Who's Who of Financial Services Asia Pacific 2014/15

THE

WHO’S WHO OF FINANCIAL SERVICES ASIA PACIFIC CASHING IN ON SMAC What’s next for digital?

PAYMENTS 2020 A brave new world CHIEF MANDATES Leaders from Facebook, ANZ, Citibank, DBS Bank, BT Financial Group, Suncorp and Bank Sinar Harapan Bali share their innovation agendas MEET ASIA PACIFIC’S TOP 30 CXOs Lisa Gray, NAB Edward Chiu, CCB Asia John Arthur, Westpac Vikram Sud, Citibank David Gledhill, DBS Bank Michael Foong, Maybank + more

THE 2014/2015 DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION

THE WHO’S WHO OF FINANCIAL SERVICES

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MANAGING DIRECTORS

COLUMN: THE FUTURE IS URBAN, GLOBAL, DIGITAL

Angela Horvat John Todd

By Jonathan Larsen, Head of Global Retail Banking And Head of Consumer Banking Asia Pacific, Citi

GENERAL MANAGERS Jason Hulme Anna Wong

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EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Natasha David

SENIOR EDITOR, ASIA PACIFIC Rimin Dutt

JOURNALISTS & CONTRIBUTORS Adrian Barclay Jamie Pericleous

COLUMN: ASIA – THE FINANCIAL CENTRE OF GRAVITY

By Mike Smith, CEO, ANZ Banking Group

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COLUMN: MEMO FROM FACEBOOK: PERSONALISE!

By Paul McCrory, Head of Financial Services and Travel, Facebook ANZ

ART DIRECTOR Mark Maric

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COLUMN: NAVIGATING A NEW FINANCIAL ECOSYSTEM

SUB EDITOR Bill Todd

ACCOUNT MANAGERS Devan Arumugam Dale Ashworth Soni Bhatnagar Emma Charter Michelle Graves

Contents

Helen Hall Daniel Kyle Lily Liu Aman Malhotra Thomas Youngs

WHO’S WHO COORDINATORS Fiona Lam Gladys Tan

GENERAL ENQUIRIES info@fst.asia

PUBLISHER FST Media (a division of Cirrus Media) Tower 2, Level 3 475 Victoria Avenue Chatswood NSW 2067 Australia www.fst.net.au China Square Central 20 Cross Street #02-07/08 Singapore 048422 www.fst.asia

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THE BIG PICTURE

IDC Financial Insights reveals the top trends and disruptors in the year ahead

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CASHING IN ON SMAC

How financial organisations are gearing up to the next wave of Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud convergence

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EXECUTIVE PANEL

Mind the Gap! Bridging the Marketing and Technology Divide

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PAYMENTS 2020

The future will form a mix of cashless transactions, digital money, wearable wallets and e-currencies

By Kellee Kam Chee Khiong, Group Managing Director, RHB Banking Group

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Driving a competitive edge through customer engagement

COLUMN: CLARITY, SIMPLICITY AND EXECUTION

By Patrick Snowball, Group CEO, Suncorp

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COLUMN: MICRO-BANKING: THE NEXT PLAYING FIELD

By Alit Asmara Jaya, Managing Director, Bank Sinar Harapan Bali

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COLUMN: CHANGE, CREATE, INNOVATE. REPEAT.

By Brad Cooper, CEO, BT Financial Group

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COLUMN: CHARTING AN INTUITIVE MOBILE FUTURE

By Sim S Lim, Singapore Country Head, DBS Bank

EXECUTIVE ROUNDTABLE

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THE WHO’S WHO OF FINANCIAL SERVICES

A conversation with Asia Pacific’s most influential technology chiefs

138

EXECUTIVE ROUNDTABLE

A conversation with the Wolf of Wall Street

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EXECUTIVE ROUNDTABLE

Accelerating modern banking – an agile approach to business transformation

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DIRECTORY LISTINGS

A concise catalogue of Asia Pacific’s leading product, service and solution providers W HO ’ S W HO O F FS I

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www.fst.asia

Where the Market Meets

Foreword The financial services industry in Asia Pacific is a tumultuous and dynamic landscape. With digital disruption and the entrance of tech giants such as Google and non-bank players threatening the home turf of traditional institutions, innovation has never held more cache.

FST Media’s journalists have interviewed the region’s leading financial services executives who are at the top of their game. Our esteemed interviewees across Asia Pacific are pushing transformative agendas to enable seamless engagement with digital-savvy customers across multiple channels, deploying a slew of technologies and rebuilding core infrastructure to underpin this advance – all within the constraints of an increasingly stringent regulatory climate.

Indeed, the industry has moved well beyond the stage of digital experimentation. The convergence of social, mobile, analytics and cloud (SMAC), is now front-and-centre of innovation roadmaps. This will be key to achieving the ‘holy grail’ in preparing banking for the next generation of customers.

In mature Asia markets, analytics-led personalisation is a key theme of staying relevant to customers and launching new products. The Internet of Things (IoT) is also widely expected to be the next game changer.

And let’s not forget mobile-led banking, modernising of aging payments systems, contactless cards, and peer-to-peer (P2P) payments – all of which are rapidly changing the options for businesses and consumers. This is where the biggest disruption is likely to take place, particularly for the latter, if wearables become mainstream.

Mobile platforms are also opening up new frontiers for banks in emerging markets, bringing financial inclusion to millions of people who have historically been excluded from traditional banking. In fact, for rural customers, the mobile has fast become the branch-in-the-hand.

Meanwhile, innovation has been a recurring theme in the evolution of financial services. If traditional models are to survive and thrive against the new competitive entrants, the pace must accelerate. Certainly, the next few years will be crucial in defining the fate of the industry.

It gives me great pleasure to bring you the seventh annual edition of the industry-leading publication, The Who’s Who of Financial Services – the most comprehensive super-regional register in Asia Pacific.

On behalf of the FST Media team I would like to thank you, our readers of this important publication, for your continued patronage. I also extend my gratitude to industry executives, our columnists, analysts and contributors.

Rimin Dutt Senior Editor Asia Pacific FST Media

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OPIN I ON

The future is urban, global, digital

BY JONATHAN LARSEN

Technology and digitisation are defining global trends of our lifetimes.

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WHO ’S WHO O F FS I

There are three clear trends impacting our business – digitisation, globalisation and urbanisation. Asia now accounts for close to 10 per cent of the MSCI Global Index – a doubling in five years and we expect it will double again in the coming decade.

There are now 181 Asian companies in the Fortune 500 and the region accounts for over 40 per cent of all global trade, a doubling in the last decade.

The world is increasingly urbanised, with about 30 per cent of GDP concentrated in 150 cities, of which Asia accounts for close to a third. This century is already looking like one that will be dominated by the rise of the ‘emerging market consumer’.

Perhaps the most important trend is digitisation. It will and already is changing banking forever. That is why it is so important that Citi is the world’s leading digital bank.

Technology and digitisation are transforming the very way in which we as banks serve our clients. Consumer preferences are changing and a generational shift in behaviour is driving to new digital channels.

Technology and digitisation are defining global trends of our lifetimes. Around the world, nearly five billion people use mobile phones. That is two and a half times more than the number of bank accounts, with the differences especially pronounced in emerging markets.

Citi has been investing heavily in technology to support the expansion of our consumer banking business. New Citibank branches around the world are taking on the ‘smart-banking’ model, with interactive touch panels, video-conferencing capabilities and full-service banking from devices such as iPhones and iPads. These were launched in Japan in 2009 and have since been rolled out across the world. These branches are also generating increased traffic – one of our largest branches in Asia is in Mongkok, a densely-populated district in Hong Kong. We are adding several thousand new clients a month at this smart branch.

We have a wide range of technology-based channels which can do everything you need

to do in your financial life. We will continue to roll out branches along the principles of smart banking. We also have launched ‘transit branches’ in Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo.

In addition, we have teamed up with telecom operators like Vodafone in India, M1 Limited in Singapore and Chunghwa Telecom Coin in Taiwan to offer mobile payment services. At the end of 2013, we partnered with 3 Hong Kong to launch a mobile banking wallet in Hong Kong.

We are also leveraging our technology and infrastructure to shape the development of mobile payment systems. Citi is the lead bank in ‘Google Wallet’, offering the latest smartphone tap-and-pay technology.

Speed, simplicity and ubiquity are guiding our use of technology across the world.

Banking works well through devices like Apple’s iPad for example. It is a good fit for us and we have had success with the iPhone too.

For Citi, innovation and technology are a priority to serve our clients, and we are getting better at using operating systems on mobile devices. We are taking a hard look at ATMs too and have launched the next generation ATM in South Asia called ‘Citibank Express’ which does all that you can do inside a branch.

Most of the industry still relies on the paper format. All that is unnecessary now – our new branches are paperless and wireless.

We are in the process of getting rid of all the forms and putting them all online. You can now apply for a credit card online without any paper forms, which was unthinkable 10 years ago.

We have launched mobile banking that works on all 3G formats whether it is Apple, Google, Samsung or Nokia. You can do everything you do online, such as accessing your account balance, and making transfers, on your mobile phone and it is incredibly fast. We have now launched mobile banking in all markets in which we operate.

Jonathan Larsen is Global Head of Retail Banking and Head of Consumer Banking Asia Pacific at Citi

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OPIN I ON

Asia – the financial centre of gravity

BY MIKE SMITH

It is clear that Asia will increasingly finance itself rather than rely on London and New York.

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WHO ’S WHO O F FS I

As I am based in Australia, I am well used to heading to bed as European markets open and waking up – sometimes suddenly – to surprising news from the US. Even during my frequent visits to Asia, financial markets seem to be set in the dead of night. And it has been that way for all of the 35 years that I have been working in the region.

Happily, for us in Asia at least, the financial centre of gravity is shifting to our region. ANZ’s new report, Caged Tiger: The Transformation of the Asian Financial System,* makes the point that price setting, that impact on financial markets of major economic data releases and news events, will increasingly take place in Asia.

That is just one detail of a much bigger story. Asia’s economy already accounts for a quarter of global economic output, up from 17 per cent two decades ago. But ANZ expects Asia’s share to rise to 35 per cent in 2030 and to be over half the world economy by 2050.

The US and Europe, which currently account for around half the world’s economic output, could see their share fall to less than a quarter by mid-century. This is a tectonic jolt in the global economic landscape and the basis for the shift in which market-moving events will have their epicentre.

While the ultimate scale and impact of these changes remains uncertain, ANZ’s research highlights that the continued development of financial markets in Asia will become increasingly important to support economic growth in the region.

Strong economic growth will continue in Asia but, crucially, it will be slower if financial markets are prevented – whether by policy or regulation – from the further liberalisation that allows capital to seek out the best investment options and receive the best returns.

When currencies are allowed to trade freely, internal pressures on financial systems are mitigated. Where investment flows are allowed to seek out their own returns, internally or across borders, the savings of individuals are best rewarded and economies grow. China, of course, will play a leading role through its intended reforms in coming years as it moves toward liberalising its

capital account and allowing greater foreign and domestic investment. Across the region existing financial centres are likely to grow.

While our research by its nature is high level and serves to highlight the broad issues, the scale of change is undeniable.

There are risks to the scenario set out in our research. There is a danger some countries, by preventing the development of markets and flexible policy, will fall into the so-called ‘middle income trap’.

It is clear that Asia will increasingly finance itself rather than rely on London and New York. Instead of the somewhat passive flow of Asian savings into official markets, particularly US Treasury bonds, Asia’s private sector will have a much bigger role in investing Asian savings.

That will occur at both the portfolio level into bond and equity markets and directly through foreign investment across borders.

It is why prices will be increasingly set in Asia and not the North Atlantic. For example, ANZ projects that the outstanding stock of Chinese Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into other countries was around US$500 billion in 2012. This could rise towards US$10 trillion by 2030 and increasingly favour Asia Pacific as a destination.

Chinese private portfolio flows into global bond and equity markets could increase

by US$1.3 trillion a year for the five years following the opening up of the Chinese financial system.

Of course, this shift in the financial centre of gravity is already occurring – we already pay much more attention to the Chinese flash manufacturing index for example. But if the potential of the ‘Asian Century’ is to be fully realised, the financial systems of many Asian economies must continue to be reformed, deregulated and opened up to global markets.

I know policy makers in the region understand these challenges. The prize if they succeed is truly enormous.

ANZ’s Caged Tiger report can be found at www.anz.com/insight Mike Smith is the Chief Executive Officer of ANZ Banking Group

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OPIN I ON

Memo from Facebook: personalise!

BY PAUL McCRORY

In the current climate of rising competition from existing and new entrants, providing consumers with what they want and where they want it has quickly become mission critical.

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WHO ’S WHO O F FS I

Efficiency, scalability and long-term profitability are three of the most common issues financial services that marketers grapple with every day. Thankfully, they are also issues that smart marketers can better address by embracing a more personalised approach to marketing.

For financial services players, a personal approach to marketing online creates new ways to acquire customers, cross-sell products and retain clients. It also opens the door to revolutionise the way they manage the entire communication cycle to deliver better targeting, better results and reduced costs.

Ultimately, it is about meeting changing consumer expectations and how consumers want brands to engage with them. I do not open my direct mail and have requested my bank to communicate everything online. I prefer receiving more targeted communications based on my online and offline behaviours rather than a generic letter in the post.

These preferences are bringing about significant changes. For the first time in 50 years we have experienced a shift in media consumption that has seen digital advertising overtake television. The last time we experienced such a shift was when TV overtook radio. Today, mobile is the ‘new kid on the block’, with usage rising at unprecedented levels – in Australia alone 7.3 million people access Facebook via a mobile device every day.

Financial services organisations across Asia have a huge opportunity to make the most of mobile through the development of apps and services that engage consumers where they spend most of their time. The success of mobile services is proven with organisations such as Commonwealth Bank Australia (CBA) that has made a major investment in technology including mobile apps, contributing to a 14 per cent rise in profits. Another good example is Barclays Bank in the UK, which has driven substantial cost savings by servicing customers on mobile.

Facebook is well-placed to support financial services organisations to embrace

this shift given we are a mobile-first organisation. Everything we do is designed for the mobile, giving financial services organisations a unique opportunity to capitalise on the 1.2 billion people globally who engage with the platform.

Practically, this can involve using Facebook to help promote and drive mobile app installations, which in turn creates a new cost effective and efficient channel for consumer engagement.

In a recent report by McKinsey, the cost of servicing a financial services customer via social media was US$1 compared to US$8 through a contact centre. As a result, any moves to increase the servicing of customers online rather than using traditional methods can have a significant impact on the bottom line.

That is particularly important given that organisations are experiencing heightened competition from traditional players as well as new entrants such as supermarket brands moving into the financial services space.

The trend of mobile payments is gathering a lot of interest with major technology companies and financial institutions. Although there is a lot of progress to be made, there is a definitive move towards smartphones becoming at the centre of all financial transactions.

That is not surprising given consumers are spending so much time on their phones and are keen to simplify life through technology.

How mobile payments plays out across Asia Pacific remains to be seen but what is clear with this tend and others is that innovation needs to be at the heart of every marketing strategy employed by financial institutions.

In the current climate of rising competition from existing and new entrants, providing consumers with what they want and where they want it has quickly become mission critical.

Paul McCrory, Head of Financial Services and Travel at Facebook Australia and New Zealand

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OPIN I ON

Navigating a new financial ecosystem

BY KELLEE KAM CHEE KHIONG

Over the next three years, we aim to build a next-generation digital bank, leveraging online and mobile channels, social media and paperless banking to engage our customers and enable borderless banking with RHB Group across ASEAN.

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WHO ’S WHO O F FS I

We are living in unprecedented times. The banking industry is seeing the new financial ecosystem, a convergence of traditional and non-traditional service providers. Digital giants such as Google, Amazon, Starbucks, and Alibaba have been aggressively seizing a sizeable portion of the banking value chain. Market studies indicate that by 2020 non-traditional banks could erode a third of traditional banking revenues.

The digital experience has simply become a way of life. Customers of today are increasingly demanding seamless banking experience across multiple channels.

Information needs to be available ondemand, on the move, and across multiple sales and service channels.

At RHB Group, we understand the need for revolutionary change and place innovation at the heart of our business, driving the way we operate in a customercentric manner. In 2009, RHB launched the ‘Easy by RHB’ branch model, allowing us to penetrate the relatively under-served mass segment and grow our branch network in a rapid and profitable manner.

Our value proposition was clear. We set out to deliver a ‘banking simplified’ experience to our customers. This was done through innovative use of technology, uniformity of products and services and paperless processes.

In an Easy branch, loan applications are approved and disbursed within 10 minutes, account openings are instantaneous; all achieved with a cost-to-serve at only 15 per cent that of a conventional branch. In addition, Easy customers can use RHB-branded ATMs, internet and mobile banking systems as well as traditional bank branches.

We now have 270 Easy branches nationwide in just over four years and they are accessible and recognisable at high traffic areas including departmental stores, post offices and train terminals.

RHB Group has created a dynamic, entrepreneurial culture in its Easy organisation with each outlet providing personalised services with varied staffing models across the formats.

This ‘Easy DNA’ continues to be a significant part of our innovative efforts as we continue our journey.

To accelerate RHB Group’s aspiration to become a leading multinational financial services group, we have launched ‘IGNITE 2017’, a three-year transformation program geared to delivering more to our customers.

Being innovative is central as we continue to push boundaries in the way we think, operate, execute and go-to-market. ‘IGNITE 2017’ is driven by six strategic levers: regional asset acquisition and expansion; customer centric business growth; a next generation digital bank; global Islamic leadership; industrialised support functions; and a talent powered organisation.

Innovation and technology are key enablers that will continue to drive aggressive regional growth for RHB Group.

To ensure that we maintain momentum, we are setting up an innovation research and development division that will oversee the end-to-end idea generation, development and rollout of cutting-edge offerings to customers.

Over the next three years, we aim to build a next-generation digital bank, leveraging online and mobile channels, social media and paperless banking to engage our customers and enable borderless banking with RHB Group across ASEAN. RHB Group is set to achieve its vision of becoming the leading multinational financial services group. We have the right vision and the right combination of talent capabilities and competencies in place to take us forward.

We are committed and focused on achieving outcomes and enriching the banking experience for our customers.

Most importantly, at the forefront of our ambitions is the acute consciousness that constant innovation is the key driver of sustainable growth for RHB Group, enabling us to create meaningful and lasting impacts on our organisation, customers, industry and community.

Kellee Kam Chee Khiong is Group Managing Director at RHB Banking Group

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OPIN I ON

Clarity, simplicity and execution

BY PATRICK SNOWBALL

Innovation has become an opportunity rather than a responsibility that is shared by everyone.

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W HO ’S WHO O F FS I

Meaningful innovation that creates real and lasting value requires focus. For Suncorp, our operating principles of clarity, simplicity and relentless execution have provided that focus and served us well in transforming our business for the future.

Over the past few years we have simplified legal structures, systems, processes and products with absolute determination. We have made it clear that our place in the market is to provide easy to understand financial services products.

There is often a debate about the best way to nurture innovation within a company, and who should be responsible for making that happen. At Suncorp, we have created environments that attract diverse thinking and people, encourage the sharing of information and support engagement with our customers and communities. Innovation has become an opportunity rather than a responsibility that is shared by everyone.

Central to this is implementing what is known as smart environments, a combination of workplace design, technology and flexible work practices. Technology such as desktop anywhere and mobile anywhere are allowing our people to work effectively from multiple offices, their home or in transit. Job sharing, working from home and project work are common options assisting people to meet personal commitments and career goals while helping Suncorp to scale operations to meet customer demand.

One of the greatest achievements to come out of the smart environment’s philosophy is the hub model. It is a revolutionary way of operating a contact centre where people predominantly work from home with flexible hours that meet customer service requirements. Located in suburban areas, the hub provides much-needed employment opportunities and is attracting talented people previously excluded from the workforce due to carer responsibilities, disability or commitments to study, sport or charity work.

Team members interact regularly via social media and come together at the local hub office for team meetings and training.

Models such as the hub enable us to meet some of the challenges of the modern

workforce and bring people with different backgrounds and ideas to the organisation.

Building a talented and diverse workforce helps us to better meet evolving customer needs which is a critical component of running a successful and enduring business. When we look to the products and services we provide there are many possibilities for innovation to improve the customer experience.

One example is our joint venture arrangements with leading smash repair businesses, Capital SMART Repairs and QPlus. We have partnered with industry experts to deliver leading-edge facilities and processes to optimise vehicle repair timeliness and quality. Most families rely heavily on their car so providing the highest levels of quality assurance and efficient turnaround times provides peace of mind.

At capacity, QPlus will have 50 apprentices, making it the largest smash repair training facility in Australia. Suncorp considers the training program an important investment in the industry’s future and provides funding for apprentices and equipment grants for TAFEs. I am tremendously proud of what we have achieved at Suncorp but we cannot be complacent. We have ambitious plans to further simplify our technology platforms and maximise the potential of our business intelligence through building a single data store.

There are too many recent examples of businesses and industries that have failed to invest enough in innovation. Manufacturing and media industries previously known for their strength and success are facing dire consequences. They highlight the fact that forces greater than any individual business set the pace of change.

The year ahead will deliver further changes to the workforce and new customer needs to be met among other macro-economic issues.

While we are investing in technology that underpins our ability to innovate solutions to these challenges we will not lose sight of our fundamental principles of clarity, simplicity and relentless execution.

Patrick Snowball is Group Chief Executive Officer at Suncorp

C O - SPONSO R E D A R T I C LE

Innovate and Collaborate The insurance industry is overdue for an infusion of innovation and much closer collaboration between industry players The current environment presents many challenges for Australian insurers, who are under pressure to reduce operational costs, increase profitability, retain customers and improve operational efficiencies.

How can we solve the problems faced by the insurance ecosystem?

To succeed, it is critical for insurers to balance operational efficiency initiatives with those targeted at improving distribution networks.

There you will find a new breed of innovators, such as Konnect NET, who have achieved significant improvements for the life insurance industry.

Using a combination of new technologies, process improvements, collaboration tools and improved integration with other industries such as medical providers, the insurance industry can reinvent itself, build broader business models, and better align itself with emerging customer demands.

By establishing an electronic and highly secure hub, Konnect NET has integrated together 18 insurers, 100 per cent of the general practitioners, and the majority of the broker community.

Behind this sits a complex ecosystem comprised of key participants (customers, brokers and insurers), as well as integration points with multiple industries (e.g. health providers, accountants and employers).

Each has their own set of interests and priorities.

Some of the key players such as medical providers do not formally belong to the insurance industry, however, they are a critical element of the ecosystem and their performance can dramatically affect the success of a new application or claim assessment.

By making cutting-edge technology improvements for brokers and insurers, and ignoring the need for industry-wide integration and collaboration, we will struggle to achieve the desired level of efficiency and customer satisfaction that is crucial to the success of the industry.

Many of the answers can be found in New Zealand, where the majority of Australian insurers have local operations.

One of the most challenging parts of the life insurance process in New Zealand was collecting accurate and timely medical information from prospective policy holders.

“Konnect NET is the way of the future. It is just quicker, cleaner and more professional.”

“With Konnect NET’s system, it only takes five minutes for doctors to check their electronic records and email the information through. From the doctor’s perspective, it means more time to spend seeing patients, but they still receive the same payment from us. So it is a win-win.”

– Milton Jennings, CEO, Fidelity Life Assurance Company

With Konnect NET’s service for compiling and collating medical information and getting the right data from doctors for new and existing policyholders it has become one of the simplest parts of the insurance process.

Insurers and advisers are now seeing improved profit margins, and medical providers are experiencing a streamlined payment process which is much more efficient than previous experiences.

The insurance customer now receives their policy in a more palatable timeframe.

If the insurance industry learns to take a more collaborative approach then they will reap innovative and game changing benefits that companies such as Konnect NET can offer.

