectivity and integration with the bank’s other physical and digital distribution channels. And it fan-fared the central role that the princess of banking apps, KBC’s digital personal assistant, Kate, plays in all of this. Kate is the not-so-secret AI weapon that’s helping to move the bank beyond banking and, according to the Group’s strategy update in 2020, all product and process development and updates will, ultimately, be driven by ‘her’. KBC Mobile has, as the award noted, ‘undergone a dramatic transition, changing from an app for performing basic transactions and checking account information to a fully-fledged, customer-centric ecosystem that proactively meets increasingly more of the customer’s needs’. And those needs go well beyond banking, insurance and investment. They also include mobility, leisure and health services. It’s what KBC has dubbed the ‘bankinsurance +’ model, under which it will rely on its own digital solutions for providing financial services (albeit many worked up with partners), but then mostly on third parties for tools that ‘make life easier’ – the leitmotif that’s
become core to what the bank does and which are delivered via APIs. KBC Group’s intention is clear: to park its big tanks on the lawns of those lifestyle tech and telco companies who otherwise might be tempted to muscle into the financial services space. In 2018, KBC was the first financial institution to also offer non-financial services to its mobile banking customers. That summer, customers could use their app directly to start and end a car parking session. Today, KBC offers about 15 different third-party services incorporated in the KBC Mobile app. They range from parking sessions, buying public transport tickets, uploading phone or data volume on mobile phones, buying gasoline and access to digital vaults. The services can be used by non-customers, too – indeed, KBC was the first bank in the Benelux region to open up its mobile services to customers of others. The bank has seen exponential growth in app usage since its launch. For example, out of three million transactions, about 850,000 tickets for public transport were sold in the first nine months of 2021 and more than 770,000 parking sessions. There have been a constant stream of partnerships and integrations over the past three years. Most notable, KBC Bank co-established with other banks Itsme, the ID and verification platform that aspires to being the European digital ID platform in the wake of COVID. It’s also recently teamed up with Personetics, a provider of financial-data-driven
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