Andrew Vasko – General Manager Konnect NET Australia p: +61 434 102 841 e: info@konnectnet.com.au www.konnectnet.com.au

W HO ’ S W HO O F FS I

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OPIN I ON

Micro-banking: the next playing field

BY ALIT ASMARA JAYA

Banks, telecommunications organisations and the regulatory bodies can guide hundreds of millions of Indonesian people towards a better life through affordable and convenient financial services.

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WHO ’S WHO O F FS I

As breath is to life, innovation is to business success. In today’s business world the competitive playing field is becoming even more crowded, making the need for companies to continually innovate a must.

Innovation does not necessarily mean creating a new product, but rather using technology to create alternative processeses for serving customers and truly differentiate ourselves from competition.

Bank Sinar, since its establishment in 1970, has dedicated itself to continuous innovation and improvements, through either new product creation, enhanced marketing or updated processes using new technology.

As a bank that focuses our core business on micro-lending, we see not only growth potential but also growing competition that ranges from individual peer-to-peer lending to formally regulated institutions.

To survive and grow we must continue to innovate and keep a close eye on what is happening in our region and around the globe. For that reason our corporate plan addresses the situation over the next few years. We plan to become the main bank for micro-banking within the small to medium enterprise (SME) market within the next few years. This is based on four considerations: firstly, the micro-banking and SME market is very large in Indonesia; secondly, nearly 50 per cent of Indonesia’s population remains either unbanked or under-banked, representing a large market potential; thirdly Bank Sinar has core competencyin the micro-banking and SME market; and finally, technology continues to evolve to provide a point of differentiation that we are implementing to drive competitive advantage.

Bank Sinar’s strategy over the next few years is to penetrate the unbanked and underbanked market segments, reflecting Bank Sinar’s commitment to remain consistent in the business of micro-banking and SMEs. Furthermore, this coincides with the government’s program for financial inclusion, further enhancing our efforts in the unbanked market.

Bank Sinar has already implemented innovative mobile phone technology-based services called ‘Branchless Banking’ which

will form the basis of our focus on delivering micro-banking in the future. A six-month pilot period demonstrated positive results and feasibility for a national program. The service is currently very basic, with Bank Sinar continuing to prioritise the technology around branchless banking by adding more features and the development of agencies that aid in the effort.

The key to managing micro-banking is building relationships with customers, and empowering them through maximum cooperation. In developing ‘Branchless Banking’ agents, we will use them as the partners to serve the customers. This, in addition to the reliability of our chosen technology, will determine future success.

We expect early adopters of this technology to be future ambassadors of the service, thus we are committed to ensuring excellent customer experience. The technology should become a secure, trusted solution for financial services. We also recognise the need to make it easy, fast, and inexpensive to create strong demand and trust within customers.

To gain this trust, we are partnering with major telecommunications companies to ensure coverage is extensive and costs remain reasonable, considering the target market is mainly unbanked communities living in remote areas. This highlights the importances of partnerships between banking and industry providers to ensure collaboration creates a foundation of trust through positive customer experiences. The role of regulator is also critically important. Banks and regulators must work together to support the conducive conditions for the success of the Branchless Banking ecosystem. The regulator’s role is to become involved in the education campaigns to create a cashless society.

Uniting with a common goal in mind, banks, telecommunications organisations and the regulatory bodies can guide hundreds of millions of Indonesian people towards a better life through affordable and convenient financial services.

Alit Asmara Jaya is the Managing Director at Bank Sinar Harapan Bali, a subsidiary of Bank Mandiri

OPIN I ON

Change, create, innovate. Repeat.

BY BRAD COOPER

Technology is an important enabler, but a customer’s needs should always be the driver.

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The way customers seek financial advice has changed dramatically in recent years. Led by the growth of the internet and fast-tracked by the global financial crisis, customers now want more choice about their level of participation. Advisers remain a core part of this setting, helping achieve their clients’ financial strategies but how they interact with their clients is changing.

Social media is also transforming how customers choose financial products, proving to be a way for customers to exchange information and validate products as well as brands.

Our new platform, ‘BT Panorama’, will continue our history of innovation. Until now, platforms have allowed advisers to access and manage client’s money. But a changing environment, including the rise of self-managed superannuation and a fast-growing superannuation pool which is expected to exceed AU$7.5trillion within the next 20 years, means the need for broader access. This includes access by accountants and, of course, customers. This move strengthens the power of advice, making it a process where the customer can be better engaged through technology.

‘BT Panorama’ will transform how clients work with their advisers and accountants to build, manage and protect their wealth.

It is expected to will deliver across multiple channels including mobile and tablet.

Instead of accessing an investment platform, customers will be able to see and transact across all their finances, including their savings, credit card, superannuation, investments and insurance. They will be able to link to accounts in their family, which will help have a ‘household view.’

At BT Financial, we embrace change because it is the birthplace of creativity and innovation. Technology is an important enabler, but a customer’s needs should always be the driver.

When we launched our flagship superannuation fund ‘BT Super for Life’ in 2007 we could not accurately predict the technology that would be available in the world today. The launch meant for the first time Australians could see

their superannuation balance alongside their online banking. Initially available through PCs, customers can now see their superannuation balances on their mobile phones and tablets through apps. This reflects that a growing number of customers keep on top of their financial affairs not at home on a Sunday morning but when out and about – on the train for example, or while waiting for a friend at a cafe.

Customers did not actively demand superannuation with their online banking, but we knew it was essential to help them have more visibility of their superannuation balances and be more involved in saving for retirement. So popular is the feature that it is now standard in similar products across Australia, and BT Super for Life has quickly grown to more than 500,000 members with over AU$7billion invested.

Apple’s founder Steve Jobs famously said: ‘‘People do not know what they want until you show it to them’. He also said: ‘You have to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology – not the other way around.”

We could not agree more. Understanding what customers want and need is our primary goal – and successfully delivering this is an ongoing and deeply satisfying challenge for us. When we released a new platform, ‘Infinity’, we worked with more than 150 advisers to understand their needs and to rigorously test all aspects of the design. The platform now has AU$5.5billion invested through it and growing quickly.

We develop our products and services using our customer-centred design process, led by a specialist team dedicated to designing products and services from a customer’s perspective. This approach led to us winning the Australian International Design award.

We know that customers will always expect performance and convenience – and a changing world means we must continue delivering better products and services differently.

Brad Cooper is Chief Executive at BT Financial Group

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The Future of Wealth Management What role will technology play in modern wealth management?

modular banking solution with back, middle and front office functionalities. It has successfully been implemented within the most demanding financial We are seeing a trend where modern wealth centres in the world. The concept of desks designed management has begun to have similar requirements to maximise and ease the administration burden have to the private banking world. Wrap platforms and been implemented into the design of the suite. As superannuation providers should therefore look to offer: such a relationship manager’s desk will have different • Equities • Managed Accounts • Portfolio functions to a back office operator’s desk.

Construction • Comprehensive Capital Gains Tax Other areas where Avaloq can assist include: (CGT) Reporting • Holistic views as opposed to a Greater flexibility blinkered view of an account in isolation.

Avaloq’s solution is customised to each organisation’s The first platform, which delivers a private banking individual needs and provides rapid time to market style operating model within the wealth management for the introduction of new products and the space, we believe, will have a significant advantage Iain Dunstan implementation of new business models. over competitors.

Regional Director Ability to innovate Australasia, Avaloq A high-quality reservoir of expertise is concentrated What are the challenges that wealth within the Avaloq community, which continues to produce new management companies face in addressing ideas and solutions for practical application. customer needs?

Increased efficiency Firstly, given the complex nature of many financial products and Avaloq is the market leader in operating efficiency. There is no data instruments and the related costs of running seperate front, middle redundancy within the entire application, and Avaloq provides the and back office systems, providers are looking to reduce their overall highest possible Straight Through Processing (STP) rate. cost base. As most organisations run multiple systems to administer Scalability a wrap, the unavoidable result is a high ‘per account’ cost base.

A number of leading transaction banks use Avaloq products – Secondly, providers are also looking for ease of administration, where the scalability of stable and well-proven technology is the for example, things like corporate actions can be extremely key factor in achieving the best results. The system is also designed complex and require a system which will automate the process. to be truly ‘multi-tenanted’.

Lastly, providers seek to understand how an institution can Scope of functions increase their penetration and cross sell into their customer base.

Avaloq solutions are unmatched in the breadth and depth of their All providers face the challenge of stemming the outflow to Selffunctions and are unique in the market. For example, integrated Managed Super Funds (SMSFs). The corollary of course is that a CRM, Portfolio Management and Contact Centre. significant opportunity can be created by offering SMSFs. In most cases however this requires an upgrade in technology.

How can Australian financial services organisations advance wrap platforms and other offerings?

In order to reduce their cost base, ease the administration burden, increase cross sell opportunities and introduce SMSFs, organisations will need to have a technology solution which enables equities and associated processing in addition to the traditional unitised products.

The financial landscape has changed, and organisations will be unable to simply offer managed funds. Front office, middle office and back office administration capability is now essential. In order to have a world class back office environment institutions will require a single solution that caters to both.

How can wealth management companies integrate and manage existing solutions?

Legacy wealth management systems do not allow for real-time integration, whether through the banking channel, ATM access or other channels. They require a solution which enables an ease of integration into the banking environment. For example, a solution which facilitates running multiple service centres, the integration into ATM environment for access to cash within a Wrap platform, and caters for mobility, e-banking and e-wealth management.

To learn more, go to www.avaloq.com

How does Avaloq help clients manage the complexity of wrap platforms?

The ‘Avaloq Banking Suite’ (ABS) comprises a fully integrated, W HO ’ S W HO O F FS I

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OPIN I ON

Charting an intuitive mobile future

BY SIM S LIM

As we forge ahead in a dynamic Asia, we are constantly reminded that the human element needs to remain at the core of our digital strategy and innovation journey.

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At DBS, we have embarked on the journey to shape the future of banking, set against the context of the ever-changing digital lifestyle and the rapid emergence of disruptive technologies. In the future, our customers may not necessarily need a bank in the traditional sense. But they will definitely continue to need banking that is able to evolve with their lives and needs.

In the greater landscape, financial organisations will see increasing threat and competition from non-traditional players such as Google, Alipay, PayPal, mobile solutions providers and telcos. Digitisation has made it possible for new players to encroach on each other’s traditional field of business.

This is where we need to step up, in a commitment to make the customer experience more interactive and intuitive, integrating banking solutions and products into their lives in a more meaningful way, through digital platforms and solutions. DBS has announced an investment of SG$200million over the next three years to establish a digital banking initiative as part of our innovation journey and our drive to shape the future of banking.

Apart from integrating banking into our customers’ digital lifestyles, the initiative also aims to leverage technologies to reach large retail markets with a rising digitally savvy group of consumers.

Looking back to 2010, when we embarked on our innovation journey, led by our Chief Executive Piyush Gupta, our roadmap was anchored on three big ideas: • An increased focus on digitisation to further enhance efficiency • Making the customer experience more interactive and intuitive • Analytics and the use of big data, both structured and unstructured Today, while the fundamentals remain the same, we have made several leaps forward.

In 2014, we reached a key milestone in our innovation journey, moving into the research and development, and the ideation space.

We formed a partnership with A*STAR’s Institute of Infocomm Research in Singapore, to set up a joint lab driving innovation through research and experimentation. This lab is tapping into the institute’s vast network

of researchers and leveraging its IP in data analytics, mobile technology, social platforms and other leading edge technologies.

DBS also collaborates with IBM to apply Watson’s capabilities to harness big data in an effort to arm our relationship managers with data-driven insights so that they can better personalise the customer experience.

With Asia creating wealth faster than anywhere else in the world, we are seeing a growing group of increasingly sophisticated and digitally-savvy customers. Banking relationship managers need to be empowered with sophisticated and intuitive tools that will enable them to be more responsive in providing speedy, insightful and tailored solutions. The idea is to capture data, convert it to information, take it to knowledge and end it with wisdom. Once we have wisdom, we can act on it. The day of artificial intelligence is here.

Another significant part of our innovation journey was to transform the bank branch by leveraging technology that will enhance the customer experience. At DBS, we have never adopted a new technology for the sake of doing so or staying with the trend. When we placed iPads at our flagship branch at our headquarters at DBS Asia Central, it was to enable customers to access insights and information at their fingertips while they are in our branch.

While we have been focusing on the digital space, the physical branch is not likely to become obsolete soon. Some customers still prefer a high-touch, face-to-face experience.

Understanding this, we are employing human-centred thinking and design as a means and transform the customer experience in our premises.

As we forge ahead in a dynamic Asia, we are constantly reminded that the human element needs to remain at the core of our digital strategy and innovation journey.

Innovation is not about technology but the value we can create for our customers as we seek to do things differently and in new ways with new tools.

Sim S Lim is the Singapore Country Head at DBS Bank

C O - SPONSO R E D A R T I C LE

Data Centres Take Centre Stage Financial services organisations in Singapore have been subject to increasingly strict regulatory scrutiny. Technology now forms a big part of the ever-tightening compliance requirements.

Prompted by the growth of online banking, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has issued Technology Risk Management Notice guidelines that mandate strict IT controls to protect customer data and information.

One of the requirements by the MAS is for all financial services organisations to complete a ‘Threat and Vulnerability Risk Assessment (TVRA)’ to increase the security of stored information and IT systems in data centres – whether owned by the organisation or outsourced.

Digital Realty owns and operates one of the first data centres in Singapore to comply with the MAS requirements and has a track record of servicing financial service organisations globally.

The TVRA, which is completed every two years by Digital Realty and mandated by the MAS, must be completed by a qualified technology risk party on data centres in Singapore and overseas.

This assessment should consider scenarios including theft, explosives, external attacks and insider sabotage, as well as a physical review of the building itself and those who have access.

Digital Realty is a premier data centre provider for financial services organisations because of its strict security measures, including bomb blast resistant areas and secure building and data hall access including biometric scanning procedures. The company has also maintained the holy grail of uptime, 99.999 per cent, for the last six years across its global data centre portfolio.

In Singapore, another key requirement by the MAS is for financial services organisations to identify critical systems, as they pose significant threats to operations if they malfunction. Financial organisations are required to establish and document a framework in order to safeguard these systems, with the

maximum amount of unscheduled downtime per system not allowed to exceed four hours.

Furthermore, organisations must implement internal procedures to detect security breaches quickly, and are required to report any incidents of security breaches within one hour of detection.

When outsourcing data centre requirements, financial service organisations should conduct an in-depth study of the data centre provider’s risk profile even though all third party providers are required to undertake the MAS mandated TVRA assessment. The results of such TVRA study should also be made available to all customers looking to outsource their data centre requirements.

Finally, financial services organisations are required by the MAS to develop a disaster recovery plan which addresses unforeseen events and this should be done hand in hand with a data centre provider who has proven experience dealing with the rigorous security and operational requirements mandated by the financial sector.

Digital Realty remains the data centre provider of choice for financial services organisations globally due its highly secure, regulatory compliant, and high uptime facilities.

To learn more visit Digital Realty at www.digitalrealty.asia

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The

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BIG Picture

Insurers are making great strides in business enabled technology, but it is the banks that continue to lead the charge. In this exclusive for The Who’s Who, IDC Financial Insights reveals the top trends and disruptors set to shape the sector in the year ahead.

Significant research into the financial technology landscape in the year ahead reveals that risk management areas such as enterprise resource management, credit risk management and compliance will emerge high on the agenda of financial services organisations.

This is reflective of the mindset shift since the onslaught of the global financial crisis that fundamentally, banks should be exemplary in deposit-taking and lending yet cognisant of all risks.

There is an increased realisation among financial services organisations that costs associated with risk failures can add up

quickly. Conversely, setting up the right risk management tools can yield numerous potential business benefits an up-to-date and secure system is likely to be more accurate and efficient.

Despite this emphasis on risk management, banks are eager to start investigating the opportunities and challenges brought about by new, disruptive technologies such as mobility, big data, and social media, among others. This is reflected in the high growth we expect from innovative projects across digital channels, big data and customer management. As a share of total IT budgets, spending on ‘new’ W HO ’ S W HO O F FS I

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The banking industry is facing what could be the next big disruptive technology: the Internet of Things (IoT).

technology – those assigned to innovation or the pursuit of new business, as opposed to ‘keeping the lights on’ – will be the highest since the crisis. Among the largest 250 banks that IDC covers, IT budgets for ‘new’ spending will breach the 30 per cent mark.

The slew of projects that are building up will add new complexities in IT optimisation and project management.

Many new projects will be squeezed into the pipeline and problems in IT project management and oversight will become more evident. This means not only raising technology governance but also needing to methodically scrutinise the impact of innovation on the banks’ risk profile to come up with an updated inventory of new risk implications arising around privacy, security and reliability issues that are being brought about by emerging technologies. The task of building a disciplined risk management thus needs to grow in tandem with a focus on innovation.

INTERNET OF THINGS

The first steps to a hyper-connected world

The banking industry is facing what could be the next big disruptive technology: the Internet of Things (IoT). The hype around IoT, supported by significant marketing and branding by the world’s leading vendors, is leading banks to decide how they are to venture into the innovation sweet spot for IoT. Many Asia Pacific financial services organisations will realise that the era of a hyperconnected network of ‘things’ (sensors, smartcards, RFID-enabled devices and widgets and smartwatches) is a long-term strategy. However, insurance will lead banks to realise the potential of IoT. For insurance, the push for customers to use fitness devices such as wristband wearables that monitor activity levels and encourage greater fitness wil help them to qualify for lower healthcare premiums. These devices also function as vehicular telematics, which help track insurance factors of vehicles.

For banks, authentication will probably hold the biggest opportunity for IoT as

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current methods are inconvenient and can be bypassed. IDC predicts early adoption within the use of biometrics, RFID on cards and chip implants for digital channel authentication, Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Know Your Customer and payments. IoT is also being assessed for branch operations with sensors interacting intelligently across multiple customer devices, bank devices, ATMs, information zones, lighting and air-conditioning.

IoT will allow banks to answer several questions they face day to day. Is the customer in the vicinity and therefore likely to interact with our bank channel?

Is the customer in the same location as his payment transaction? Is the insurance customer speeding regularly? Is the loan applicant healthy enough to repay a 20-year mortgage? What is my most profitable ‘next best offer’ to this customer right now?

Meanwhile, Google Glass and all its counterparts may revolutionise marketing (available offers showing up on the glass), client interaction (winking to check bank account balances), sales, and shopping.

US-based Wells Fargo’s Innovation Labs and Fidelity Centre for Advanced Technology are reportedly building Google Glass applications and other in-site applications as well as a host of other IoT experimentations that should come into fruition within three years. Expectations are that every banking task could be accomplished without using a single banking channel that exists today. This impacts current omni-channel thinking. Asia Pacific banks are looking into the Wells Fargo experiments with great interest.

Leading Asia Pacific banks need to see past short-term hype and criticisms to unravel IoT’s long-term business potential, within the specific context of the region’s banking markets. Innovation strategists should begin by collaborating with vendors to help define the scope of and possible breadth of IoT solutions and how these can potentially use real-time intelligence from devices. This degree of collaboration will require the vendor community to move Research and Development (R&D) budgets from the lab and to the field, with clients. In addition, IoT will cause a drastic

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change in the ‘exchange rate’ between customer privacy and personalisation, making customer privacy a top IT and Line of Business (LOB) governance concern.

They further need to understand how data security and regulatory compliance issues will impact particular processes they are looking to automate.

Addressing these will allow banks’ IoT ideas to go through the fundamental hurdles before these, along with the IoT phenomenon, go mainstream in the next few years.

REGULATION

Managing a crowded compliance agenda

The regulatory agenda of Asia Pacific banks continues to be crowded with priorities and timelines. The adoption of international regulatory frameworks like Basel III, set to contextualise globally required liquidity and funding ratios to Asia Pacific markets, has been the easy evidence for the sense of regulatory escalation.

Basel III, however, will not have as drastic a ramification on tier one and tier two Asia Pacific banks compared with their peers in the rest of the world, and even compared to Basel II compliance experience of banks, which led to extraordinary increases in IT budgets from 2001 to 2006.

Nonetheless, Basel III would likewise compel more onerous reporting requirements, leading to increasing compliance and monitoring costs for most Asia Pacific banks. In other words, while IDC does not expect an escalation in direct costs for Basel III provisioning, we expect the effort to comply will be onerous and the burden just as heavy.

Regulation has also been strong in technology risk management in the past two years and we expect the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) enhanced Technology Risk Management (TRM) to have set the template for high levels of reliability, availability and recoverability of critical IT systems. These guidelines impact strategies for cloud computing, data centres, outsourcing and vendor selection.

China and India will see IT spending on compliance jump the highest as the countries catch up with more mature economies. China in particular stands out for being most aggressive in addressing liquidity coverage ratios aligned with Basel III principles.

The reporting process has also had a fresh impetus as regulators upgrade their regimes to receive more detailed, current and reliable data. Markets like Malaysia, Indonesia and Hong Kong are standardising their reporting requirements and replacing old routine-type reports with those that demand even more disclosure and greater transparency.

Furthermore, regulation seems to be touching more areas, even those that have historically lacked regulation.

We cite in particular Reserved Bank of Australia’s (RBA) ‘Strategic Review of Innovation in the Payments System,’ which set guidelines for interbank transfers and peer-to-peer payments.

In Australia, the formation of the government-led Murray Inquiry is behind a comprehensive assessment of the country’s financial services industry and can possibly introduce new rules for pricing, funding and consumer protection. These rules indicate the regulatory themes that can grow and dominate the agenda of banks in 2014 and beyond.

INVESTMENT

Enhancing the value of the branch

IDC estimates that banks across the region will be investing almost US$6.4billion on their branch channels in 2014 and projects this value rising on a steady cumulative annual growth rate or CAGR of 9.2 per cent to US$8.3billion by the end of 2017. This might be a surprisingly high rate of growth, given the supposed obsolescence of branches, with the emergence of a new generation of banking customers and the proliferation of digital channels.

However, we believe that banks are still keen to extract higher value from branches

IoT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING! Connected iConsumers • Consumer wearables • Child monitoring

Connected iCity • Traffic monitoring • Infrastructure management

Connected iEcosystem • Supply-chain speed to market • Streamlined interenterprise process

Connected iHome • Lighting and energy management • Smart meters for utilities Connected iCommerce • Digital media signage • Vending machines

Connected iEnterprise • Hyper-connected workforce • Automated business processes

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In the coming year, the story will take on a new theme: growth not by sheer numbers but the value of the channel and transactions.

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as they launch their next-generation branch strategies. This means redesigning flagship stores in strategically important locations for promoting brand awareness but, more crucially, transitioning this core channel network away from straightforward transactions and services, which can be replicated cheaper via the ATM, internet and mobile or call centres, towards more value-added services such as financial advisory, brokerage services, cross-selling investments or insurance, or even offering community outreach programs.

The move away from the traditional teller-based servicing model also has implications on HR-related initiatives. The new concepts of branch-banking generally calls for the empowerment of employees with appropriate tools, training, knowledge and skillsets plus spending to implement process upgrades and technology platforms to improve productivity.

Meanwhile, branches need to appeal to the cohort of digitally-savvy customers with quicker product turnaround time and provision of high-tech touch points (such as self-discovery solutions with touch screens, interactive video kiosks for information services and assisted-self-service for simple account servicing with click-to-chat options readily available when required).

Some Asian banks are even introducing informal open spaces at selected outlets to counter the staid image of banking, taking inspiration from the new retail formats.

Banks across the globe have been revamping flagship branches with design and technology to personalise their brand.

Examples of these new branch concepts include Citibank’s ‘Branch of the Future’ in Hong Kong, Singapore and New York – inspired from the Apple store by integrating modern design with technology and high customer service. Other examples include BNP Paribas’ ‘Opera Concept Store’ in Paris, Barclays in London, Deutsche Bank in Berlin, with its lounge areas and large interactive screens, and Canada-based TD Bank’s ‘TD Bank Store’.

These investments in branches do not need to equate to larger bricks-and-mortar premises. Instead, banks can still maintain human interaction without huge real estate

price tags by integrating digital and video technologies in smaller branch facilities.

These include phone banking and video web conferencing, online banking kiosks with iPad style devices, and self-serve automated teller stations or new-generation ATMs with expanded capabilities such as live video interaction and customer support.

Such investments explain why hardware spending for branches continues to rise – at a CAGR of 7.2 per cent from US$2.3 billion this year to US$2.8 billion in 2017. Notable experiments include Shinhan Bank in South Korea introducing unmanned smart branch kiosks that communicate with handsets, ABN AMRO’s teleportal branch that conducts functions of a traditional branch through videoconferencing facility on a 3D screen, and National Australia Bank (NAB) in Australia with its video chat facilities for online loan processing and cross-selling.

Within emerging markets, branches fulfill the role of initiating the customer relationship as banks convert unbanked or under-banked customer segments to the banking system. In these markets, banks understand that significant opportunities still exist from having a physical presence to interact with the community and develop more cohesive consumer and business banking relationships. Branches are typically the first point of contact for many customers.

The story for branches in Asia Pacific is far from over. In the coming year, the story will take on a new theme: growth not by sheer numbers but in growing the value of the channel and transactions.

PAYMENTS

Next generation payments in Asia: a revolution

Driven by the need for scale and speed that aging payments systems cannot deliver, banks are looking at strategic initiatives for mobile payments, enterprise payments, and immediate payments.

The mobile phone remains the core of innovation in retail banking. IDC expects the role of the mobile as a key touchpoint in an omni-channel strategy of banks to grow in prominence, extending this critical role

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to payments. Proximity payments around NFC and QR codes will continue to see much attention in mature markets, albeit with little adoption from the consumers so far.

Remote payments on the other hand, such as peer-to-peer payments and mCommerce are revolutionising retail commerce, driving financial inclusion in emerging markets.

The mobile phone is also changing the merchant acquiring business, lowering the entry cost for small merchants through square-like devices that can be attached to a mobile phone or tablet.

Immediate payments schemes are in the works to process low-value transactions in real-time and on a 24/7 basis. For banks, this will create new revenue streams from consumers and businesses and allow them to keep pace with the speed of non-banking players, such as PayPal, AliPay, and TenPay. Following the UK, the first Asian markets to launch immediate payments infrastructures are Singapore, India, Hong Kong and Australia.

Singapore has announced the launch its G3 system, a low value clearing system that processes real-time single transactions and replaces eGIRO for bulk file processing. By adopting the ISO 20022 XML messaging standards, the general platform may extend to multi-currency and crossborder payments. Australia’s central bank, countering the slow pace of innovation in the Australian payments industry, established a new industry co-ordination body, the Australian Payments Council to drive its goal of introducing a real-time faster payments system in the country by 2016.

Meanwhile, transaction banking, traditionally seen more as a utility than a business, has not been a key investment priority of many banks. This is changing now, driven by the need for faster and more (cost) efficient payments and a tsunami of more than 30 global and regional regulations and standards, such as the ISO 20022 framework or regional integration through the Asian Payment Network (APN).

Given the rapid pace of change in payments over all, IDC expects the shift towards an enterprise payments strategy to intensify. Facing the challenges of legacy technology and the need to roll-out new

products quickly, we foresee a growing interest for payment hub solutions over the coming years particularly from emerging markets, such as Malaysia and banks pushing a regionalisation agenda.

Key building blocks will include the use of service-oriented architectures (SOA), further standardisation, and the better integration of compliance and risk functions to make the launch of new functionalities in the existing infrastructure repeatable, flexible and more cost efficient.

Needless to say there are many opportunities for out-of-the-box approaches to work around current infrastructure and supply chain limitations. DBS ‘Remit’ has reduced the turnaround times for remittances between Singapore, India and Indonesia to same-day settlement while making it cheaper by bypassing SWIFT as the middlemen. The bank uses local partners, its local subsidiaries for now, as a gateway into the domestic payment systems, but plans to expand the service to multiple other countries and partners. Same-day settlement puts DBS ahead of the competition by offering faster and cheaper remittances.

Another example is Bank of America Merrill Lynch offering ‘Accelerated Payments to Asia’ enabling banks and corporations to make high-value US dollar payments to Asia or within Asia. The service is designed both for global institutions that send commercial payments to beneficiaries in Asia and for Asia-based institutions whose trade within the region is denominated in US dollars.

It uses smart routing technology to recognise payments and pass them through in-country US dollar clearing systems via a single bank account and leverages the bank’s global branch network.

It currently captures more than 1,000 different Hong Kong and Greater Chinabased beneficiary banks and branches and will be expanded over time to incorporate US$ clearing systems in other Asian markets.

By IDC Financial Insights’ Consulting and Research Director Michael Araneta, Research Manager Tom Zink and Associate Research Director Li-May Chew

Top 10 insurance trends in the year ahead 1.

Countries will revive interest rates as global economies mend but benefits will not be instantaneous and life insurers will need to reevaluate immediate growth strategies.

2. Multinationals will be lured by aggressive growth in the emerging markets of Asia and Latin America.

3. Aggregated insurance technology spend will increase by four per cent in 2014, with the star performer being Asia Pacific with 5.6 per cent growth.

4. Modes for delivering core systems will be increasingly diverse but most transformational projects will still be conducted on an incremental basis.

5. Increasing complexities in operating models will drive insurers to simplify business processes to reduce cost.

6. The need to implement a total customer relationship will drive requirements for advanced analytical techniques.

7. Insurers will not be hamstrung by existing distribution channels and continue to enhance digital outreach capabilities.

8. Managements will be more active in risk modelling and assessment, focusing on enterprise risk management and handling enhanced regulatory requirements.

9. Progressive insurers will explore disruptive innovation from state-of-the-art technologies such as telematics.

10. At up to 15 per cent of premiums, fraudulent activities will have fraud management kicking into even higher gear.

Source: IDC Financial Insights

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Predictions for the year ahead

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Uneven IT spending creates steep growth disparities across Asia Pacific In the coming year, the unevenness of IT budgets will lead to the highest growth disparity in years. On the one hand, there are the ultra-high growth areas like Hong Kong and Singapore, which are seeing robust IT investments as global organisations establish bases in these two leading financial hubs. Global organisations need to ramp up their technology capabilities across the region. The ultra-high growth segment also includes Malaysia and the Philippines. On the other hand, markets like India, South Korea and Thailand will see their financial organisations hold back on huge investments as their economies resolve domestic issues that could adversely impact their financial services industries.

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Banks more at ease with regulation Banks are starting to shift their sentiments regarding regulation.

The interesting twist in the year ahead is that they might be realising more and more the benefits of such regulation. Guidelines for technology risk will bring focused attention on what are the core and critical systems in an organistion, allowing the bank to prioritise its risk mitigation activities accordingly. Partly as a result of this focus on mission-critical risks, the rise of the number of ‘severity one’ outages, which was the worrisome trend IDC cited in our predictions in the past few years, has been curtailed.

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About 60 per cent of big data use cases intended to improve customer engagement The emergence of high-performance analytics now allows banks to do more with their data. Leading analytics players in financial services enable banks to converge database and application capabilities so that transactions, customer insights, text analysis, and predictive analysis can be handled in real-time.

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Early in the big data journey of organistions, banks are bringing big data tools into their innovation sandbox, finding use cases in pricing, fraud and Anti-Money Laundering (AML), and payments analytics.

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Analytics will accelerate the retailisation of wealth management IDC expects banks to accelerate the retailisation of the wealth management business. The retailisation manifests in how wealth managers will seek differentiation through personalised yet institutionalised advice, enabling clients to react to market developments faster. Analytics will be a priority, which explains why some of the highest growth in analyticsrelated investments will come from wealth managers and banks with wealth operations. Analytics will be used for retailstyle customer profiling and segmentation as well as for pricing, dynamic risk scoring and portfolio optimisation.

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Mobile financial services will be the first step to omni-channel The journey toward the omni-channel is spurred by banks’ realisation that an interaction or transaction now typically goes through multiple channels before it is truly completed. It appears, however, that it is in one single channel – the mobile channel – where the journey to omnichannel begins for most Asia Pacific banks.

IDC Financial Insights is keeping track of about 50 noteworthy mobile financial services projects among Asia Pacific banks that not only simply respond to the upsurge of mobile usage but also cater to the intrinsic strengths of the mobile device itself.

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Cloud adoption to grow as the technology goes beyond a choice between private and public With the maturation of new cloud delivery models, banks are moving away

from conservative, risk-averse postures.

Discussions now extend beyond just private or public options. Alternatives – Dedicated Private Cloud (DPC), Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) and community cloud – allow banks to capitalise on benefits while remaining compliant. Banks will tailor cloud strategies according to the type of data centre management, location (on-premise or offsite), tenancy and data segregation/co-mingling options.

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Authentication leads first use cases for the Internet of Things (IoT) but IoT will take time to unfold The hype around the Internet of Things (IoT), supported by significant marketing and branding by the world’s leading vendors, is leading banks to decide how they can venture into the innovation sweet spot for IoT, assuming banks decide IoT is worth venturing into at all. For banks, authentication will probably have the biggest potential for IoT, as current methods are inconvenient and can be bypassed. Early adoption could include biometrics, RFID on cards and chip implants for digital channel authentication, AML, Know Your Customer, and payments. IoT is also being assessed for branch operations – with sensors interacting intelligently across multiple customer devices, bank devices, ATMs, information zones, lighting, and air-conditioning.

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Core banking vendors innovating faster than banks can sign new core technology deals Because of the new drivers and preferences of banks regarding their core banking projects, vendors have expanded their competencies. Several vendors have ramped up their channels and analytics capabilities, recognising that solution offerings in these two areas outside of the core transaction system increase their profile remarkably.

While vendors are innovating, we do not expect a mad rush for core banking

replacements in 2014. The market will be slow but steady. The deliberate pace with which banks signed on to core banking projects in the past three years will continue.

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Industry collaboration will ensure banks retain payments relevance In 2014, banks need to watch for surprising breaches into their stronghold in payments from non-bank entrants such as Google, Alipay, PayPal, and Tenpay.

The long-standing call to action for the banking industry is to collaborate as much as possible – not just among their banking peers but also with as many partners and third parties. The objective is to unify various next-generation payment offerings under common standards and for banks to desist from their old preference of building their own mini-ecosystems.

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Asia Pacific banks lead the regionalisation theme in transaction banking but global banks keep the data efficiency advantage Asia Pacific banks are leading this charge for a regional transaction banking proposition. These banks have launched cash management systems and trade finance platforms that cater to local organisations, standardising these solutions across their holdings in the Southeast Asia markets.

These solutions offer clear local elements such as multi-currency and Asian language capabilities, alignment with local reporting guidelines and support for ratio calculations mandated by Asian regulations. Meanwhile, an advantage for global players is that they are years ahead of Asia Pacific institutions in optimising their data infrastructures.

Aided by analytics, global players are likely to be much more credible in pricing, whatif analysis and other predictive analytics capabilities that are increasingly crucial in transaction banking.

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A Composable Future, Powered by Cloud

By Grant Thomson, Cloud Business Leader, IBM A/NZ and Andrew Kupetz, Cloud CTO, IBM A/NZ

Search cloud computing in your browser and you will get over 399 million results.

The proliferation and adoption of cloud computing and technologies is not news.

Cloud has gone through its hype cycle. How these technologies are maturing and rapidly applied across ecosystems, business and IT will affect everyone in profound ways, regardless of business or where they live.

We all know the impact that cloud startups such as Facebook and Whatsapp have had in the social arena, now the focus is on cloud for business, and the reinvention of enterprise IT. To date, cloud in business has been predominantly associated with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). All new technology cycles are prone to industry hype and the ‘washing’ of existing and transitional approaches and technologies with the latest cool new word. Cloud computing is a paradigm shift. The infrastructure is only the enabling foundation. Cloud now pervades all of business and IT. The new paradigm of cloud computing heralds new capabilities, new business models, ecosystems and economies to apply and monetise value. It also has a profound impact on existing financial services organisations, including: n methods, techniques, tools and underlying technologies n the way software is designed, built, integrated, deployed and managed n commercials, statements of work and project management and n go-to-market and skillsets required for product and service strategy, marketing, selling, delivery and support.

Today, most financial services organisations suffer from complex, duplicated, and fragmented business and IT environments that are slow, costly and risky to change – legacy business models, processes and technologies that are now critical threats in this increasingly

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competitive and fast moving world – especially as new competitors become armed with cloud computing.

For example, imagine a cloud startup, with billions in the bank, millions of customers connected globally, modern development, distribution and payment systems; then add a banking licence. This example is what is happening across the globe – business models are being reimagined, powered by cloud computing.

IBM is rapidly moving to enable the era of cloud computing, where the internet, nature, people, smart machines and things can be instrumented, interconnected, communicated with, and composed ‘asa-service’ (aaS), in real-time. An era where business models and processes, software applications (or “apps”), cloud services, and their integration (APIs), can be quickly and continually composed, all leveraging the inherent advantages of cloud computing: low cost and speed-to-outcome and change.

IBM calls this ‘Composable Business,’ where the Internet of things (IoT), roles and people are simply mobile and can be dynamically composed.

IBM has announced its global shift to cloud computing, investing over US$7billion in its transformation where hardware, software, and services meld into one. It represents the most significant change in IBM’s go-tomarket strategy since it built a large blue-

suited sales force to cater to businesses in the 1950s and ‘60s. It is a fundamental reinvention of the company, changing how IBM operates and delivers value to clients.

Imagine a world where any required business and IT function is a composition of other functions, all provided and consumed as ‘pick and choose’ cloud services – what you want, when you want it, where you want it, and pay for what you use. Imagine a platform to build, compose, secure, deploy and manage apps (enabling everyone-toeveryone communication) and APIs (for machine-program to machine-program communication) and where machines can be any ‘smart machines’ ranging from personal devices to robotics, atomics and biology.

Imagine all of this enabled by a global hub of elastic infrastructure, with a ‘global and open composition factory’ and a global marketplace (for business, development and IT operations) of open standards and opensource-based cloud services (infrastructure, platforms for software developers, software solutions and business processes).

Imagine being able to remove massive duplication, fragmentation and labour intensive tasks – the decades of compounding complexity that is common in financial environments – to rapidly compose a path from business need to outcome.

Applying cloud computing for systems of engagement and interaction, with the appropriate context-aware design patterns, we can create a composition that dynamically caters for: n Multi Geo ➜ Location ➜ Time Zone n Multi Entity ➜ Brand ➜ Channel n Multi Device ➜ Location ➜ Situational Context n Multi Business Service n Product ➜ Service n Process ➜ Role ➜ Policy n Quality of Service, Service Level Agreements, Non Functional Requirements

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This is now real Here is what is new for IBM and its clients: n A cloud culture n A cloud ecosystem n A cloud platform n A cloud business model

A cloud culture Historically, if a new capability was introduced, the business and IT units within financial services organisations would disappear into the long journey of a business case, architecture, designbuild-test-deploy lifecycle that we are all so familiar with. All in an effort to control expenditure, minimise the risk of making a bad investment and to make sure we get a return on investment.

What if IT could support the new desire to ‘fail fast,’ to try ideas, see what works and see what does not work, all at a radically increased pace, a reduced cost, and with the resulting capability open for other businesses to use? On a pay-per-use or ‘as-a-service’ model.

What if developers in a business unit could leverage that capability and pulling together a new offering easily and dynamically, orchestrating from a myriad of building blocks, to try out an idea that can generate new revenue or improve customer loyalty almost immediately?

A cloud ecosystem IBM is creating a destination online where application developers, line-of-business executives and IT leaders can collaborate and work in ways that are tailored to their roles in their organisations. In this way: n Developers can build new applications. n Line of business executives can sign up for cloud services n IT leaders can build, purchase and manage services The destination will include a marketplace where IBM, third-party developers, ISVs, MSPs and even clients themselves will offer a wide variety of services for sale (e.g. banks may offer digital vaults, identity services and other trust based services). Customers will be able to select services off a virtual shelf, snap

A new model of collaboration A composable business is made up of a combination of multiple parts or elements. It represents a new collaboration model between IT, line-ofbusiness and development teams, who are coming together to find the appropriate ‘building blocks’ to assemble into an application or programme that meet the needs of the business.

IBM acquired ‘Softlayer’ in 2013 and has recently announced US$1.2billion of further investment in data centres around the world.

Two will be in Australia and will be available in the second half of 2014.

IBM has also upped the ante in the API ecosystem by making our ‘Watson’ machine learning and question-answering platform available as a service. Watson will soon power smart-device apps. The ‘Watson Developer Cloud Platform’ will create a large community of developers in the world of cognitive computing.

A cloud business model them together and extend them, to create powerful new cloud native applications and business processes. This is ‘composable business’.

A cloud platform In the internet era, IBM built a platform of technologies upon which clients and independent developers could create their own applications (think Middleware & SOA).

The platform made it easier for them to integrate the new applications with existing IT systems and stores of data.

In the cloud computing era, IBM is doing the same thing for cloud services. This Platform-as-a-Service offering, ‘BlueMix’ will make it easier for enterprises and independent developers to quickly build new cloud native applications, test them, and then deploy them at massive scale.

These applications can be composed from services from the cloud ecosystem (marketplace) and from within an enterprise.

The era of the monolithic application and its heavy duty enterprise integration is over.

‘IBM Bluemix’ is an open, integrated development experience that scales and allows developers to compose apps, APIs and services from IBM, third-parties, open technologies services including services for IT operations, analytics and big data, mobile-web, social business, DevOps (Build, Test, Deploy), and high performance computing. It is built on ‘CloudFoundry’ and ‘Openstack’.

‘Bluemix’ will sit on IBM’s ‘Softlayer infrastructure-as-a-service offering.

In 2013 IBM announced that all its cloud services and software will be open-standards and open-source-based.

This will allow business and IT clients the freedom to continually choose the best loosely-coupled and granular functions, with no lock in – to plug in and plug out business and IT capabilities as required. It also allows client to tap into IBM cloud services and the global development community as a catalyst for innovation.

It is one thing for an established technology company to expand on its traditional offerings with new cloud services, but quite another to reinvent the way it creates value by radically transforming its business model. IBM’s own transformation will enable the transformation of enterprise IT, and the business it serves.

Please visit ibm.com/cloud and explore Bluemix, Marketplace and Softlayer for yourself and try them out.

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Cashing in on SMAC What’s Next?

Demanding customers, the explosion of mobile devices and competitive cost pressures are spurring banks to take their digital strategies to the upper echelons. This article explores how financial organisations are gearing up for the next wave of Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud convergence. By Adrian Barclay and Rimin Dutt

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f industry observers are correct, there is no single technology that guarantees the success of a Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) strategy. However, it is widely believed that mobile and analytics are the dynamic duo behind future success stories.

“It is not a zero-sum game and all of these [SMAC] elements will have a big role to play. However mobile is probably the most critical,” says Gilles Ubaghs, an analyst with Ovum.

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He adds that all evidence so far points to levels of consumer engagement on mobile that are far higher than online behaviour, and even higher than in-branch or any other contact point for financial services with consumers.

According to research figures from BI Intelligence, a research arm of Business Insider, as of October 2013, six per cent of the world’s population owned a tablet, 20 per cent owned a personal computer and

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22 per cent own a smartphone. The report noted mobile ownership overtook global PC ownership on a per capita basis somewhere in mid-2012, showing the significant uptake of smartphones worldwide.

Google’s Our Mobile Planet report released mid-2013 pointed to high smartphone penetration in the developed markets of Asia Pacific. As a percentage of population, Singapore, Australia and Hong Kong all showed rates above 62 per cent of smartphone ownership.

Out of these, New Zealand ranked as lowest at 54 per cent. China led smartphone penetration in developing markets in Asia with 47 per cent mobile penetration, while India and Indonesia fell on the opposite side of the spectrum, only registering 14 per cent of smartphone penetration each.

One way banks are advancing their SMAC capabilities across the region is through investments in replacing and upgrading their core banking technology.

Australia has emerged as a regional leader for SMAC for financial services, thanks to its advanced systems and the combined spending power of its banking giants.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has replaced its core technology, investing about AU$1.1billion in the upgrades. Other major banks like the National Australia Bank (NAB), Westpac Banking and ANZ Banking Group all have multi-billion dollar transformation projects underway.

In New Zealand, the government-owned Kiwibank is in the midst of upgrading its core banking system. The move follows an earlier upgrade as ANZ’s local arm adopted the banking system of subsidiary, National Bank, to further its integrations efforts.

In Southeast Asia, CIMB Group has been one of the most ambitious towards introducing new core banking systems.

CIMB, through its operations in Singapore and Thailand, has upgraded its systems in the past couple of years. Indonesia will be the last CIMB region to join the ‘1Platform’ core upgrade. DBS Bank in Singapore has deployed core banking technology to achieve improved automation and controls in loans processing and accurate data processing for downstream reporting and analytics.

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Observers say the next wave of SMAC will include a number of the leading financial services organisations’ systems communicating with one another at even greater speeds, incorporating a patchwork of both legacy and new systems.

While some banks are making inroads with core technology projects to enable this digital transformation, others are choosing to form partnerships with startups in analytics, mobile delivery and social media platforms. For example, ANZ has a partnership with Ingogo, a start-up that provides a free taxi app. Westpac has partnered with SocietyOne, a peer-to-peer lender, to tap the hot crowd-lending space.

Rethinking SMAC

A successful SMAC strategy will require financial services organisations to re-align their entire business, says Michael Barnes, Vice President at Forrester Research.

“Understanding and effectively supporting empowered customers requires an ‘outsidein’ approach and unprecedented levels of communication and collaboration between different business units and IT for financial services organisations,” says Barnes.

As a regional leader, Australia also presents a model for big data for other Asian countries to emulate, claims Rami Mukhtar, Project Leader at NICTA, an Australian governmentfunded research organisation. Westpac, for example, has deployed its ‘KnowMe’ big data project – regarded by analysts as one of the most advanced big data initiatives in the region – that has helped the bank increase revenue by AU$22million.

The convergence of technologies is creating a myriad of opportunities for financial services providers. One example could be providing consumers a snapshot of their finances by pulling data from multiple sources, akin to a comparison shopping site.

“The innovators are moving to an aggregator view of the world. There is still a lot of work to truly give customers a clear picture of their real financial status across banking,” says Oliver Weidlich, Director at consultancy Mobile Experience. “There is the potential opportunity to be a trusted aggregator,” Weidlich says.

Australian customer-owned institution ME Bank has plans to provide customers with

a consolidated and simplified view across finance sectors, providing customers with a single view of their bank and superannuation account balances, according to the bank’s Chief Information Officer, Kathryn Hawkins.

“Transformation will be a key enabler because it will give us improved operational efficiencies, the ability to bring our products to life much faster than we have been able to do in the past,” says Hawkins.

Analysts also predict geo-location as the next big thing. “The more we know about a person’s context, the more personalised the experience we can give them,” says Weidlich.

Banks have been at the forefront of adopting SMAC strategies but their counterparts in the wealth management and insurance industries are also fast catching up.

A common framework

The Banking Industry Architecture Network (BIAN), a global alliance of industry and vendors, will help banks and vendors to move towards a ‘plug and play’ environment for banking software, according to BIAN’s Executive Director, Hans Tesselaar.

BIAN is establishing standards for serviceoriented architecture, due for completion by early 2015, to help banks with speed-tomarket and access to digital functionalities.

Dubbed ‘the banking platform of the future,’ the core banking platform will rely on metadata parameters to guide business applications to business rules, predicts Forrester Research Vice President Jost Hoppermann. Organisations that move to the new platform will find ease in serving customers and speed up application development, he says.

Hoppermann also claims the new banking platform will allow ‘componentisation’ which will help vendors offer a few banking components that can be plugged into existing systems. A bank will be able to combine ‘off-the-shelf’ servicing components with a custom loan origination process that is highly differentiating from their competition, predicts Hoppermann.

Capturing customers

As customer engagement continues to be a driver of business growth, customer-facing channels will be key to success, notes

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Barnes of Forrester Research. “Real differentiation lies in enabling customerfacing systems of engagement – key to customer retention and overall growth,” says Barnes. Forrester predicts that by 2017, 80 per cent of consumers will trade their personal data for improved customer experience and cost savings.

A central design point for SMAC will be embracing the mobile mindshift among customers, says Barnes.

However Sui-Jon Ho, Analyst at IDC, argues customers are unlikely to switch due to a competitor having a mobile or social banking advantage, saying, “The benefits are marginal.”

In Indonesia, mobile banking – primarily in SMS form – holds key importance due to the lack of infrastructure outside Java, says Ho. With a profitable remittances trade as the prize, there is room for financial services organisations to make use of customer

engagement through mobile banking initiatives. “Banks [in Indonesia] are following a very aggressive timeline on new transaction products,” says Ho. “Due to the lack of market saturation, these companies are going to find it easy to find traction with their investments, especially ones who can leverage their existing local brands,” says Ho.

Betting big on data analytics

Big data analytics is shaping up to be the point of differentiation with retail leading the way.

Australian retailer Woolworths’ insurance offering has used big data to select customers already on its database, doing away with the need for a large public advertising campaign.

Woolworths has leveraged its ‘Rewards’ card database along with insurance data. One discovery is that lower risk car insurance prospects are avid consumers of milk and

red meat. Yet those who stock their shopping baskets with pasta, rice and alcohol are more risky. Woolworths has acquired a 50 per cent stake in data analytics company Quantium, giving it access to the kinds of insights that banks and insurers are looking for. Coles, also an Australian national retailer, has used big data from its membership program.

Westpac’s ‘KnowMe’ project is regarded by analysts as one of the most advanced projects in the region.

“We are at the very beginning of the big data journey that could dramatically change the entire landscape of the financial services industry,” says Mukhtar of NICTA. “There is a lot more latent opportunity if we were to build new front line decision systems.”

However, financial services organisations should not try their hand at big data until they have mastered analytics and have a clear view of their priorities, warns Alan Grogan, Chief Analytics Officer at Royal

Behind enemy lines: who is taking on the system?

Telr Singapore-based Telr aims to aid the growth of e-commerce merchants in South East Asia, Middle East and Africa. A multi-currency and multi-lingual payment gateway for SMEs transacting online, it also offers insurance and financing (working capital loans, invoice factoring). Telr is led by Elias Ghanem, a former regional Managing Director for PayPal in the Middle East, North Africa, South East Asia and India.

Google ‘Google Wallet’ is a digital wallet service for NFC payments, online purchases and transferring money between friends. Google has added extensions, allowing users to attach money to email recipients from their Gmail account. The company may also be dovetailing this with efforts on Google Now, a personal assistance service that predicts recommendations to users based on their online behaviour.

Facebook Facebook has turned its attention to remittances, seeking (at the time of printing) regulatory approval in Ireland to allow the transfer of money across Europe. Remittances earn financial services organisations high profit margins, says Nicholas Gruen, CEO of Lateral Economics. Some expect the acquisition of WhatsApp may hostresult in a new money transfer service.

Zapp UK-based Zapp is partnering with merchants to provide direct consumers merchant bank account payments, potentially cutting major card scheme providers such as MasterCard and Visa out of the transaction system.

Braintree Braintree allows merchants to accept credit card payments, it is active in Australia with a focus on Asia Pacific expansion.

Stripe Stripe allows e-commerce providers to accept credit card payments online, competing with PayPal. It offers simple pricing and stores credit card information on its own servers, giving it a low technology footprint.

Apple Apple is expected to release a payment service for mobile devices. With more than 575 million iTunes accounts,* Apple could extend the service to facilitate payments outside the iTunes store, including retail and online purchases.

Alibaba Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has emerged as a threat to China’s large banks.

Alibaba’s savings accounts product, ‘Yuebao’ has 81 million customers and half a trillion yuan of deposits.* offering higher returns than the large Chinese banks. * At the time of printing

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Bank of Scotland (RBS). “Big data is used to support this where it provides an increased level of the data inputs into the existing analytics processes and algorithms. It is a case of walking before you attempt to run,” says Grogan.

Business leaders can sow the seeds of a healthy analytics department by not overgoverning and allowing control of infrastructure and vendor selection, says Grogan. The governance flexibility will be, “To find the ‘what if’ and ‘how could we’ opportunities,” he says.

Despite the big data hype, Grogan considers business intelligence and predictive analytics will become “mission-critical” and serve as greater indicators of business health and direction.

“You need to have a granular view of where you are. Predictive analytics will tell you from the static point how you really got there, and what your options are to meet your budgets and targets looking forward,” says Grogan.

As to the players who will be on the forefront of analytics in the future, Mukhtar’s picks are, “direct online businesses who will be the first to innovate further with frontline decision making systems.”

However, some warn that banks and insurers may have already missed the opportunity to capture the market.

Futurist Sohail Inayatullah predicts, “Financial services will hollow out as new players enter the market destroying value and leading to disintermediation.”

Mobile mantra

Futurist Ross Dawson claims mobile will transform financial services.

“Mobile devices will be at the heart of payments, increasingly including direct peer-to-peer payments as well as on-the-spot personalised financial advice. Banking will have less need for ATMs,” says Dawson.

Fellow futurist Inayatullah agrees that financial services organisations will become experts on life planning, giving constant information on achieving one’s financial goals to help clients sort through all the knowledge navigation toward their goals.

While banks have moved quickly to release payment applications, insurers are bringing health and fitness apps to market.

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Australia’s Suncorp Insurance’s ‘Accident Assist’ for car claims, in the event of an accident, registers the drivers GPS location and has a button to request towing. Users are also encouraged to take photos through integrated camera functionality that will attach to their claim.

In Indonesia, CIMB’s ‘Rekening Ponsel’ mobile wallet is being used as a tool to reach the 68 million unbanked, says Budiman Poedjirahardjo, Head of Branch and Branchless Banking at CIMB Niaga.

In an unusual feature for banking, CIMB’s wallet does not require a bank account, only a phone number, says Poedjirahardjo. One limitation, however, is that users need to visit a CIMB branch to have the account activated, still challenging for the archipelago nation with patchy branch coverage.

Mobile and social media are converging rapidly to deliver a sophisticated view of customers, adds Anthony Holcombe, former General Manager of Single View Customer Release at NAB. “There is great potential to bring together both internal and external profiles of customers where we can identify, record and link a set of key identifiers to generate a combined internal and social view of the customer and their activities and preferences,” he says.

However, there are challenges in the new grouping of these streams of data, according to Holcombe. He warns the challenge with social data is, “Ensuring that there is sufficient context to be useful.”

Social media coming to the fore Financial services organisations continue to use the power of social media as a way to engage customers but some say we have not reached the peak of social media usage.

“Social media usage will increasingly drive credit ratings, while customer service will be integrated into customers’ online channels, allowing banking to return to its roots of personal relationships,” says Dawson.

Organisations also continue to invest heavily in improving the management of risk on these platforms.

“We believe that if what is done on social media is genuine and with a customer-first attitude, the risk of reputational damage will

be significantly minimised,” says Roy Heong, Head of e-Business at OCBC Bank in Malaysia.

Social media will continue to provide a useful communication and complaint channel, says Ubaghs of Ovum. For example, Malaysia’s CIMB Bank uses Twitter to individually address customer complaints made to its @CIMB_Assists Twitter account.

The strategy came to the fore during a service outage the bank encountered over the Chinese New Year in 2014.

Tools to manage social media customer relationship management are also improving rapidly. Deloitte Partner Chris Wilson, has pegged Mobile Bridge, a European start-up, as one to watch. It handles social media interactions, data capture and analytics on a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform capable of providing targeted sales offers for banks, says Wilson.

Contrast this with mobile banking, which is a rising sales and transaction channel for retail banking, and the difference is stark – social media is moving beyond being a communication channel.

Financial services marketers and disruptors alike can use social media identify unmet needs which users voice on social media platforms, says Roger Dennis, a futurist and founder of Crowds At Work.

Financial services organisations are looking towards social media analytics to further generate value. For example, SNTMNT, a start-up, analyses social media sentiment to link emotions to asset pricing.

In the US, startups are exploring the use of social media data to feed into credit risk assessment. One example is LendUp, a payday loan provider backed by Google that uses social media data to further open credit to customers that banks and credit unions cannot approve.

A case for cloud

Cloud has emerged as an essential piece of business strategy within this new era of digitisation in financial services. However, while everyone is jumping on the cloud bandwagon, concerns still rage about governance and security, especially with the adoption of public cloud.

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Using cloud strategies to stay competitive is “non-negotiable,” says Kari Schabel, General Manager Infrastructure at NAB. “It is a key enabler for seamless customer experiences.”

Phil Hassey, Director of capioIT, an advisory firm, also describes cloud as “outsourcing mach II” – a natural progression of the first wave of outsourcing.

The tools are rapidly maturing with offerings from vendors that enable servers to store and handle much of the workload. Core technology is still important for CIOs, “So optimisation of cloud and infrastructure delivery is essential,” says Hassey.

While some countries are showing scepticism towards cloud, others have taken a more favourable view.

Future investment, however, could be in response to regulation, says Ho of IDC. Data sovereignty continues to be a concern. Hong Kong, Indonesia and potentially Malaysia are braced for regulatory changes that mandate customer data “remain within national boundaries,” says Ho. This would prompt a rush from institutions to move their cross-border cloud usage back to domestic providers, he says.

Some of the broader challenges for cloud in Indonesia and Malaysia, and the reason for its low uptake, is the necessity for financial institutions to have one-to-one discussions with regulators before cloud initiatives can proceed, says Ho. Ho notes Thailand as the regional leader in cloud regulation. “Thailand lets banks experiment to a greater extent.

One of the top five Thailand banks has migrated its systems that are in very close proximity to their core banking systems to the cloud. They are putting their loan rules management system on the cloud.”

Whether these risks will pay off remains to be seen. Nevertheless, the industry should keep a close eye on the cloud developments in Thailand. As it could be a good “forward warning system,” says Ho. “If these efforts succeed, there will be a push from institutions in other regions to push further into the cloud.”

In Australia, banks have been moving to the cloud since CBA set the pace in 2011.

NAB moved its website to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud in late 2013. ANZ is reportedly also leveraging public cloud to pursue its regional expansion plans into Asian markets.

Enterprise architecture is “directly aligned” to success in the cloud, says Schabel, General Manager Infrastructure at NAB. “Without that focus, you can risk adding unnecessary cost and complexity.

One of the major challenges is how to develop open and interoperable standards that can guide migration to the cloud,” says Schabel.

To serve that goal, NAB is participating in the global network called the Open Data Centre Alliance. It is similar to the BIAN in its function, however the Open Data Centre Alliance is not finance-specific, with members such as BMW and Lockheed Martin as well as banks such as UBS and Deutsche Bank.

Cloud can be adopted more readily with a, “Unified vision for cloud requirements – focused on open, interoperable solutions for secure cloud federation, automation of cloud infrastructure, common management and transparency of cloud service delivery,” says Schabel.

Convergence is king

Westpac’s former CTO Jeff Jacobs claims larger financial services organisations around the globe have not nailed the importance of a sound SMAC strategy.

A bank taking advantage of SMAC will use a cloud-hosted core banking platform and will own none of its IT infrastructure, says Jacobs. It will automatically give customers a better deal if they have multiple accounts with the bank, he continues. All the while a predictive analytics service will provide customers with offers and tailored financial guidance, Jacobs advises.

According to academic Rob Livingstone, SMAC is only a small part of the spectrum of technologies available to the enterprise.

“SMAC is more about marketing this ecosystem than communicating with business stakeholders in everyday terms,” he says.

Increasingly, both industry executives and observers say that convergence of all the elements of SMAC will be paramount.

“SMAC has moved from vision to execution. Each of them, taken individually, represent game changers. Taken together, it is a gale force wind,” says Dharmaraj Ramakrishnan, Head of Core Banking Unit, ING Vysya Bank.

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Skilling up for SMAC Gain merchant experience. “Banks need to help merchants facilitate better payments, more payments and run a better business,” says Chris Wilson, partner at Deloitte.

Gear up ability for change management. “The ability to deliver change management will be critical and a skill that the CIO function can leverage to provide leadership across the organisation,” says Phil Hassey, Director of capioIT. Adopt CEO attributes. CIOs need to rise above their technology silos to think like a CEO. “The attributes of a successful CIO dovetail with the attributes of a successful CEO,” says Rob Livingstone, an academic at UTS. Think ‘customers’ before ‘vendors’. CIOs will need to move out of their current behaviours which “Tends to be selecting a vendor and then trying to create a user experience,” says Oliver Weidlich, Director at consultancy, Mobile Experience.

Understand trends and customers. “To be successful they will need to know how to ‘launder’ the dirty data they are accessing, interpret the results and, for chief innovation officers, how to act on the findings,” says Allan Hansell, Senior Manager, Government and Regulatory Affairs at ING Australia.

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Mind the Gap! Bridging the Marketing and Technology Divide Top row (from left to right): Tim Tez, Chief Marketing Officer, AIA Australia; Aimee Suchard-Lowe, General Manager, Brand & Marketing, ME Bank; Kyle McManus, Sales Director Australia and New Zealand, Sitecore; Elly Bloom, Head of Social Media, CRM & Digital, AFS Strategic Marketing, Westpac. Bottom row (from left to right): Nickie Scriven, Head of Marketing and Brand, AustralianSuper; Kenny Hill, Managing Director, M&C Saatchi; Suzana Ristevski, Chief Marketing Officer, GE Australia and New Zealand; Brad Howarth, Finance and Technology Journalist.

The executives featured in this roundtable editorial held the above positions at the time of publication.

At the time of the magazine going to print, Aimee Suchard-Lowe was no longer working at ME Bank.

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KYLE MCMANUS, SITECORE: For years, Sitecore has been helping marketing departments manage some of the content existing primarily on the internet and to lessen some of the dependencies on IT. The challenge that Sitecore addresses is managing multiple channels through an intuitive single platform, as well as managing how organisations and customers engage with these channels. The paradigm shift is around the engagement interaction with these channels. It is about understanding your customer and creating a personalised experience based on segmentations, on profiles and what your customer may be doing while they are interacting with any one of these various channels. Understanding the strategic goals that marketing has for their online channels –

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and measuring the success of those online channels – is key.

Sitecore is helping to solve those problems by giving realistic targets and helping marketers to understand which channel is effective, which goals are being met and how money is allocated. Some of the areas we will be discussing today are moving from a product-centric to a customer-centric mindset to help bridge the gap between marketing and IT. [We will be talking about] how marketing and technology can join forces to deliver unparalleled customer experience, leveraging emerging digital marketing technologies and strategies and using data analytics to enhance loyalty and create opportunities for cross-selling.

BRAD HOWARTH: Let us start with your biggest challenges. What keeps you awake at night?

TIM TEZ, AIA AUSTRALIA: It is definitely the pace of change in technology and the ability to achieve more with a limited amount of resources.

NICKIE SCRIVEN, AUSTRALIANSUPER: We are in the middle of developing a new brand campaign. We are evolving how we communicate with members and customers in the marketplace and are taking a more consumer-centric approach. We need that to drive engagement in the superannuation industry.

ELLY BLOOM, WESTPAC: The focus is definitely about the ‘right place, right time.’ In my area we are looking at social media and how we can be even more ‘right place, right time’ for the customer. What is keeping me up at night is the excitement of the advances in technology and how we can best use them.

perspective is to keep on top, making sure we are assisting with the embedding of the transformation as well as continuing to grow the business.

SUZANA RISTEVSKI, GE: What is most challenging is helping the organisation navigate to where the priorities are. To do that, we have access to so much data, but we have to understand how to drive that data into insights and make decisions using [those] insights. So what are the key intelligence topics? What are the questions we want answered, and how do we use data to be able to drive some insights around that?

BRAD HOWARTH: This hits on a very important point – how do you transform data from a set of numbers and words into something that is actionable within the organisation. How are you facing that challenge?

SUZANA RISTEVSKI, GE: If we start on technology versus marketing, we have to be mindful that both marketing and technology bring different competencies, and the success is in their communication with each other. Marketing brings insights and an external view on what customers want. You would expect that the marketing folk are the customer advocates and are objective about what customers want. IT brings an ability to execute on that and is now a lever to help deliver on those customer needs.

BRAD HOWARTH: Is there anyone else who feels a similar sort of requirement within their organisation?

AIMEE SUCHARD-LOWE, ME BANK: Absolutely. I track back to when marketing might have become frustrated with IT and potentially gone off and done its own cloud and CRM systems and everything else that you could to move away from needing IT support.

Those days are over, and I agree with Suzana’s comments that both parties [marketing and IT], have to be much more collaborative, focusing on the end customer needs.

KENNY HILL, M&C SAATCHI: We have been doing a lot in this space with our clients. For example, in Australia with the Commonwealth Bank on the rollout of the CAN campaign and how developments in technology can work for them. We also work with NatWest and RBS in London and a few other financial services around the world. One of the things that we are always trying to remind our clients to do is to keep it as simple as possible. There is a lot of excitement there, but there is also scope to get it wrong.

KENNY HILL, M&C SAATCHI: Yes, I agree with what Suzana said. Data is one thing, but driving the insights from that is crucial and not always easy.

AIMEE SUCHARD-LOWE, ME BANK: ME Bank is

TIM TEZ, AIA AUSTRALIA: As an organisation, we have

undergoing a core banking system transformation, but it is actually a wider business transformation that is not just related to the technology we are implementing. Simultaneously, we need to keep the wheels turning. The challenge from a marketing

recently reviewed how we use big data and who takes ownership of it. The answer is that everyone owns that data and ultimately it is incumbent upon everyone to deliver against the organisation’s goals. Our position is that we need to help our intermediaries interact

“We have access to so much data, but we have to understand how to drive that data into insights and make decisions using [those] insights.”

– SUZANA RISTEVSKI, GE

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with their customers – technology plays an important part in that. Our issue, as a life insurance industry, is that we have a sector that has a very low level of engagement among consumers. In the main, people are interested in life insurance only when they have a major life event, but hopefully, will never have to talk to the claims department. So that is a transactional relationship, and the ability to use data and insights to improve engagement with those end consumers will drive many of our future strategies.

BRAD HOWARTH: We are starting to see a lot of emerging roles. I do not know if the role of the Chief Marketing Information Officer (CMIO) or the Chief Marketing Information Officer (CMTO) has emerged yet, but it would not surprise me if these were on business cards in the future.

TIM TEZ, AIA AUSTRALIA: I read some research recently that showed most CMOs will spend more on IT than CIOs in a few years.

ELLY BLOOM, WESTPAC: I saw some similar research,

“It is the combination of the IT skills and experience together with the marketing experience that will become so focused on the customer that you cannot split them up.”

– ELLY BLOOM, WESTPAC

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but I think that the CMO is going to become the Customer Experience Officer. So it is the combination of the IT skills and experience together with the marketing experience that will become so focused on the customer that you cannot split them up. And so you will have – I know it is the same acronym as the CEO – the Customer Experience Officer.

BRAD HOWARTH: What does that mean for the dynamic of the operating relationship between IT and marketing?

are. I would not be waiting for the organisation to change the structure. I would be working closely with whoever you need to work with to get stuff done.

Marketing has to work with IT, and IT has to work with marketing.

AIMEE SUCHARD-LOWE, ME BANK: We are seeing a convergence in what we call hybrid roles. So with your marketing technologist or your data scientist, it does not matter where they sit. It is about their accountability and role in the organisation. The interesting thing is no matter how many times we hear big data, what becomes critical is what we do with the data. It is the infrastructure we put around it, how we manage it and the insights that we get from it.

KENNY HILL, M&C SAATCHI: What we see with clients – whether they are a telco or in finance – is that traditionally many successful businesses have been built in silos. If it is a bank, they may have a mortgage group and small business banking and so on. When you have these silos you might have some champions within each that work really well with IT, but if the silos can be broken down within the organisation so that development can be shared, then that is a good place to start.

AIMEE SUCHARD-LOWE, ME BANK: We are going through the most significant transformation that the bank has ever gone through. And the project approach is to embed the subject matter experts into it. It is not a technology project – it is a business project. In fact one of my marketing managers has gone into the project full time and there are people from all business units embedded in that.

NICKIE SCRIVEN, AUSTRALIANSUPER: We need to work more closely together. In our organisation it is not as close as we would like. Within marketing, we are delivering messages to connect with people and to drive them into environments so they can interact and engage. Once they are in that environment, we can capture data and then use that data to target similar people moving forward. As we continue to evolve and capture richer data, we will become more sophisticated in the way we engage with members and the public.

AUDIENCE: I’m Claire Rogers from ANZ, responsible for digital strategy. The underlying question is not, ‘Is it marketing or is it technology?’ It is about the business objective we are trying to achieve and how you mobilise a team around achieving that objective.

SUZANA RISTEVSKI, GE: From a broader business

ELLY BLOOM, WESTPAC: We are finding that setting

perspective, gone are the days of the matrix structure.

If we think about that matrix structure today, whether it is IT, marketing or finance, the people who succeed are those who understand how to work matrices or influencer sets and know who the stakeholders

up cross-functional teams to solve business problems works. They come together and they disband [as needed], and you get the right people for the right thing at the right time. There are certain people who keep the infrastructure going, but when we are

BRAD HOWARTH: Do we then need to give up the idea of ownership?

AIME SUCHARD-LOWE, ME BANK: Definitely.

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looking at future problems, particularly around data, you get the best minds in the room and work through the problem.

SUZANA RISTEVSKI, GE: Fundamentally, we like structure around us. We do not like ambiguity or speed, but these days you have to deal with both.

It is never going to be like it was 20 years ago when you had two years to sort through any given problem or opportunity, get all the IT specs up, run a business case, do five different business models, get it through your IT system and finally develop a response.

It is going to be fast. It is going to change. You have to be agile. Trying to set up structures in this environment is very hard. So we are searching for a structure that is going to stand but is also going to change.

At GE we set up a digital team and the purpose was to allow them some agility, allow them to fail, allow them to do things differently. The head of that business is a longstanding GE guy who gets the culture. So he is able to navigate GE internally because he knows how the system works. So, yes, give up the idea of ownership and focus on agility and influencing.

BRAD HOWARTH: Aimee, as a smaller organisation, do you have the luxury to put people into groups like that or do these issues become everybody’s issue?

AIMEE SUCHARD-LOWE, ME BANK: ME Bank did try to do that, but you have to be in the right life stage to take advantage of having the power of a digital group.

Until we have the core enabling capability, having a discrete team focused on looking for that digital edge in isolation is not worthwhile. As our IT counterparts keep saying, “We will give you the engine, but you have to figure out how to use it and where you want it to go and at what speed.”

BRAD HOWARTH: We have seen new technologies or technology concepts come into the financial services sector in the past 10 years. Are there any others that you are looking towards at the moment? What comes next, and can you give us some thoughts as to how emerging technologies might be incorporated into the structure of the organisation?

AIMEE SUCHARD-LOWE, GE CAPITAL: When you talk about technology in financial services, we cannot ignore what is happening in the payments space.

Google and the telcos around the world are leading

the emerging technologies when it comes to payments capability. As a smaller organisation that may not have it in-house, we need to solve it ourselves or choose who to partner with to compete because that is now where the game is. We are no longer selling accounts – we are providing the ability for people to manage their own money.

ELLY BLOOM, WESTPAC: Using technology to assist our customers and advance their experience of our products and services is where the emerging technology will come in. I cannot pinpoint what that is, but we know a lot about our customers that they are willing to share with us; the fact that the payments technology is moving at an exponential speed, and the way that our phones now have potentially become our new wallets.

BRAD HOWARTH: Elly, the social space evolves so rapidly, and we keep hearing that kids are not using Facebook anymore. They are now using Instagram and Tumblr has been massively popular in the US and is starting to gain traction here, and so on.

How do you personally keep up and provide advice back to the organisation as to where it should be directing its resources?

ELLY BLOOM, WESTPAC: I read a lot, and I follow many people on Twitter and subscribe to a lot of blogs.

Facebook is very popular, and the fastest growing segment is 40+ women, so I think we need to reframe our ideas on how we use social media. It is not a young person’s game. It is not even so new and it has changed our expectations. Coming back to mobile technology and expectations about how we bank, there is the immediacy of being able to bank compared with going into a branch. So all of those things are moving and shifting. [It is important that a company keeps] across the new developments, making sure that the organisation is well informed but also experimenting.

I am an advocate for ‘test and learn.’

“It is about understanding how we need to add value for members and service them in channels of preference and constantly evolve what we are doing.”

– NICKIE SCRIVEN, AUSTRALIANSUPER

NICKIE SCRIVEN, AUSTRALIANSUPER: I am a big advocate for test and learn. It is important that we are in channels and environments to service customers or members where they want to be serviced. If you are not active in that space and providing a transparent form of communication, they will rant anyway and you might not be aware of it. Within AustralianSuper, we have embraced that. It is about understanding how we need to add value for members and service them in channels of preference and constantly evolve what we are doing.

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BRAD HOWARTH: Tim, how does that play out at AIA Australia being in a B2B environment? Do you sit back from these consumer-facing trends or do they still play a key role in the way that you think?

TIM TEZ, AIA AUSTRALIA: They still play a key role in what we think. For us as an organisation, and in our industry more broadly, what we are good at is delivering big projects on time to specifications. The big shift is culture and the ability for the organisation to say, yes, it is okay to fail and, yes, it is okay to experiment and, yes, rather than taking big bets on a single technology, take a lot of smaller bets on what is going to work. Someone was telling me a story about mobile apps with banks. They asked someone, “How often have you walked into a branch last year?”

Once or twice. “How often have you logged onto your internet banking?” The response was once a week.

“How often have you used your mobile app?” Every day. In the life insurance industry, AIA Australia is, in fact, the brand that sits behind the brand. So we need to ensure that our advisers and our intermediaries are thinking of this, developing strategies with them and ensuring that our technology strategy and marketing strategy ties in. It is really about communicating and interacting with customers in the way they want to be communicated and interacted with.

“The key there [in social media] is to have an authentic conversation with the customer, not one that is forced.”

– TIM TEZ, AIA AUSTRALIA

KENNY HILL, M&C SAATCHI: These advances and the great tools that social media offers improve your ability to be more flexible in relationships and be within reach 24/7 without having to have branches open. Being able to nurture these relationships is certainly one of the powers of social media when used well. Some of the advances that we are seeing around the world are spectacular, such as NatWest in the UK using Vine for the youth audience.

ELLY BLOOM, WESTPAC: At the beginning of the year, when we had the terrible bushfires and then floods, we used social media to send out messages to check whether customers and staff were safe and had access to basic services, such as banking. Social media also had a layered use to demonstrate that we are active in our communities and we use these channels.

Because of the way the internet works it finds the best path to publish when phone lines potentially were down and when our networks were potentially down.

It demonstrated how the channel is not just about selling products.

NICKIE SCRIVEN, AUSTRALIANSUPER: It is important that we allow members and the public

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to participate with a brand and contribute to the conversation. The pure nature of social media is that people no longer just want to talk to one person and let them know their point of view. They want to talk to their entire network. The opportunity for marketers is to allow people to participate in the conversation and share their perspective and advocate for your brand.

TIM TEZ, AIA AUSTRALIA: The key there is to have an authentic conversation with the customer, not one that is forced. It is the same when we talk about big data.

We want to sell more products and services, but there also has to be an element of relevancy and of doing the right thing by the customer.

AIMEE SUCHARD-LOWE, ME BANK: Those organisations that do social media well aim towards becoming social businesses. It becomes part of change management and a change in culture until your organisation starts to understand it as another channel that transcends just brand or marketing messages. It assists with servicing, research, analytics and insights. It helps build communities not just externally but can also help internally with staff engagement.

In financial services, I have had discussions with senior people in different organisations who believe that it is inappropriate to give staff access to social due to ‘risk’ concerns. However, staff can be your biggest brand advocates. This is part of the culture change I mentioned and is sometimes the hardest to get right through your business. But when you get it right, those are the organisations that are starting to use social channels well and integrate it into everything they do.

AUDIENCE: I am Stewart Williamson from RACV, Marketing Information Services Manager. Over the past decade, many big businesses have changed from vertical product groups, where there were embedded marketing and IT resources, to a degree where we now see marketing and information services becoming that umbrella over the different product houses, as well as IT departments coming in as an umbrella. You are talking about the growth of business intelligence, not just consumer insight.

When do you feel that it gets to the stage when that consumer insight and business intelligence becomes greater than just sitting within the marketing department as so many corporates do? For the data coming back in, when does that get bigger than just a marketing department, so you are actually pushing back to the products?

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SUZANA RISTEVSKI, GE: It should have been big years ago. It is the responsibility of marketing to be the customer advocate and have an insightful view on what customers want. Now marketing is not alone.

Everyone in an organisation needs to understand what your value proposition is and what they can do personally to deliver against that value proposition. It is much broader than marketing and IT. We have to be good at storytelling and joining the dots. How do you get everyone aligned to your value proposition? You have to be able to communicate, influence, collaborate and tell a good, authentic story.

NICKIE SCRIVEN, AUSTRALIANSUPER: We are evolving to that model now as part of a recent restructure where we have a strategy performance and analysis department. Any intelligence that comes through marketing or other areas of the business is ‘housed’ in a hub where we can refresh the data, analyse what is happening and keep our member data up to date. We then disseminate the insights across the business to inform strategy development.

TIM TEZ, AIA AUSTRALIA: We are a life insurance company, so we are highly data driven. We know who is going to claim, what tests they have done, all the rest of it, and we are transparent about trying to build services and offers.

they are data-driven organisations, but you cannot be data driven. That only tells you what is going on. You can spot some good insights and some trends, but you cannot be driven by data. What you should be driven by is your purpose and your customers and what you bring to them, and use data as a means to that end.

So what organisations like Commonwealth Bank have done well is to be very clear about what they are setting out to achieve and then use the data and the technology and all the other communication tools at their disposal to enable that.

ELLY BLOOM, WESTPAC: There are some people in our businesses who might be apprehensive, so it is important to build a shared language around the why.

For us, we have made sure that we have looked at our marketing mix differently. There is going to be a proportion of your target customers whom you might not get to if you are not operating in social media.

So why would we not choose to listen to the experts and engage with that segment? In just two and a half years, we have hundreds of thousands of people who are participating.

AIMEE SUCHARD-LOWE, ME BANK: To me, it is about making sure you are building capability. Do not try to boil the ocean all at once, but make sure you are testing and learning.

ELLY BLOOM, WESTPAC: When we had a great home

AUDIENCE: I am interested in your perspectives on

loan rate, we put it out on social media along with the comparison rate, which resulted in a whole lot of questions around what the comparison rate is.

We have been putting out ads in print for years. As long as we have been required to put a comparison rate in there, we have been doing so. Suddenly [via social media] we were being asked questions and we were answering them. No one was upset about the comparison rate. They were just asking what it actually meant. We directed them to some information about what comparison rates are. We then spoke to the mass marketing services about providing comparison rate information when we publish a comparison rate.

So, again, just a little thing that came through some feedback from our customers.

how enthusiastic your counterparts from your IT or technology teams are at coming to the table and helping bridge that technology divide.

AUDIENCE: This is a question aimed at Elly and Kenny.

Financial services and even life insurance companies are traditionally full of legacy. How do you jump from being a legacy to having such a broad social presence?

KENNY HILL, M&C SAATCHI: The customer value proposition is vital. I have heard companies say that

SUZANA RISTEVSKI, GE: They love us! Again, it comes back to the core competency of IT versus marketing. We cannot criticise IT for worrying about security, and they cannot criticise us for worrying about what customers want. Ten years ago, it was the person who had the biggest marketing spend or the biggest IT spend who won. Now it is the person who is the smartest, who taps into the insight and gets there before everyone else. IT and Marketing need to be tied at the hip to deliver!

“What you should be driven by is your purpose and your customers and what you bring to them, and use data as a means to that end.”

– KENNY HILL, M&C SAATCHI

NICKIE SCRIVEN, AUSTRALIANSUPER: It is only going to be effective if we are adding value for consumers.

As an organisation, AustralianSuper is getting better with resourcing in the IT department and investing in better systems and processes. This requires setting up cross-functional project teams and making sure that you have experts in each area working on key projects and key strategies ensures that they deliver on the business objectives and add value.

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KENNY HILL, M&C SAATCHI: In our organisation, an interesting new addition is a creative technologist.

We have people on board who work with the creative teams, almost like an in-house IT person, who explains that if you want to do this, this is what you need to do at the back-end. It is fantastic.

NICKIE SCRIVEN, AUSTRALIANSUPER: One of the greatest challenges with technology is getting different systems to talk to each other. A project that we are currently working on has three different suppliers writing different elements of code to make the user experience fantastic. It is a constantly evolving space, and as you are upgrading some systems you need intermediaries to write the code to allow them to talk to each other. That becomes challenging and can slow you down. So as fast as technology can allow you to move, it can also slow you down while you are trying to get things up and running.

BRAD HOWARTH: If you are looking at bringing new skills into your organisation, what would you want to see on a resume or what skills would like to be able to bring in?

KENNY HILL, M&C SAATCHI: Finding young, “The social media executive in my team used to work in our call centre.

She added enormous value in informing us about the types of calls she was receiving and what we could be proactively communicating to people.”

– NICKIE SCRIVEN, AUSTRALIANSUPER

enthusiastic people is always something that we aim for. We want to be working on a bank in the morning and a zoo in the afternoon. Keeping them excited and energised but also getting them to live and breathe our clients’ businesses is important. We are probably in an easier position in some ways than perhaps having creative technologists in-house in say, GE, where it is the same industry 24/7. We have the luxury of having many things to apply their skills to.

SUZANA RISTEVSKI, GE: [Some] people are okay with agility, of not knowing what is around the corner and being comfortable with that. The cultural piece is important, and some technical competency around the context in technology or in social media or in the industry. We keep saying that context adds 100 points of IQ. So give me anyone who has a contextual understanding about something and they will be able to get to a solution faster than someone who is looking at it only from their perspective.

AIMEE SUCHARD-LOWE, ME BANK: In a small organisation you do not have the luxury of many specialists. As a marketing industry we are in the current cycle of developing a lot of specialists, so when you get to a smaller business and you are looking for a generalist, it becomes harder.

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TIM TEZ, AIA AUSTRALIA: The other thing [that is important] is the people who take the initiative irrespective of which level they are in the organisation.

They do not necessarily need to own a problem, but if they see it they do not ignore it. So the ability to change quickly, the ability to take the initiative and to show some enthusiasm, is also important.

ELLY BLOOM, WESTPAC: I am working in social media and it is a new frontier. I am finding the search for people who have got the skills that I need, particularly at that mid-level, difficult because of the newness of the space. I hate the idea of the development of specialisations because I think that it will only create more issues around that siloed experience rather than the cross-fertilising of teams.

SUZANA RISTEVSKI, GE: It is an area where this could work better if you were not industry-specific. Because this area is so new, it makes sense to go outside your industry. You can build competency, but you cannot change the anchoring of an individual, and if they do not like change, they are never going to like change.

NICKIE SCRIVEN, AUSTRALIANSUPER: We have found them in some of the strangest places. In fact, the social media executive in my team used to work in our call centre. She was doing a PR degree and came to us as an intern. She added enormous value in informing us about the types of calls she was receiving and what we could be proactively communicating to people. We had her writing blogs on common customer service issues and queries, and she was able to respond in social media across customer service, PR, as well as marketing. It has been one of my best hires in terms of someone who knows how people interact with social media and who also understands our channels.

AIMEE SUCHARD-LOWE, ME BANK: I wish more CMOs thought like that. The organisations that will go far do think that way and look outside of industry sector and for competency, rather than industryspecific skills.

BRAD HOWARTH: One of the bigger trends that has come across financial services in the past five years has been mobile. I am curious to get some thoughts on mobile and how far we might have come with development of that channel and how much further we have to go.

AIMEE SUCHARD-LOWE, ME BANK: I believe we will soon see figures showing tablets’ growth overtaking

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other devices. When I arrived at ME Bank, the concept of being ready to look at different device usability did not exist, and [now] we are progressing fairly quickly.

The question for me around mobile, at least from the front-end, is the current argument over the importance of responsive design. Then you have the transaction side [back-end] and, to me, it links to the payments capability. The front-end website is one thing and it is an important channel, but the real power is the back-end. I have always admired CBA and their early and clear focus to invest in the development of a single customer platform and payment innovation – they are so far ahead of the game.

Being a small organisation, we believe we can catch up quickly. It is interesting to watch how the telcos have started replacing banks in developing countries. They use their mobile phone and the credit as currency and for transacting. I even heard a prediction that we are going to see the fall of a major global bank to a telco. I agree that app development is becoming a lot easier and cheaper to do and there are some interesting tools being developed here but for me, as I have previously said the transaction side is where the game is played.

NICKIE SCRIVEN, AUSTRALIANSUPER: We have a mobile site that is not a replication of the main site. It addresses what people want or need to do while they are out and mobile. If they are changing jobs, they can send a form to their new employer. We have seen a huge increase in joins through our mobile channel and via mobile advertising, which is a new space for us. Mobile is overtaking the desktop and the laptop.

We adopt a multiscreen approach, ensuring that we optimise everything we do from an advertising and communications perspective across every screen, so that we are available anywhere and anytime a member or a customer wants to engage with us. From an advertising perspective, it is an AV strategy, not a TV strategy.

ELLY BLOOM, WESTPAC: It is a key focus of the Westpac Group brands. With the St George app, it has a money meter check, so you swipe once and you do not need to log in to get your balance. We are trying to make sure that we are ahead of our game in customer expectations, but with the money meter, it was a ‘let us see how it will be’ and it just took off and won awards. The other piece is on our promotions – making sure that some of the stuff that I run in social media on the platform is able to be consumed through a mobile device.

BRAD HOWARTH: If you had one technology concept idea that you could get your CEO more enthusiastic about, what would it be?

AIMEE SUCHARD-LOWE, ME BANK: Our CEO is very open and forward thinking, and our CIO is fantastic in leading the strategic agenda. For me as the marketer, the rollout of the transformation is phased and I am looking forward to the delivery of the CRM and ensuring the data infrastructure and management is robust to enable better insights and bringing in of third party data. For example I would love to use the collaborative filtering technology like Amazon. That is where you really are delivering to the customer need and utilising the data in a realtime way.

KENNY HILL, M&C SAATCHI: The next big thing beyond mobile is wearable technology. Barclaycard just did a beautiful piece in the UK with wristbands preloaded with money for concerts so kids did not need to worry about taking their cash cards and losing their wallets. There is also a Spanish firm that has just developed a similar thing but for fingerprints.

You link the prints of your first two fingers to your bank details and, with biometric scanning, scan your fingers at the checkout and the money comes out of your account.

NICKIE SCRIVEN, AUSTRALIANSUPER: There is a lot of investment in new technology in our organisation.

The area that would add more value for me that I have not managed to fully get across the line is gamification. Take superannuation, a lot of people do not know enough about it, particularly young people. They come into their first job, and they are confronted with a form that signs them into a default fund. Then they change jobs and they are doing the same thing, and before you know it they have five or six funds. They do not know how to make the most out of superannuation, and they are not making the most out of it. When you look at the rapid change in how people are being educated, I think the opportunity to create super education via gamification is huge.

“The next big thing beyond mobile is wearable technology.”

– KENNY HILL, M&C SAATCHI

TIM TEZ, AIA AUSTRALIA: We are looking at mobile payments and gamification, and how we create a more engaged consumer in the life insurance purchase decision. We had to acknowledge that we were not the experts, and so we partnered with other people who have proven this concept overseas and have been extremely successful in doing it globally.

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Embarking on the Revolutionary Journey to a Next Generation Platform

Top row (from left to right): Julian Carroll, General Manager Information Technology, Sunsuper; Steve Glass, Chief Architecture, Head of Strategy & Architecture for BFS and CAF, Macquarie Bank; Marc Evans, Head of Advice, Integration & Private Wealth Systems, BTFG Technology, BT Financial Group; Scott Yara, President and Head of Products, Pivotal; Ram Kumar, Chief Information Officer, IAG; David Chapman, Chief Information Officer, Teachers Mutual Bank; Gavin Jones, Managing Director, Australia & New Zealand, Pivotal; Craig Ryman, IT Director, AMP; Steven Willson, IT Director – Strategy & Architecture, AMP. Bottom row (from left to right): Brett Death, Head of ASP – Life and Investments, Zurich Financial Services; Marc Randall, Regional Sales Manager, Australia & New Zealand, Pivotal; Anna Gladman, Head of Transformation, BT Financial Group; Julie Batch, Chief Risk Officer, IAG; Melissa Ries, Vice President & General Manager, Asia Pacific Japan, Pivotal; Greg McAweeney, Group Executive Marketing & RaboDirect Australia & New Zealand, Rabobank; Trevor Govender, Manager, Information Management, Sunsuper.

The executives featured in this roundtable editorial held the above positions at the time of publication.

FST Media and Pivotal hosted an exclusive luncheon with CIOs, CROs, and key executives in Innovation, Transformation, Strategy and Marketing from Westpac, HSBC, IAG, BT Financial Group, AMP, Rabobank, Zurich Financial Services, Macquarie Bank, Sunsuper, and Teachers Mutual Bank. The discussion explored how shifts in technology will change customer engagement and how to use data analytics to develop products that will better service future customer needs.

Gavin Jones, Managing Director, Australia and New Zealand at Pivotal noted that startups are exploiting their ability to be nimble in responding to changing customer expectations and invited

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discussion on the challenges financial services organisations face to remain at the forefront of technology adoption.

Most attendees agreed the biggest challenge was remaining customercentric, with the key focus being customer experience. Financial services organisations will need to transform from a productcentric approach to a customer-centric approach with the customer in the driver’s seat. Craig Ryman, IT Director at AMP commented “the world has changed. It is about how customers want to interact with you. We are on a journey to becoming a customer-centric organisation.”

Ryman added that banks have an advantage over startups if they manage the

omni-channel strategy correctly because of their existing reach.

Despite this advantage, banks may still struggle to find a balance between the need to adapt changing regulation with customer experience, according to Greg McAweeney, Group Executive Marketing & RaboDirect Australia & NZ at Rabobank.

McAweeney said financial organisations need to offer a personalised experience by bundling product offers across multiple channels, with the ability to move across channels seamlessly. Tying this customercentricity to the influx of data will be important as customers become more demanding, said Anna Gladman Head of Transformation at BT Financial Group.

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“The technology, for me, is key to [customer experience]… It has to look very simple at the front-end for the customer,” said Gladman.

David Chapman, Chief Information Officer at Teachers Mutual Bank said the correct data will ensure the organisation knows their customer and where they have come from. “Data is [most important] and that is what we have been focusing on in the past 12 to 18 months,” said Chapman.

Information abundance has become the norm according to Brett Death, Head of ASP − Life & Investments at Zurich Financial Services. “We are experimenting to learn what will work for us and trying to get the data that we need. [We are] looking at data warehousing and business intelligence overall from the more strategic point of view,” he said.

Ram Kumar, Chief Information Officer at IAG explained that data adds value saying, “the organisation should be data-centric so that if you have data-centricity then you can have customer-centricity.”

Trevor Govender, Manager, Information Management at Sunsuper noted that “data is one of the most important [things] any organisation can [have] but only if it is right… our industry is quite rich in data but quite poor in information.”

Removing complexity will pose the biggest challenge, according to Steve Willson, IT Director – Strategy & Architecture at AMP. All executives agreed that creating core systems to simplify and use data effectively is vital in providing a simpler experience for the customer.

Julie Batch, Chief Risk Officer at IAG said choosing which technologies to invest in will be key in achieving this simplicity.

However today’s fast-paced environment requires fast-paced solutions according to Marc Evans, Head of Advice, Integration & Private Wealth Systems at BT Financial Group. With businesses demanding results within months or weeks rather than years, internal systems will struggle if they do not have enough data.

According to Pivotal’s President and Head of Products, Scott Yara, the goal for Pivotal is to help organisations move from product to customer-centricity by

bringing the three capabilities of big data technology, agile development and the open platform together.

Pivotal’s first pillar of customer-centricity is a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering called Cloud Foundry, which was created

by Google architects, then incubated by VMware before being acquired by Pivotal.

The platform provides greater flexibility and agility for rapid software development.

Cloud Foundry was designed to create an operating system for ‘the cloud’. The technology can run in the data centre with little configuration.

Pivotal, together with most of the largest technology companies in the world – including IBM, Hewlett-Packard, SAP, Intel, AT&T, and Verizon – aim to make Cloud Foundry the foundation of an open ecosystem that will provide an alternative to Amazon. According to Yara, “Cloud Foundry will become the Android of cloud-based computing.”

Pivotal’s second pillar is big data. To this end the company is building a ‘modern data platform’ using the same principles that led to the success of internet companies such as Google, according to Yara. Pivotal provides a platform where data is used to provide customers with better experiences, while removing the challenges of meeting regulation and risk management.

Yara has drawn from his background as co-founder of database and analytics company Greenplum – which has since become a part of Pivotal. “[At Greenplum] we were building high performance database systems for analytics,” he said.

Pivotal is assisting banks, exchanges and telecommunications organisations to solve business problems. For example, the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ and some of the US major banks are using Pivotal’s technology to combat the dual challenge of building a data platform that will support regulatory control as changes are implemented across the globe, without compromising innovation.

The final pillar of Pivotal’s customercentric strategy is based on cloud technology. Yara advised that in the future cloud computing will be defined by ‘how’ versus ‘where’, saying organisations of the

Scott Yara, President and Head of Products, Pivotal

future will use ”PaaS capability for your business units to collect and organise data, build new software quickly and to make change possible.”

Pivotal has also worked with Qrious, a venture from Telecom Digital Ventures, an incubation unit of Telecom New Zealand, which was created to look at new opportunities which are data-driven and take a ‘fail fast’ approach, according to Mark Randall, Regional Sales Manager, Australia & New Zealand, Pivotal. “[Qrious] want to be the ‘big data company’ for New Zealand,” Randall continued. “They built their platform based on the three pillars identified by Pivotal over a period of six months and are rolling out a working prototype to the market.”

Randall said this unusual approach included building the architecture after understanding what customers wanted, and presenting the business case with a readyto-use platform. This resulted in the project being signed off on the same day.

Pivotal is building platforms to help customers develop business solutions, manage information, understand that information, and create targeted products. To this end, Pivotal has established an innovation centre in Singapore to help clients kick-start big data and analytics applications and test business cases.

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The future of payments will form an eclectic mix of cashless transactions, digital money, wearable wallets and an alternate world of new virtual currencies.

Can financial services organisations keep up?

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Payments

2020

By Jamie Pericleous and Rimin Dutt

Global futurist Thomas Frey once notably labelled current payments systems as “diseased and antiquated.” He predicts that in the next five years transactions will be driven primarily by non-bank disruptors such as Google, Amazon, Apple and technology startups – bypassing the stronghold of banks.

He goes a step further saying payments have been so outdated that startups are aligning themselves like white corpuscles to attack the ailing system.

If Frey is correct, one would need to question where this would leave existing payment players. Will they partner or perish? And what of future innovations such as e-currencies and wearables? Will they prove a beacon of hope or be relegated to the digital Wild West?

One thing is certain: cash is fast becoming a secondary resource. Mobile phones are trumping ATMs and bank branches, giving rise to a slew of disruptors, rapidly changing our payment options.

The combination of digital cash and virtual currency may endanger cash in developed markets, and in some developing Asia Pacific countries, cash could lose its status as the dominant form of payment in the coming years.

The disappearance of cash would no doubt be beneficial to central banks since it is still expensive to produce and similarly expensive to remove from circulation, according to Gilles Ubaghs, Senior Analyst, Financial Services Technology at Ovum. A move to online W HO ’ S W HO O F FS I

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While convenience and anonymity have been the main drawcards behind the rise of virtual currencies around the globe, controversy surrounding the market’s first mover, Bitcoin, has invited regulatory backlash.

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would make it simpler and potentially easier to control, he added.

With non-traditional players disrupting the payments landscape across the globe, it is becoming an even bigger challenge for banks and financial institutions to stay relevant in this playing field.

Some disruptors and financial services organisations have chosen to partner to share a slice of the profit pie. One such disruptor, PayPal, has partnered with Australia-based Westpac in a deal that allows PayWay customers to make payments online through PayPal. While other banks like Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) are creating their own mobile Near Field Communication (NFC) technology.

Mature markets across Asia Pacific are also seeing an increase in NFC payment devices and the move toward customers controlling their spending through mobile wallets. These products, however, are not necessarily always coming from their financial institutions.

While convenience and anonymity have been the main drawcards behind the rise of virtual currencies around the globe, controversy surrounding the market’s first mover, Bitcoin, has invited regulatory backlash. More governments are attempting to bring it within the regulatory ambit with several Asian countries putting it on their watch. Analysts point to other emerging iterations of virtual currencies as evidence this trend will likely stay.

As mobile penetration continues to increase across the developing Asia Pacific market, unbanked or under-banked markets are accessing banking services for the first time. Mobile has allowed peer-to-peer payments, and some banks have even set it up through Facebook and SMS, bringing financial inclusion to rural populations historically excluded from formal banking institutions. Indonesia is leading the way for the under-banked, with micro-payments catering to previously untapped customers.

Regardless which payment trend takes off, the concern with security persists.

Mobile NFC payments have existed for some time but customers have continually

resisted this form of payment. Likewise, contactless cards are approached with some caution but are slowly gaining traction due to their simplicity and convenience.

Thomas Zink, Research Manager at IDC Financial Insights Asia Pacific, suggests that security concerns are among the easiest to resolve.

“Consumers generally were sceptical of everything new and distrusted cards, ATMs, online banking and other forms of payments when they first emerged.

Dealing with this is a matter of customer education. NFC is as safe as a card payment and, in most cases, only used for small amounts of up to AU$100. This does not mean that banks can push additional investments in security and anti-fraud measures as a low priority.”

Disruptors: partner or perish?

As payments go mobile, non-traditional players are set to enter the market, with companies like Google, Apple and Amazon providing mobile wallets to customers.

The success of these examples has caught the attention of banks, who are now facing the prospect of either collaborating with these tech giants or creating their own product. Without such offerings they face the prospect of becoming irrelevant in the payments space, perhaps losing their customer-facing role, warn analysts.

Examples of partnerships include Citi’s partnership with 3, Westpac Banking Corporation’s alliance with PayPal, and trials of wearable technology offered by Google and Apple. Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) has partnered with payment provider Mint Wireless to offer payment solutions.

In Singapore, DBS has combined NFC technology with its mobile wallet One Tap, which allows customers to make payments by tapping their mobile phone, rather than using plastic cards.

But partnerships can be risky, according to Ubaghs of Ovum. “The risk with mobile payments is disintermediation – the prospect of someone else like Google or PayPal becoming the front player of the payment system,” says Ubaghs. “That just leaves the bank at the back-end so

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they lose that connection with the consumer. They have much less influence over the relationship.”

Jeffrey Bahar, Deputy CEO of Spire Research and Consulting, agrees banks need to be wary of competitors like ‘Google Wallet’ removing payments from banking altogether, warning “Google Wallet could potentially make bank transfers obsolete.”

Futurist Thomas Frey adds the best case scenario for banks will be to partner with technology giants because players like Google, Apple or Facebook will eventually dominate.

“Banks have many other areas of business to make money on but the payments area has become particularly annoying to the tech companies because it presents such a huge impediment to online commerce,” Frey says. “At best, the banks will only be able to slow the assault but tech companies will invariably devise ingenious ways to circumvent the banks completely.”

Tech players, for their part, see their emerging role as one of collaboration.

Simon Banks, Director of Enterprise at PayPal, which is touted by analysts as one of the biggest threat to banks, says, “With more than 143 million people around the world trusting us with their digital wallets, we are committed to collaborating with industry and government to drive innovation in payments and enable a progressive financial ecosystem that brings true value to consumers.”

Chris Bransgrove, Senior Manager Payments Industry, Bank of New Zealand, says banks should embrace the entry of non-bank competitors as their, “Dynamic thinking is a powerful positive force in driving even more innovative payments products and services that benefit customers.”

According to Bransgrove, banks need to continue their focus on investing in customer-driven solutions to combat competition from non-bank players.

Maggie Yung, Director of Digital Banking at Citibank, says Citibank’s NFC-enabled mobile wallet ‘3 Citi Wallet’ in Hong Kong provides Citibank with a platform that helps the bank better understand and engage with customers. “We hope to gain

insights into the spending behaviours of clients and to promote the use of the mobile wallet as an alternative payment method to traditional credit cards, especially for smaller amounts,” says Yung.

Bahar also suggests banks adopt digital solutions provided by technology firms, in order to design more efficient products for both digital and non-digital shopping.

Banks have traditionally looked to the retail industry for innovation but the threat may arise from technology giants like Google, who know how to innovate effectively, making the prospect of payments an exciting and engaging one for customers who ultimately want simplicity and finesse, according to Bahar.

Industry initiatives

In Singapore, Dah Sing Bank has partnered with payments platform Octopus, which dominates the ticketing system across the country. Nearly every Singaporean owns an Octopus card to access public transport and the partnership gives customers benefits and rewards when using the system. Singapore-based United Overseas Bank (UOB) also has a benefits scheme which rewards customers for using their mobile banking app to pay for services through partnerships with service providers and merchants.

The Australian Payments Clearing Association (APCA) is working with a number of banks to create the New Payment Platform (NPP) that will comprise a core infrastructure that will allow all financial institutions and customers to connect and deliver secure and nimbler payments. The platform will enable smaller payments to be transferred immediately.

There are other benefits that can emerge from a partnership, such as the ability to tap into a telecommunications company’s large database of subscribers, according to Serene Chan, Senior Industry Analyst, Asia Pacific, ICT at Frost and Sullivan Research.

“A number of industry players including banks have the tendency to view other players as competitors and, hence, they defend their turf by building a walled garden to exclude others from the market,” says Chan.

Banks should embrace the entry of non-bank competitors as their dynamic thinking is a powerful positive force.

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Digital technologies, including wearable technology, are putting customers in control.

However, banks should identify ideal partners, especially mobile operators, for several reasons. Firstly, to tap into the operators’ large subscriber base.

Secondly, they could leverage the operators’ real-time billing system and mobile applications. Banks would bring their core competency of credit management to the partnership, she says.

But from a bank’s perspective, according to Kanchan Nijasure, Director and Chief Information Officer at Indonesia-based Bank Danamon, banks need to adopt a three-step strategy to combat the entry of non-bank competitors.

“Firstly, banks need to focus on assessing the value proposition of nonbank competitors and deciding whether to combat or to co-opt,” says Nijasure.

“The second step is to accordingly design banks’ products and services, complying with the regulatory framework to displace or out-flank non-bank competitors. The third step is to urge regulators to extend appropriate practices to non-bank competitors in order to safeguard customer interests,” he says.

Edward Chiu, Chief Operating Officer at China Construction Bank, suggests banks are at a disadvantage, saying banks products and services need to be built through highly-secured applications and platforms and need to follow rules from regulators.

“Therefore, we work under more stringent boundaries, whereas Apple, Google and Facebook may not need to achieve the same standard,” he adds.

“Digital technologies, including wearable technology, are putting customers in control. Australia’s adoption of contactless payments continues to lead the world with over 50 per cent of all debit card transactions now being made contactless,” says Kerr.

Westpac’s Google Glass and smartwatch wearable devices have been deployed with St. George Bank’s MoneyMeter mobile application, Kerr says, adding mobility is important to customers’ lives, which makes it important for banks to stay up-to-date with the latest innovations.

“Our intention is to test and learn and then use what we have learnt to introduce it into our other brands. We will also trial a proof-of-concept using iBeacon technology,” Kerr says.

Banks at PayPal says wearable technology is one of the key trends driving innovation in the mobile payments space, and PayPal sees working with consumer electronics companies investing in wearable technologies as the driver for success.

“As consumer electronics companies continue to invest in wearable technology we are excited to work with them to make the mobile purchasing experience as safe, secure and seamless as possible,” says Banks. iBeacon lets users check-in once they walk into the store, allowing them to utilise an automatic payments set up. It also lets users know which stores will need approval before payment. On the merchant end, those accepting payment through iBeacon will need to have a USB added-on to their point-of-sale systems.

Wearables – a beacon of hope

eCurrency – digital wild west?

Mobile Technology is turning to wearable devices including Samsung’s smartwatch and Google Glass. In Australia and New Zealand, Westpac is the first bank to begin trialling wearable technology.

According to Andrew Kerr, Head of Everyday Banking, Australian Financial Services, Westpac Group, taking payments to wearable devices is the next step, and Australia is leading the way.

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Despite the controversy surrounding virtual currencies analysts say they are here to stay.

Futurist and author Daniel Burrus insists it is a ‘hard trend,’ which he defines as a trend that will definitely take hold, as opposed to the rise and fall of social networks such as MySpace, an example of a ‘soft trend’.

Banks will eventually need to embrace virtual currency in some form with an

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increasing number of small businesses and merchants across Asia accepting crypto-currencies as payment.

Singapore’s Boat Quay District boasts a Bitcoin ATM. Bitcoin ATMs have also been appearing across Australia and New Zealand.

Burrus suggests our mobile devices are becoming the next defacto virtual wallet.

“There is a rule: If it can be done it will be done and if you do not do it, someone else will, which means whatever bank you are, it is going to happen anyway. And you have to decide, am I going to be part of this revolution or not?” says Burrus.

As virtual currencies gain traction and become accepted as legitimate forms of payment, there are many that are not venturing further than the niche market. Dogecoin, an overnight internet hit which started its life as a ‘joke tweet’ is being used by its community for micro-payments and a way to support charity online.

But can virtual currency make it into everyday life and become mainstream?

Many analysts believe it is inevitable as more and more of the payment landscape goes mobile – at least in the mature markets.

“The consensus opinion is that there is still no consensus opinion on the future of cryptocurrencies. Opinions differ widely but we believe two things are clear: cryptocurrencies will never go away and they will not stay unregulated,” says Thomas Zink, Research Manager at IDC. Bahar of Spire Research warns that banks who do not embrace virtual currencies may be left behind in the event peer-to-peer virtual currency transfers replace traditional banking transfers.

With the trend leaning further toward the legitimising of virtual currency, it raises the question of how it can be implemented and what this means for cash.

There is consensus that cash will continue to survive in some form within the next 10 years because of its ubiquity, simplicity, anonymity and backing from governments.

Privacy and security

Digital payments are likely to face hurdles in security and privacy as daily routines become digital. Windsor Holden, Research Director at Juniper Research, suggests, however, that security concerns are not behind the slow uptake of NFC. That is because consumers are uneducated about the process involved.

“I do not believe consumers are wary of NFC since the overwhelming majority of them do not know what it is,” says Holden.

In contrast to a smartphone’s security limitations, Ubaghs of Ovum, suggests that mobile NFC is actually more secure than contactless cards.

“NFC is actually more secure than a standard card where sensitive information is held within the phone. There is typically a secure element which is disconnected from the operating system, so even if you are hacked there is no access to the sensitive card information,” says Ubaghs.

While the future looks bright for innovation in the payments space, it remains to be seen who will come out ahead, with disruptors invading banks’ traditional domain and as wearable technology, mobile wallets and NFC all indicate a place in the future. It is too early to predict what impact wearable technology will have on smartphones or payments but it is clear the technology may well succeed in making life convenient for the customer.

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Emerging Payments Trends MATURE MARKETS Mobile will play a key role. Contactless and NFC payments are predicted to explode within the next five to 10 years.

Mobile and virtual wallets will reach the physical stores, allowing customers to access their accounts and pay for products and services.

Bluetooth technology-enabled devices will communicate consumers’ shopping behaviour for personalised offers and electronic coupons.

Virtual transactions will enter the fray, with the rise of virtual currencies and online options.

DEVELOPING MARKETS Markets like Malaysia will see growth in peer-to-peer payments (P2P) through social media such as CIMB’s Octopay.

by CIMB. Emerging markets will see banks partnering with non-traditional payment players while still maintaining a high degree of face-to-face customer interaction.

SMS texting will grow in peer-to-peer payments and ATM withdrawals in developing markets.

The under-banked population will eventually shift from SMS-based peer-topeer transactions to trust virtual payments.

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Driving a Competitive Edge via Customer Engagement Top row (from left to right): Peter Akwaboah, COO for International Banking for APAC, RBS; Karen Foong Yin Ngui, MD & Head of Group Strategic Marketing & Communications, DBS; Graeme Peake, Global Head, Client Services Group, Wholesale Bank, Standard Chartered Bank; Melisa Teoh, Head of Group Brand Marketing, Great Eastern Life; Shin Horng, Head of Product Management, Bank of China; Eric Kuah, Head Online Services Regional Retail Equities, Maybank; Wendy Teo, SVP Group Head of Channels, UOB; Juan Landas, SVP – Technology/Head of Strategy and Planning, Citibank.

Bottom row (from left to right): Jin Zwicky, Vice President, Experience Design, OCBC; Jason Toh, Vice President, Global Transaction Banking, OCBC; Graeme Greenaway, Head – Operational Excellence, APAC, GTO, Deutsche Bank; Laurent Bertrand, Head of Client Insights, UBS; Richard Luquain, Vice President – GTOM Regional Business Program Manager, AXA Asia Regional Centre; Stephanie Acker, Chief Customer Officer, Manulife; Matthias de Ferrieres, Chief Marketing Officer, AXA; Keshav Sunderraj, Head – Customer Strategy & Direct Marketing, Zurich Life Insurance.

The executives featured in this roundtable editorial held the above positions at the time of publication.

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LUKE MCCORMACK, PEGASYSTEMS: Thank you for joining us to discuss these important topics – how to engage with clients and how to differentiate the service offerings and the products your organisations are taking to market. Graeme Peake joins us today from Standard Chartered Bank, which has been a client of Pegasystems for almost 20 years.

GRAEME PEAKE, STANDARD CHARTERED: Thank you for the opportunity to share with you my experience on this important topic. Having been in the banking industry almost 25 years, and with Standard Chartered for nine years, the last seven of those years leading Standard Chartered’s wholesale bank client services group, these are topics I am very passionate about.

The three areas that we are going discuss are: consistency of the client experience across multiple channels, exploring what are channels and how do we define client experience? We will consider how organisations match the client expectations and those of the business, because in my experience organisations

C US T O M E R E N G AG E M E N T // RO U N DTA B L E

have a view of client expectations, but they never ask the client. The final topic is technology between clients and organisations.

The reality with corporate clients is that they are made up of individuals who go to work in the morning and finish in the evening, returning home and most likely then dealing with their personal banking.

Frequently this personal experience does not match their experiences during the day at work. When looking at the service model in your organisation, you need to keep thinking of those individuals in the client organisation and endeavour to align the two experiences.

In 2007, our service experience at Standard Chartered was satisfactory but was intermingled within operations. We already had a sophisticated payment investigation platform – SmartInvestigate – from Pegasystems with that relationship dating bank to 1986.

That system became a critical application when in 2008 we acquired American Express Bank and as a result quadrupled our payment investigation volumes almost overnight. It made us realise we had to become more involved with technology and ensure we implement technology that enables our teams in the investigations and country contact centres to deliver a professional service experience to our clients.

We have undertaken significant work on service recovery because the reality is things do go wrong. And we have large corporate clients who know that things can go wrong on their side as well. Again, it is about the people and enabling technology and how you use it to recover from issues.

Certainly one of the key areas around the topic is investing. I know that for some of you, your organisations invest heavily in technology. For others, it is probably a battle to get money to do what you want to do. Since 2007, when we started the service team, we have directly invested well over AU$10million. And indirectly, when you add on some other programs across wholesale banking, it is in excess of AU$20million. I am sure you will agree that is a significant amount and we are now seeing the benefit of improved service to our clients.

Client feedback is extremely important. In the corporate wholesale banking side, we now have an online channel for clients to interact with us, but that was not there until last year. Social media definitely has a place in the corporate service space although most organisations are still trying to work out where that place is. I do think it is a technology where there will be convergence between individual consumers and corporate in the years ahead. About 18 months ago, an W HO ’ S W HO O F FS I

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“[There are] three key factors... customercentricity and what organisations are doing to make it meaningful for them, how you marry up the needs of your business and investment cycles... and then channel convergence.”

– LUKE MCCORMACK, PEGASYSTEMS

individual from one of our clients raised a complaint on Twitter about our internet banking platform. He had over 5,000 followers. One of his followers (who had 6,000 followers) re-tweeted the complaint. In the space of 20 minutes, we had 11,000 people thinking that our internet banking platform was not very good!

We took almost seven hours to figure out how to respond primarily because it was not clear who in the bank managed our Twitter account. Once we worked that out we were somewhat amused when told by our Corporate Affairs team that we could only use 140 characters in our response – and let me tell you we do not write anything in 140 characters. The good news in the end was the individual within the client organisation was very impressed with our recovery and that we responded via Twitter and then posted a more detailed response on his Blog page.

The other technology that I want to talk about is Chat.

Standard Chartered uses Microsoft’s OCS application heavily. It is effective and helps alert the teams in my service world. We are aware many of our larger clients also use this technology and we are exploring how we can join up ourselves and our clients using Chat.

Linked to this, we have seen a move from voice interactions to non-voice interactions. Three years ago, we had about 60 per cent voice calls, 40 per cent non-voice. Voice calls are now about under 50 per cent.

In three years’ time, my view is voice interactions will be no more than 25 per cent. We must have improved channel technologies to handle non-voice interactions and this is an area we are investing in.

Everyone is busy – they want to hit a button and just ask the question. The trick is making sure that you have the teams that are able to respond and make it a good client experience which is more difficult over a nonvoice channel.

Now to the final point – differentiating. To be able to differentiate, you need two things: to know who your clients are and to understand how they interact with you. You also need to have the technology to be able to differentiate internally and offer something different.

It comes back to my comment about understanding the expectations of the client and, to a degree, their needs. Not every client is the same. In my view, we have had some success in differentiating our clients in the wholesale banking space.

LUKE MCCORMACK, PEGASYSTEMS: You hit on three key factors, Graeme. Customer-centricity and what organisations are doing to make it meaningful for them.

How you marry up the needs of your business and investments cycles, particularly around technology, and then channel convergence. I am going to ask Stephanie a

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question because she has a fascinating job title. Correct me if I am wrong, but you are the Group Client Officer?

STEPHANIE ACKER, MANULIFE FINANCIAL: Chief Client Officer. It is a new title in our organisation.

The client experience, in general, is a new movement, and my company in Singapore was at the forefront.

We have been on the journey for about two and a half years. My role is to develop not only our client experience strategy throughout the organisation, but then to deliver an intentionally designed and consistent experience at all the key touch points throughout what can be a 50-year relationship.

I am also responsible for the client value proposition for our organisation. How do we bring our solutions, products and services to our clients in a client-centred way? And then how do we help our advisers sell them in a way that matters to the client? I also run our wholesaling team, which says to our advisers, ‘First it is not about just being a product specialist. It is how you look at holistic advice, how do I help you understand our client insights, their behaviours, their expectations.

Then take that information and build it into your advisory practice.’ The advisers are quite surprised by our early successes. They do not really know what to do with it yet, but they are getting excited.

PETER AKWABOAH, ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND [RBS]: What is the difference between the client and the customer?

STEPHANIE ACKER, MANULIFE: That is a fabulous point. We are in the midst of a big conversation around this. Today I am here in place of my CEO, who is taking a new role as the lead for Asia Pacific on client centricity and experience. One of her first jobs is that she wants everybody to use the word ‘client’ versus ‘customer’.

This is key to the mindset, because a customer to us is transactional. If I am a customer, I buy something that I need, but a client is a relationship. So we want everyone in our organisation to start thinking and using the word ‘client’ because it is about an ongoing relationship.

PETER AKWABOAH, RBS: Someone also told me that a customer is somebody you go. A client is someone who comes to you. If you are looking at it from the other side, how is that looked into as an organisation? And what about the other way around, do they see us as customer or client?

GRAEME PEAKE, STANDARD CHARTERED: At Standard Chartered wholesale bank we call our clients ‘clients’ and in the consumer bank, we call our customers

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‘customers’. You will not hear a consumer bank person use the word ‘client’. Conversely, if the word ‘customer’ is ever used in wholesale bank I agree with you on the relationship side, and that is what we are trying to build in wholesale bank. I just think the word ‘client’ also sounds more professional than ‘customer’.

From the Standard Chartered perspective, back when they changed the terminology, it was based on the fact that they had changed their strategy. Their strategy, on the wholesale banking side, was not to go out and look for more customers or clients. What they wanted to do was to deepen the relationship that they had with their existing clients. So they saw that the client is something deeper than a customer. Obviously they did take on more clients, but at the time they had a strategy to deepen the existing relationships. So the word ‘customer’ was out and ‘client’ was in.

JIN ZWICKY, OCBC BANK: I do not think the mind change is about whether we say ‘customer’ or ‘client’.

Four years ago, customer experience was a new term.

As significant the term from ‘customer’ to ‘client’ was introducing the customer experience and what that meant. Service is what we offer. Experience in the customer’s mind and their perception and changing their mindset, was, I think, the biggest decision we made in OCBC Bank. Now everybody is talking about customer experience. It is not about what channel we offer or what product we offer. It is about what kind of experience they can have.

LUKE MCCORMACK, PEGASYSTEMS: We have been lucky to work a lot with OCBC re-opening their branch experience. Do you think you could share a little about the fact that OCBC has taken a somewhat scientific approach to that experience, observing and investing in seeing how clients react to certain stimuli.

JIN ZWICKY, OCBC BANK: OCBC performed a group customer experience in 2010. We realised that OCBC could no longer compete in an open market. Every product becomes similar, so we wanted to differentiate ourselves, and one way to do that was differentiating the customer experience.

The Group Customer Experience was created under our CEO in 2010 with the mandate to make the company customer-centric. We started by fundamentally changing our research and design process. Customers are not numbers or figures – they are human beings. We had to unleash more qualitative research that was more observation and conversation based. We conduct qualitative research in-house because we feel that empathy has to be created, not just

commissioning an agency and have them say, ‘This is what we found’. That way the changes never happen – we have to feel the customer’s pain. We have to observe how customers interact with our bank. The biggest change in the bank was the design process and having in-house designers in the company, which allowed us to visualise solutions, prototype the early concepts and iterate through tests.

When it comes to customer experience, it is about what their expectations and key banking needs are. We articulate the pain points we have to address and then we prototype solutions around it.

Once you change your process, putting the customer not at the point of valuation but at the point of inspiration, you can view the insights quickly and can adapt quickly. It took us two years to establish the human-centred design process in major touch point improvement initiatives and to also begin to see some positive results in business impact.

People began to talk about us on social media, and internet banking [became] far simpler. We reduced error rates of forms and reaped bottom-line results in wealth management products through simplification. It has not been easy work, but we found that this humble approach of prototyping and exposing concepts to our customer has been very successful.

KESHAV SUNDERRAJ, ZURICH LIFE INSURANCE: That is fantastic. We actually recruit our customers, whereupon they give us feedback and we then use those customer insights.

LUKE MCCORMACK, PEGASYSTEMS: At Pega we work with all the departments in an organisation. There are difficulties in getting an organisation to join up and work across silos to increase customer engagement, especially when they may have dependencies on channels and various technologies.

By way of example, when a death occurs, we all absolutely want to know that the life insurer that one puts trust in – the organisation – is going to be there and they are going to fulfil the brand promise, regardless of the part of the organisation we may be dealing with.

“Every product becomes similar, so we wanted to differentiate ourselves, and one way to do that was differentiating the customer experience.”

– JIN ZWICKY, OCBC BANK

GRAEME PEAKE, STANDARD CHARTERED BANK: An interesting thought on that – with life insurance it is obviously not the insurer who is going to have that interaction, it is the family. If that is a bad experience, you have just destroyed the future 100 years of relationship with that family.

STEPHANIE ACKER, MANULIFE: Traditionally, everybody believes that the agent ‘owns’ the client.

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I come from an insurance management side, but we have been doing extensive qualitative research with our clients over 18 months, and they tell us very clearly that they want a relationship with the company as well.

We took our senior leadership team to a focus group, and every different age group all said, ‘I really want to hear more from the company. I want to have a better relationship. I want to be able to contact them. I do not want everything to go through my agent.’ Everybody was floored by it.

WENDY TEO, UNITED OVERSEAS BANK (UOB): You made the point at the start of the conversation that most business is organised around channels under group channels and these encompass the branches, internet, mobile, as well as the machines. To ensure that there is no conflict, everything has to be synched so we can create a whole customer experience.

LUKE MCCORMACK, PEGASYSTEMS: Most organisations have grown up building these channels using separate, and sometimes different, technologies.

WENDY TEO, UOB: That is right. Obviously when you

“Educate your loyal customers to the new conveniences of this world. If you think about it, these retirees are very well educated, and today the middle aged and retirees are all going digital, too.”

– WENDY TEO, UOB

do that, there are difficulties. Therefore, they find their own niche or their own market, and they think it is only the Gen Y in this digital age, but that is not true.

You still need your cash cow, but educate your loyal customers to the new conveniences of this world. If you think about it, these retirees are very well educated, and today the middle aged and retirees are all going digital, too. Time is of critical importance to everyone.

LUKE MCCORMACK, PEGASYSTEMS: Because you do not want to differentiate customers based on what channel they may want to use, how do organisations create an insight into its customers? When a customer is engaging with the organisation, where is the insight into why they are engaging or what they may want?

WENDY TEO, UOB: Having channels managed at a group level means the whole thing is integrated together, giving us the advantage in that we are able to then say we are listening. We can understand how customers are interacting with the bank from different avenues and not just from one channel.

GRAEME GREENAWAY, DEUTSCHE BANK: Segregating clients and tailoring products to them is important.

Being flexible and being able to tailor services and solutions to clients’ needs is what keeps a client ‘sticky’.

Clients do not leave because a Relationship Manager (RM) leaves. They leave because they were annoyed

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that they could not transact as quickly as they wanted to. It is about understanding the client and looking at every client differently, and it is also knowing what your competitors are doing and knowing what competitive edge you have, and then just investing as much as you can in that. And we do.

LUKE MCCORMACK, PEGASYSTEMS: If that is the case, then how important is product speed to market?

GRAEME GREENAWAY, DEUTSCHE BANK: Speed to market is very important and being able to transact quickly is what clients typically look for because there is opportunity there. It is also about knowing your market and tailoring products.

We do have a broad range of products, but there are certain things we do not even look at. We want to be the ‘Number One’ bank for all of the things that we are able to transact for our clients. We will invest in all of that and make it the best in the market, rather than trying to be everything to everybody because we realise that institutional clients do not just have one bank.

PETER AKWABOAH, RBS: Somebody said that if you do not have the tools to rotate from one bank to the other and have similar strategies, to be fair, that there is such a shift in the strategies that most banks look at. But broadly speaking when you come to wholesale banking and you see how they are tackling customer base and the old client base, there are a few things we are doing.

What differentiates is probably the mindset and the culture and the shift in the organisations.

GRAEME PEAKE, STANDARD CHARTERED: In the corporate banking space, you have different people in the client organisation who deal with the bank. If it is an operational staff [member], they will deal with the operations team in the bank. Or if it is the CFO or CEO, they deal with the senior executive in the bank.

If you can get all those touch points lined up, that is where the depth of relationship comes in. That is what makes it sticky because, frankly, after you have won the client, some of that transactional business that comes through is about those relationships at the operational level.

JIN ZWICKY, OCBC BANK: Relating to the role of channels, Wendy mentioned about UOB’s Gen Y strategy in digital space. When we conceptualised FRANK, OCBC’s sub-brand targeted for Gen Y, we deliberately put emphasis on physical space ‘FRANK stores’. Shopping is a national sport in Singapore and Gen Ys like to hang out in the mall. So we wanted to be

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in the space. FRANK has made banking approachable.

We have been very successful in attracting Gen Ys through stores.

Now that does not mean our channel strategy is about physical space because each channel has a specific role.

We see digital as a channel to make the relationship sticky. As Graeme has said, Gen Y does not have the sticky relationship with any of the banks here. So this is an opportunity where simpler internet banking can make the relationship sticky for the young. This is key in defining channel strategy for us. Clearly defining the role of the channel and how each channel plays a different role.

LUKE MCCORMACK, PEGASYSTEMS: Karen, what is your take on some of the concepts at DBS? KAREN FOONG YIN NGUI, DBS BANK: I fully agree with what everyone has been saying. DBS is still on that journey, too. It is not just about the ability to assimilate and amalgamate the information and to perform the analytics. You need to translate all that information into actionable insights. It is something that we have to keep on learning – it is a very interactive cycle.

LUKE MCCORMACK, PEGASYSTEMS: From an AXA standpoint, how do you and your organisation address that conundrum of mountains of data? How do you convert that to information and ultimately customer engagement or quick product to market?

MATTHIAS DE FERRIERES, AXA: Basically, there is a difference between the banking and insurance industry. The insurance works with data when it comes to creating and pricing products. Indeed, we use data to mainly understand the customer, its profile, its needs, behaviour and even interests. With such data, we run statistics and do scoring that will help us shift the paradigm of being price, process and underwriting focused to customer and service centric. Data helps us to achieve that as we will be able to realise appropriate customer segmentation: right product, right price, right perception, thus effective willingness to pay. That is why good data is critical to us. And the key is how to collect that.

KAREN FOONG YIN NGUI, DBS BANK: When we are discussing data, there are so many different dimensions to it. Not just the demographic data, socio-economic data, but also the unstructured data – conversations happening in social media – and the data being non-numeric data. How we put it all together is the challenge at hand.

MATTHIAS DE FERRIERES, AXA: It is a challenge to collect and score data. Interestingly, I participated in a lot of conferences recently that focused on the need to develop big data. The big data theory is the new trend.

The new big thing! But in reality, what are we going to do about big data? Do we have a real strategy for it? We already have difficulties in collecting it. AXA is number two in Singapore and number one in Hong Kong, yet we face challenges with computing data, and translating such into effective solutions for our customers.

For me, a customer is someone to reach. A client is someone I have already in my book. It is a contract with whom I have a special relationship already. The customer is someone I am going to understand and try to have join us. AXA is good at working on loyalty to keep these clients, but we have difficulties when it comes to getting new customers through new services and new products. I think it is not only AXA but the insurance industry in general.

GRAEME PEAKE, STANDARD CHARTERED: That is one of the challenges. You can get the data, but it is about how you use it and what it is telling you. We struggle with that, although we are improving.

PETER AKWABOAH, RBS: In some cases, the data tells you what to do, but what of the culture? The data says that you need to change incentive structure. When you talk about how important it is to put in some incentive structure, is it about mindset? No. So then if we fall back to the data: is it a data problem? No. It is actually the mindset and the culture shift in the organisation, which is what we have to focus our attention on.

MATTHIAS DE FERRIERES, AXA: Increasingly, with big data and the obsession to collect data we may tend to outsmart the situation. We think that the responses are only in data and to get such we focus on investing big money in IT. Yet we are not sure how or why to use such data and make a real return on the investment. We are trying to speculate on the expected results, and invest time and money when really we could just use some common sense and a pragmatic approach to serve and listen to our customers immediately.

“It is not just about the ability to assimilate and amalgamate the information and to perform the analytics.

You need to translate all that information into actionable insights.”

– KAREN FOONG YIN NGUI, DBS BANK

LUKE MCCORMACK, PEGASYSTEMS: There is a temptation to invest heavily in technology around big data. When we consider big data we know that the insights are there but it is not just the data, it is also the process. When a customer wants to open an account and tells you what their needs are, that is a moment of truth. You can have as much data as you like, but if you can capitalise on that moment of truth, then not only W HO ’ S W HO O F FS I

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are you in the position to serve the customer’s needs but you will also build a relationship. Big data is important, but it is not a silver bullet to address the process requirements that need to happen.

LAURENT BERTRAND, UBS: I work for Wealth Management. Our situation is like insurance to some extent because it relies heavily on our client advisers.

They have deep relationships with our clients, with investments varying from a couple of million to billions. Our aim is to serve all our clients and bring them the full range of services available from UBS. To do that, we must complement the existing traditional client adviser set-up with new channels. If you want the same kind of experience across channels in a consistent manner, you need to know your customer’s preferences. The question then becomes how to know and understand your client and deliver client insights across the bank. It means all data that is available needs to be exploited, put into context and played back into the organisation.

JUAN LANDAS, CITIBANK: Delivering consistent

“We have put a lot of effort into establishing a consistent customer experience, but if we cannot measure the benefits this brings to our customers, we cannot measure success.”

– JUAN LANDAS, CITIBANK

customer experience across channels is a major focus for Citibank. One of the key pillars of how we addressed this was to drive commonality across our technology platforms. When we think of channels, we think of customer touch points via assisted channels, through branches or sales staff or through unassisted channels such as the internet or IVR. So a key lever to drive intimacy and consistent experience for the customer is to also have a common experience for your staff and a common technology platform behind that.

Getting a product to market quickly is one thing, but bringing scale to that product across several markets is critical. In order to achieve that scale quickly, you need to have a common platform.

MATTHIAS DE FERRIERES, AXA: What is the most critical for you, the ideality of design of your product from front end to back end or is it the time to market?

JUAN LANDAS, CITIBANK: Being in a bank, it is important to bring a product to market safely by ensuring that we do not put any customer data at risk.

Speed to market is important, but making sure that we implement something effectively and securely for our customer is of greater importance.

JIN ZWICKY, OCBC BANK: I like your term ‘safely’.

Just because we want to work the market, we go out there faster than competitors and we may end up creating bad experiences. The danger here is that some 58

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bad experiences make customers never come back.

[We need to know] what the deal breakers are in the customer experience journey.

JUAN LANDAS, CITIBANK: We have put a lot of effort into establishing a consistent customer experience, but if we cannot measure the benefits this brings to our customers, we cannot measure success. Citibank has implemented a strong focus on embedding the Net Promoter Score (NPS) metric into our scorecard to ensure that we can understand the customer experience and use the NPS metric to drive our actions to improve the customer experience.

STEPHANIE ACKER, MANULIFE: Many global companies use NPS. But it is very difficult to use NPS in the Asian context. In [America], we either love something or we hate it. But in an Asian context, a six or a seven is often the highest they are willing to give you. You may have done a fantastic job, but they are not going to give you a nine.

You either have to accept the fact that potentially your NPS is going to be negative, and you just have to deal with the morale issue and the constant explanations to people. Or do you adjust to bring it into a local context?

MELISA TEOH, GREAT EASTERN LIFE: It is more important for people to understand what’s driving the score than the NPS score itself. Internal communications and engagement with key stakeholders across functions is key to driving improvements, the point and purpose of investing in NPS relationship and transactional surveys.

GRAEME PEAKE, STANDARD CHARTERED: Is your experience similar though? My experience is similar in the whole Asia continent with perhaps a couple of exceptions. The six or seven number is very standard.

PETER AKWABOAH, RBS: Everybody sitting here is a customer. I wonder if we asked everybody one question: What do you really want from the organisation? As a customer, for me it would be getting the right channel so that I do not have to call you. NPS for me as a customer means nothing.

LUKE MCCORMACK, PEGASYSTEMS: I think that is a great way to end – to ask each individual what their expectations are as a customer.

SHIN HORNG, BANK OF CHINA: As a customer, I will only deal with banks who I know are creditable and have integrity in the way they conduct their business.

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Peace of mind is an important factor. Thus, as a consumer, a good bank is a trustworthy bank.

MATTHIAS DE FERRIERES, AXA: When I buy a car, I am expecting to have four wheels. When I take a plane I am expecting to arrive safely. And when I deal with the bank, I expect safety. As a customer, what I am looking for is attention to detail and not being bothered, to be segmented to a maximum, and to pay for the segmentations. In short, as a customer I want to be comfortable! The insurance industry is not the sexiest industry yet. It faces the biggest dilemma – no one wakes up in the morning excited to buy insurance yet everyone knows that they need to protect their loved onea and assets.

KAREN FOONG YIN NGUI, DBS BANK: Banking or insurance businesses are very commoditised industries.

What we all do is more or less the same. Why would a customer choose Bank A versus Bank B? The brand then comes in to play. So how to translate that brand proposition into the consistent client experience, getting it right each time, every time. But that is almost an expectation, and it is [about] how we meet that expectation and go beyond it.

JASON TOH, OCBC BANK: For me it is down to convenience and simplicity. An effective channel, such as business internet banking, is not only about providing good customer experience, but also how well it integrates within the organisation to serve our customers, and to keep up with technology advancements.

MATTHIAS DE FERRIERES, AXA: Simplicity means you understand something, but individuals understand [the same things] differently. It becomes complex to create everything that is simple for everyone.

LUKE MCCORMACK, PEGASYSTEMS: I think the key there is personalisation of the client. Understanding that what is crucial for one customer may be irrelevant for another. That is where making sure that, you are focused on that individual’s specific needs [comes into play] you need to appreciate their intent.

MELISA TEOH, GREAT EASTERN LIFE: At Great Eastern Life, we focus on helping our customers live healthier, better lives. Everything we do is focused on delivering this. We are constantly learning and improving to give customers what they need and want.

JIN ZWICKY, OCBC BANK: I agree that simplicity is something we all have to aspire to. What is the definition

of simplicity? [Ultimately] it is about getting closer to the user’s mental model. I talk to different kinds of customers – from Gen Y to all the private banking clients.

The basic banking or insurance needs are simple.

Simplicity has a lot to do with the reduction of things banks want to offer and sticking to customers’ core banking needs. To me, that is what we aspire to. At the same time, as a customer, I want things simple – we do not want to have to think about banking or insurance.

RICHARD LUQAIN, AXA REGIONAL CENTRE: Yes, as a customer, you want to believe that you are in control of what you are going to purchase. That is where this concept of simplicity becomes tricky. In AXA, instead of introducing a new product to the market every three months, we tried to realise the concept of simplicity by introducing a flexible offering whereby each customer gets to choose and build their product. We just re-shape the way we present the product.

You cannot serve all needs to all people. That is when simple becomes complex, and where technology can bring significant added value by enabling customisation to the remaining 10 or 20 per cent.

LAURENT BERTRAND, UBS: The first thing is reliability.

For your clients, you have to be reliable. I think fairness would also be important. I hope not to use it, but when I need my insurance, I want to make sure it works. That is true also with our clients. When we are advising a very wealthy client, they expect us to do what is in their best interests, and to do it to the best of our ability.

I am in the industry because I like investments and therefore I have expectations in terms of sophistication.

When I talk to someone who is an adviser with limited expertise, I am a bit disappointed and I say, ‘Can I talk to someone else? Can you show me something more substantial, something more valuable?’ And then I am willing to pay, but I want to pay as little as possible for something simple yet reliable. Personally I am interested in where the frontier is, where things are getting interesting. But I am probably not your usual client.

“An effective channel, such as business internet banking, is not only about providing good customer experience, but also how well it integrates within the organisation to serve our customers, and to keep up with technology advancements.”

– JASON TOH, OCBC BANK

STEPHANIE ACKER, MANULIFE: I would say delivering as promised is a big thing for me, personally, as a client.

And then how do you curate the experience? We talk about personalisation, and so on. But what I really want is to know that you are talking to me. I want to know that you are talking to Stephanie or that you are [meeting] my needs. For example, if I go to Amazon. com or Zappos.com, based on their customer profiling they can curate my experience so that it is faster, simpler and easier.

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FST MEDIA HAS GATHERED ASIA PACIFIC’S MOST INFLUENTIAL TECHNOLOGY CHIEFS TO PROVIDE A PORTRAIT OF THE WHO’S WHO OF FINANCIAL SERVICES. HERE, THEY SHARE EXCLUSIVE INSIGHTS ON EMERGING TRENDS AND PRIORITIES FOR THE YEAR AHEAD. EDITED BY RIMIN DUTT, JAMIE PERICLEOUS AND ADRIAN BARCLAY

QA &

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V I K R A M SU D // W H O’ S W H O Q& A

Vikram Sud ASIA PACIFIC

ASIA PACIFIC HEAD OF OPERATIONS & TECHNOLOGY, CITI ASIA PACIFIC FST MEDIA: How are you leveraging big data and analytics to meet customer demand for personalised mobile products?

SUD: By mining data correctly and converting this information to valuable insights, we can leverage big data and analytics to identify what our customers are looking for.

With mobile banking today, many of our services and products remain locationbased. In the future, we will be able to tailor our offerings according to each mobile banking user’s profile backed with data from customers’ transactions and usage patterns.

With analytics, we also benefit from being able to gauge future patterns including

whether or not customers are likely to renew or purchase certain products and services.

We are already collecting and studying this data and we continue to personalise and enhance the Citi client experience on ‘Citi Mobile’, our mobile banking platform.

FST MEDIA: Given the competitive threat from non-bank competitors, is it a viable option for retail banks to focus solely on wholesale and white-labelling?

SUD: What makes us distinctly Citi is what we offer, differing from both direct and indirect competitors. We will continue to create and market our own products and services or work in close partnerships with some financial services providers to bring best-inclass value propositions that are relevant to our customers.

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FST MEDIA: What are your priorities for the next 12–18 months?

SUD: We are continuing our focus to enhance the client experience for our customers, regardless of where in the world they may be. We believe a Citi client anywhere is a Citi client everywhere.

In line with the three global trends that play to our strengths as a bank – globalisation, urbanisation and digitisation – our priority is to define and deliver a distinctively industryleading and consistent global Citi client experience for our customers.

These trends reflect the way consumer and corporate customers behave today going by where they choose to be located, their various product and service preferences, and the ways they choose to access our services.

From an operations and technology perspective we have a lot of work to do.

Apart from keeping up with regulatory changes we continue to drive standardisation and simplification of processes and elimination of legacy platforms. Ultimately, this implies transforming the banking experience by heightening efficiencies and leveraging innovation to make banking simpler, speedier, personalised and more accessible remotely.

FST MEDIA: How is Citi Innovation Lab delivering value to the business, and how are you measuring its success?

SUD: The ‘Citi Innovation Lab’ delivers significant value to our corporate clients through its various innovation portfolios.

In 2013, the lab pursued more than 20 proprietary transactional banking solutions, with half a dozen scheduled for launch within this year and next. Our new ‘CitiDirect Banking Evolution’ nextgeneration electronic banking platform with new capabilities on mobiles and tablets has been well-received by our clients who benefit from the convenience of accessing information and authorising transactions on-the-go.

We are also working on delivering tools and capabilities that enhance customer experiences and support our sales process. In terms of measuring success, each Lab has a

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While biometrics will make banking more convenient, it will help the industry tackle the huge threat of identity and financial fraud.

even a small and medium enterprise (SME), banks offer unparalled security, experience and capabilities to ensure fundraising requirements and needs.

The question is not how banks can still stay in business in the long-term. If anything, it is about how the quality or proportion of different types of customers might change as new avenues for funding grow.

FST MEDIA: What is the ‘holy grail’ that technology and innovation are yet to deliver in financial services?

SUD: It is critical that banks focus on two

detailed scorecard that is well-aligned to our business strategy.

FST MEDIA: How do you see the role of biometric identification playing out in the transformation of the physical bank branch?

SUD: Biometric technology will give us the ability to do cardless transactions, relying on forms of identification including voice authentication, fingerprint authentication and retinal scans. The use of biometrics can help ensure a more seamless, convenient, secure and personalised banking experience.

Although still in the initial stages, the use of biometrics will further encourage the increasing use of remote banking channels.

While biometrics will make banking more convenient, it will help the industry tackle the huge threat of identity and financial fraud.

FST MEDIA: With the growth in Internetbased crowdfunding challenging the traditional role of banks, how can banks still stay in business in the long-term?

SUD: While it could be an avenue for choice, especially for entrepreneurs and small business owners, it is a relatively unregulated industry and therefore not necessarily the most secure. Many of today’s crowdfunding sites are self-regulated.

Customers who value trust and prefer face-to-face discussions and the assurance of a secure platform will still turn to banks for funding requirements. Whether serving a big multinational, a private-equity giant or

things – customer intimacy and customer trust. Intimacy must be a critical pillar of the bank’s strategy and should reflect the ease of doing business and the customer experience. Customer trust goes well beyond technology with security, access and availability becoming more and more critical in maintaining the trust equation.

FST MEDIA: How do you switch off and achieve work/life balance?

SUD: I believe work life balance is mostly in the mind – having the ability to ‘switch on and off’ as required helps me manage that balance. Those who cannot switch off after work will struggle regardless how much leisure time they have.

It is important to do the things you enjoy after work or on weekends with gusto and passion. I try to find new things to do and experiment every once in a while so that I am not bored. Extrovert or introvert, indoor or outdoor, physical or mental, the options are never ending. Make it your passion. If you enjoy your work, have a great team, are well organised and know how to delegate then work life balance will happen naturally.

FST MEDIA: Every leader has a legacy they wish to be remembered for. What is yours?

SUD: I would like to be remembered for building a high-performing team that is customer focused and always open to change. I would also like to be known for having helped people grow and take on bigger roles.

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Embracing a Digital ‘Wealth’ Future What will be the major challenges facing the wealth management industry over the next 12 months?

With Australia about to undergo its biggest intergenerational shift of wealth from baby boomers to Generations X and Y, the need for the wealth management industry to embrace digital technologies to inform and service the first generation of ‘digital natives’ is imperative. It is estimated that 70 per cent of the country’s wealth will be held by these generations by 2030. However, despite their digital mastery, more than half of the Digital Investor generation does not feel confident managing their finances.

Our industry needs to acknowledge that Digital Affluent Gen X and Digital Heirs Gen Y want their wealth managers to provide services today – and by doing so, will substantially improve their financial management performance.

as how to differentiate on content-based strategies using digital media and maximising video services for financial planners to engage their customers visually whilst working remotely.

What is good news for customers is that all these digital services are delivered through the cloud, making the process from idea to test to launch a very low risk and agile one.

What will wealth management platforms look like in the future?

We expect to see our wealth managers of tomorrow providing more engaging and integrated experiences – whether delivered directly or through intermediaries.

The way in which they will be able to do this is by adopting one particular model, namely ‘produce once, distribute to many,’ as a way of offsetting the digital risks at a device, application and content management level.

We, ourselves made investments in leading edge companies delivering capabilities based on ‘produce once, distribute to many’ models. For example Kony Solutions provides mobile banking applications, ‘Whisper’ for messaging communications, ‘Ooyala’ for content management systems and ‘Mandoe Media’ for digital media solutions. This way enables organisations to keep up with the dynamic world of the digital investor whilst reducing the operating costs and improve customer experiences associated with their applications, communication and content services.

Rocky Scopelliti, Group General Manager – Industry Centre of Excellence

How is Telstra assisting financial services organisations to effectively capture the Gen Y and Gen X customer base?

Telstra has spent time analysing the behaviours of our Gen Y and Gen Xs, the results of which we have shared with organisations within the industry. Through our Digital Investor thought leadership research, we uncovered a significant level of appeal for digitally enabled wealth management tools.

Key insights showed us that technological developments such as the use of video are seen as game changers as they can fundamentally improve the client experience, productivity and reach of advisers. In fact, the most popular concepts with digital investors were educational videos online, alert services to track your investments or the market and online collaboration with an expert using chat, video or voice.

An overwhelming majority of four in five digital investors prefer the online channel to access these concepts. A third prefer to connect to them through social media, with more than one in two digital investors preferring smartphones and tablets to access these concepts.

What will be the most significant game changer for wealth management technology in the year ahead?

Digital tools that appeal to the digital investor include a combination of educational videos, alert services and online collaboration with an expert or accessing experts on demand.

To learn more visit Telstra at www.telstra.com

How does Telstra help its wealth management clients solve some of these challenges?

We have been collaborating, heavily, with customers on translating the insights from The Digital Investor report into pilots and commercial services wherever possible. For example, we have leveraged insights around customer notification services to address the lapse rate issue in life insurance as well W HO ’ S W HO O F FS I

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multi-channel offering via our new ‘Smart Store’ concept.

We are constantly innovating to add to our offering, but are mindful that we want to ensure an integrated banking experience regardless of where the query originates.

FST MEDIA: What are your IT priorities for the next 12 to 18 months?

GRAY: NAB’s transformation priorities are focused on making things simple for our people and customers. Continuing to build an integrated customer experience will be the priority across 2014 to 2015 as we progress NAB’s total technology environment transformation.

Further deployment of applications into NAB’s private cloud, expanded use of our state-of-the-art data centre and delivery of major milestones in our ‘NextGen Program’ will feature prominently in 2014.

We will also bring new functionality to key digital platforms, building on last year’s successful launch of ‘NAB Flik’ and other advancements to meet the increased appetite for mobile services.

FST MEDIA: What will be the most significant challenge facing retail banking in the year ahead?

Lisa Gray AUSTRALIA

GROUP EXECUTIVE, ENTERPRISE SERVICES AND TRANSFORMATION, NATIONAL AUSTRALIA BANK

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FST MEDIA: What new technological frontiers will retail banking embrace in the next few years?

GRAY: Retail banking will continue to see the integration of technology with personal guidance and advice, linking multiple touch points provided in-store, over the phone and online. National Australia Bank (NAB) predicts an increase in the way digital content is delivered, as video and other visual tools become further incorporated into service delivery.

We have begun a journey with new features in branches that bring the digital experience into our physical spaces.

We offer iPads and free WiFi in stores, while digital screens allow up-to-date customer and community information to be displayed across the network.

We have further accentuated the

GRAY: Customer behaviour continues to evolve. In August 2013, we saw for the first time more than half of our internet banking logins coming from mobile devices.

Deep customer relationships remain our guiding principle. The goal is to find the best blend of mobility, speed and simplicity across platforms to enable our people to spend more time with customers providing help, guidance and advice.

FST MEDIA: How does NAB’s ‘Smart Store’ help shape the future of NAB’s branches?

GRAY: The ‘Smart Store’ is an entirely new way of banking and delivering the products and services customers want.

It is a ‘Smart Store’ because our people are working in tandem with innovative and intuitive technology. New selfservice terminals perform a wide range of

W H O’ S W H O Q& A // L ISA G R AY

transactions services, while bankers and customers can make use of a range of spaces and technologies to deliver help, guidance and advice.

The ‘Smart Store’ is another example of returning control back to the customer to choose how they interact with us.

FST MEDIA: How can technology chiefs achieve actionable big data insights?

GRAY: NAB is already seeing the benefits of actionable data through our transformation program. Most exciting will be our ability to utilise data in a way that will provide insight direct to customers in the form of new tools and services.

This movement towards putting more information into customer hands is important to building deeper relationships longer term. NAB’s ‘Money Tracker’ tool on internet banking and UBank’s ‘People Like U’ site are great examples of this.

The benefits of big data have the potential to be substantial. NAB’s ‘Information Analytics Platform’ puts us in a position to make real-time decisions about pricing, make recommendations about the right products for individuals based on everything we know about them and assess things such as risk and security.

FST MEDIA: How is NAB innovating to attract and retain the growing Gen Y customer base?

GRAY: We continue to see the behaviour of our customers changing, and we need to ensure we are making the best offering, wherever, however and whenever they choose to bank with us.

Customers expect 24/7 availability of safe, easy and reliable banking and wealth services. In 2013 we launched ‘NAB Flik,’ our innovative peer-to-peer payments system allowing customers to pay each other via email, social media or even mobile phone number.

The intersection of self-service and social media will continue to challenge our thinking, as we look to increase the avenues customers can choose because we want to go where they spend their time.

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NAB is already seeing the benefits of actionable data through our transformation program.

Most exciting will be our ability to utilise data in a way that will provide insight direct to customers in the form of new tools and services.

FST MEDIA: What can we expect from the ‘Bank of the Future’?

GRAY: The ‘Bank of the Future’ will need to be faster, more nimble, and more flexible than ever to respond to demand. We have been deliberate in fostering a strong innovation culture with regular events that ask our teams to step outside the day-to-day and experiment on what we could deliver for customers in the future.

FST MEDIA: What role will geo-location have in NAB’s future plans for mobile banking developments?

GRAY: Geo-location is already utilised by NAB mobile applications to deliver various value-adding capability such as finding an ATM or your nearest NAB retail store.

NAB places great value on the privacy and security of its customers, and therefore in creating our mobile banking roadmap we have remained cognisant of respecting both customer privacy, and their desire to access banking products and services when and where they need them.

We will also continue to explore how geo-location can deliver a richer mortgage origination experience.

This means giving consumers choice, not simply pushing information to them

based on where they are but responding to what they need and when they actually want it via their preferred channel – either in-store, over the phone with our direct contact centres or on their mobile phones.

FST MEDIA: How do you see the rising roles of chief digital and marketing officers impacting the traditional function of senior technology executives?

GRAY: The purpose of all these roles is to make it simple for our people and customers.

Ultimately technology is the enabler of great customer experiences, led by datadriven decisions that impact all parts of the company.

This is the context of NAB’s total environment transformation strategy.

Having an integrated, end-to-end view is the only way a bank will succeed in the future.

FST MEDIA: What skills do you think aspiring technology chiefs should invest in now for future success?

GRAY: NAB is a technology organisation just as it is a financial services and wealth organisation. To achieve success now and in the future, technology leaders must become business leaders and bring adaptive skills in leadership, change and execution along with sound commercial acumen.

Given the speed and depth of technological change, it is crucial to be able to integrate people, culture and innovation strategies.

That is how we have approached it through our total environment transformation.

FST MEDIA: What do you consider to be the greatest achievement of your career to date?

GRAY: I always derive energy from working in teams and have focused my career on leading groups toward collective achievement. I realised early on that I am at my best when involved with teams and I have enjoyed numerous examples of reaching goals together with my colleagues.

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Combating Identity-based Attacks on Financial Services Organisations Financial services organisations offering internet and mobile-based banking face increasing pressure to provide enhanced consumer protection against phishing, sophisticated malware and fraud.

According to Kaspersky Lab’s IT Threat and Evolution Report, more than 100,000 unique mobile malware samples were detected, substantially more than the previous quarter. This was the most significant statistical category in both quantity and complexity, indicating that not only are cybercriminals developing more malware targeting mobile platforms, they are also advancing their capabilities and behaviours. Payment service providers (47.6 per cent) and financial services organisations (27.32 per cent) are the most targeted verticals.

3. Take a layered approach No single authentication or traditional fraud detection solution can stop advanced malware on banks and other financial services organisations. It is the layering of different complementary security technologies such as strong authentication, behavioural fraud detection, out-of-band transaction verification, mobile authentication and extended validation SSL digital certificates that provide the best method of protecting customer identities and transactions in a banking environment.

4. Explore advanced authentication techniques Financial services organisations should explore a wide Mark Reeves, range of advanced techniques that are available such Senior Vice President, as mobile-based transaction verification, dynamic International at device authentication including one-time session Entrust cookies and digital fingerprints rather than broadly How can financial services organisations using static device cookie-based approaches. protect themselves against online attacks?

Threats are ever-changing and growing. This means financial Entrust believes financial services organisations should invest services organisations must have an ongoing program of in long-term solutions to keep pace with ever-changing threats. investment to evolve their technology, people and processes.

Entrust recommends the following five best practices: 1. Drive better risk assessment Assess online transactions and the level of risk these present by transaction type or user group to develop risk mitigation strategies including specific attributes such as customer type and volume. In addition, assess the capability of transaction methods, information sensitivity and existing security. It is also important to assess how mobile devices are interacting with your environment.

Consider the holistic risk as not only financial loss, but also liability, corporate risk and reputational damage. Review and refresh risk assessments every 12 months. That will help you to map out potential impact and the required security service levels.

2. Adopt strong authentication standards Today’s sophisticated threats require stronger means of authentication rather than simple usernames and passwords, particularly for high-risk financial transactions such as wire transfers.

Traditional two-factor authentication solutions such as one-time password tokens are no longer effective against sophisticated attacks such as man-in-the-browser attacks if used on their own.

There are a number of newer techniques that provide the level of protection required either through the use of a separate communication channel with the user or by relying on advanced behaviour-based fraud detection engines that can automatically detect transaction or website navigation anomalies in real-time.

5. Enhance customer awareness and education Finally, we also advise that financial services organisations involve the customer as much as possible to fight fraud. Ongoing education and training programs are a must to ensure everyone does their best to protect and mitigate today’s threats. For example, progressive banks are deploying security measures that notify customers when suspicious transactions are in progress and ask them to confirm if a given transaction is valid.

It is vital that consumer confidence is maintained. No bank or financial services organisation can afford the reputational damage that an online attack can cause. Continuous investment in security systems, processes and people is a must rather than a nice-to have, otherwise banks risk leaving customer data vulnerable to attack.

To learn more about how financial services organisations can implement identity-based security to win the war against online attacks, visit www.entrust.com/financial-institutions/

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a significant role in driving our customerfocused strategy.

We are currently leveraging our analytics capabilities across the organisation with the endgame of delivering a truly personalised customer experience based on a deep understanding of our customers’ needs.

We apply a test-and-learn approach to apply our improved understanding of customer benefits and look to create new value-adding opportunities to serve customers better.

FST MEDIA: What are your IT priorities for the next 12 to 18 months?

ARTHUR: We are entering a really exciting

John Arthur AUSTRALIA

CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, WESTPAC

time at Westpac. Since 2009 we have invested more than AU$2billion upgrading our technology, infrastructure and applications, which has laid the foundation for our future success.

While there is a great deal of activity as we move into the next phase of our IT modernisation journey, we are now focused on further enhancing the digital experience for our customers and providing them with the banking experience they want. This means improving our core banking platform and transforming our originations capability.

FST MEDIA: What will be the most significant challenge facing retail banking in the year ahead?

ARTHUR: Banking is no longer just about selling products and services. It is about being the bank that knows its customers best and gives them what they want.

Customers rightly expect to be able to interact with us whenever and wherever they choose and have a seamless experience across all channels. It is a serious challenge for all banks to keep up with the sheer pace of digital change, but the opportunity is immense.

FST MEDIA: How can technology chiefs achieve actionable big data insights?

ARTHUR: Big data is already a game changer for our industry and analytics has played

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FST MEDIA: What skills do you think aspiring technology chiefs should invest in now for future success?

ARTHUR: It is difficult to narrow this down to one or two things – the role has become so broad over time that the required skill set is similarly diverse.

Financial services organisations are increasingly becoming technology companies and seeing themselves as such.

Customers want to engage with us 24/7, seamlessly gliding between channels which increasingly involve technology.

Relationships with our customers will remain at the core of our business.

Rather than face-to-face or telephone contact, relationships with our customers more often will be established, nurtured and built using technology.

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Bank Consumers Seek ‘Human Touch’

While providing fast and easy self-service across multiple channels and devices remains a priority among financial services organisations, the process often proves to be laborious and painful for consumers. An estimated 58 per cent of people are unable to get the answers they seek online.

While many websites offer static self-help tools such as ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ which enable consumers to resolve issues online, these tools are not enough. Statistics show nearly 50 per cent of consumers ultimately give up and call the contact centre, driving up the cost to service customers.

Self-service with an intelligent touch An estimated 71 per cent of consumers prefer to use a virtual assistant to answer their queries in a conversational way and with a human touch, rather than making a phone call to speak with a live agent.

Importance of personalisation in financial services and how virtual assistants help Understanding your customer to supply the right personalised and accurate service is key whether face-to-face or via the phone. This also applies to a high-performing virtual assistant.

With a heritage in Natural Language Understand (NLU), Nuance is uniquely placed to provide a multi-channel virtual assistant solution. Nuance’s virtual assistant – Nina – is designed to offer customers a seamless and consistent experience across IVR, mobile and online.

Nina is Nuance’s intelligent multi-channel virtual assistant with a touch of humanity, and is being used by organisations globally.

Nina will be the ambassador for your brand, the knowledgeable guide to your content, and the reassuring voice of your customer service organisation.

Virtual assistants’ role in the future of banking Virtual assistants are increasingly playing multiple service roles within banking, including online. They are a fast and easy way to provide customers with help, or in the capacity of ‘virtual banking adviser’ focused on providing the best products and services to the consumer. Research shows virtual assistants reduce the amount of customer effort in seeking help. They also assist customers in performing routine transactions with their bank. Nuance has seen this create stickiness and increase customer loyalty.

Nuance Communications Australia enquiries.au@nuance.com australia.nuance.com W HO ’ S W HO O F FS I

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It is a serious challenge for all banks to keep up with the sheer pace of digital change, but the opportunity is immense.

core banking?

Contactless payments was the single most important payments trend in 2013, accounting for more than 50 per cent of our debit transactions. Enabling customers to make contactless payments on their phones will be the next stage of that journey.

We have taken the time to get our offering right and our new NFC solutions are great for our customers, giving them what they tell us they want.

ARTHUR: We have turned our attention

FST MEDIA: What role will wearables play

to our processing systems and the core banking systems integration. This is a large and complex piece of work but it is fundamental to our simplification agenda and will bring a raft of benefits to our business. Most importantly, it will also mean an improved service experience for our customers and the ability to be more agile as we look to innovate in how we do business.

in the future of financial services?

Westpac invests for the future, particularly around talent. Skills that allow us to understand our customers better and leverage our technology to realise a better customer experience are in demand. We have some great initiatives, particularly in the graduate space, to ensure our talent pipeline remains strong.

FST MEDIA: What is Westpac doing with its

FST MEDIA: How will Westpac continue to develop its suite of native banking apps in the year ahead?

ARTHUR: Our investment in online and mobile channels is working – we are leaders in the mobile space and our incredibly successful iPad app is a great example of this.

This year we will be taking it to the next level as we further improve mobile capabilities for customers. We will continue to expand on the everyday banking functions while also extending value-adding capabilities to support customers’ financial needs.

I am particularly proud of our new online banking capabilities, which we are progressively rolling out. It is our first major revamp since we launched online banking and the look, feel and usability of the system is tremendous.

FST MEDIA: What benefits will Westpac’s new NFC payments feature add to the business?

ARTHUR: This is the perfect example of focusing on developing technologies that customers want to use.

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ARTHUR: Our approach is customer-led, not technology-led. As such, we are currently experimenting with these technologies to gauge customer reaction and understand their expectations.

We are trialling a version of the St. George MoneyMeter app on smartwatches and Google Glass, as well as the ‘Branch and ATM locator’ on smartwatches.

We are looking carefully at this emerging trend to see if it has the same explosive growth traits that we saw in mobile banking.

FST MEDIA: What are banks doing to combat the threat of entrants such as Apple, Google and Facebook in the payments arena?

ARTHUR: The Australian financial system is strong because the banks are well-run, with strong regulatory supervision. The most important thing in any financial market is strength, safety and security and that will always appeal to and be trusted by customers.

We look to new entrants as potential partners in helping us deliver innovative customer solutions.

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John Arthur has responsibility for Group Services, which encompasses technology, banking operations, property, compliance, legal and secretariat services.

He has has ultimate accountability for the entire Technology function at Westpac. Arthur joined Westpac in 2008.

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W H O’ S W H O Q& A // E DWA R D C H I U

CHIU: Like other major international banks, our data warehousing project provides highly efficient and flexible data warehousing capabilities while a real-time and flexible executive information system is important for our daily management decisions.

A good data warehouse and management information system is critical for us to run our business, and common to all banks.

FST MEDIA: How are you leveraging big data and analytics to meet customer demand for personalised products for CCB (Asia) customers in the region?

CHIU: Big data and analytics applications will enhance our ability to know the patterns and trends. Big data is jargon for the data mining of mountains of available information.

The concept has existed for many years. The combination of business judgment and big data analytics allows us to generate more good products for our customers.

FST MEDIA: How does China Construction Bank (Asia) plan to strengthen the mobile channel and iOS portal, and how will you build on this success?

Edward Chiu HONG KONG

HEAD OF OPERATIONS, CHINA CONSTRUCTION BANK (ASIA) AND CHINA CONSTRUCTION BANK CORPORATION (HK BRANCH)

FST MEDIA: Which emerging trend or innovation is currently flying under the radar that you feel is destined to make a significant impact on financial services?

CHIU: Whether or not the emerging technology trends will make a significant impact is not necessarily down to technological innovation. It is whether we can create good applications or services, and add value to for our customers. The profitable business model may not involve a lot of emerging IT innovation, but will come from good business sense, quick response to customers’ needs, relationship management, reliable and flexible operating platforms and good products.

FST MEDIA: How will China Construction Bank (Asia)’s data warehousing projects and executive information systems deliver value to the business and how will you measure success?

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CHIU: Like many leading banks, we will leverage the mobile channel, iOS portal and other new technologies to provide more services to our customers.

We will also follow customer behaviour to provide suitable products for them. Mobile banking is one of the key channels.

FST MEDIA: What role will NFC play for the financial services sector across Asia in the future?

CHIU: It is too early to say what role NFC will play. For example, for purchases made in physical stores or for transportation services, a payment can be deducted from a pre-paid account or charged directly to the customer’s bank account.

In recent years, the internet has ransformed from basic content or information delivery into our social system. The financial services industry, whether or not via NFC, can have a big impact on Asia and it will depend on what value it creates for our customers.

W H O’ S W H O Q& A // E DWA R D C H I U

FST MEDIA: If you weren’t working in financial services, what would you be doing?

CHIU: I would be consulting, teaching or in human resources as [people in these professions] interact with people, with new trends, are more creative and can have a fundamental impact on society.

FST MEDIA: How do you see the rising roles of chief digital and marketing officers impacting the traditional function of senior technology executives?

CHIU: Technology executives should have a good understanding of the customer via data analytics. Savvy technology executives should be able to generate new ideas, have a clear mind to set roadmaps, and be able to lead teams to generate new and innovative ideas, along with good business sense. They should also be involved in marketing and product development life cycles.

FST MEDIA: What skills do you think aspiring technology chiefs should invest in now for future success?

CHIU: Keep close to the society and customer, understand the trends and successful business models and understand and appreciate cultural differences when implementing large platforms across different countries.

FST MEDIA: Is virtual currency a threat or potential opportunity, and how should banks respond?

CHIU: My personal opinion is it is too early to say, especially as different countries or central banks have different views on this. Virtual currency is a good and creative business model. However, it does not have international rules to govern its development.

FST MEDIA: How do you sustain your level of motivation in a high pressure environment?

CHIU: Throughout my career at various international banks, I have learnt that it is key to be honest to the decision you have

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Savvy technology executives should be able to generate new ideas, have a clear mind to set roadmaps, and be able to lead teams to generate new and innovative ideas, along with good business sense.

made – it should not be against the company goals, and at the same time should not be against your own will, which includes providing and creating a better working and operating platform for my staff members, while improving the efficiency of the bank.

At the same time it is about maintaining a good relationship with and serving your business partners.

If we are working in a happy working environment, although it might be in a high pressure, I believe we should have more energy to resolve issue with your teams.

FST MEDIA: How have you dealt with the challenges in your career?

CHIU: Different stages of my career encountered different challenges. In the early stage of my career path, the challenges were related to how to achieve my long-term goals by obtaining and accumulating relevant work experience. When your career path is clear, the challenges could be how to get promoted to a more senior level position in a short period of time. After working in financial services organisations based in the UK, Hong Kong, the US, and China, I encountered different people, cultures and challenges under good economies and also during financial crises.

My personal objective is to maintain a happy daily working life through providing a better environment for those staff members who work for me, be honest to yourself on

the decision you have made, maintain high emotional quotient (EQ), be open to other business parties and be confident to tackle any issues.

FST MEDIA: What do you see as the best industry to be a COO right now? How do you see that changing in the next five years?

CHIU: While I have not been working in different industries in the last 20 to 30 years, throughout my career, I have been working in consultancy, banking and financial services.

I believe if the COO job can allow you to look after different countries’ operations, to understand different cultures and people, and create a better operating environment, it could be an interesting role. In the next five years, I believe banking, financial services, medical, communication and internet-related industries will be the major industries that affect our daily lives. If you were the COO of the above industries, I believe the job should be rewarding and challenging which enables you to contribute your knowledge and experience to the society.

FST MEDIA: What is the personal cost of leadership?

CHIU: I believe you have to invest substantial time in your job to be a good leader. Therefore, a personal cost could be in the form of time. Although you can delegate your decisions and tasks to your subordinates, I believe a leader needs to support staff members from different levels.

Particularly when they are in a bad time, a good leader should be sensitive to the personal feelings of those key supporting members, and should demonstrate to your team members that you are working with them, and supporting them all the time.

FST MEDIA: Every leader has a legacy they wish to be remembered for.

What is yours?

CHIU: I would like to be remembered for being able to work happily with a team of business professionals, leaders and the CEO, and for creating opportunities for my staff to achieve success.

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M IN E R VA TA N TOC O // W H O’ S W H O Q& A

Minerva Tantoco HONG KONG

CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, CLIENT FACING TECHNOLOGY ASIA PACIFIC, UBS

our clients ahead of the curve. We have begun to explore ways to serve our clients by making these analytics services available to our advisers so that we can provide superior client service. Interpreting the mountains of news, market data, transactions, and social media trends can be daunting just to keep up. Somehow turning all that into insights for personalised information based on portfolios, news, and sentiment can be of enormous value.

FST MEDIA: Which emerging trend or innovation is currently flying under the radar that you feel is destined to make a significant impact on the financial services industry?

TANTOCO: Wearable computing is still in its infancy, but increasingly the information and communication modes we see in our phones will be embedded into watches and glasses, perhaps other wearable devices.

These can be combined with biometrics such as voice authentication to offer security technologies that would be more secure than what we have today. This is flying under the radar but has a lot of potential.

FST MEDIA: What role will mobile applications play in improving relationships with clients?

TANTOCO: Mobile devices are more personal than computers. We notice more quickly when a phone has gone missing than our wallets. This is a much deeper relationship opportunity than with other devices. We are already seeing that mobile applications are delivering convenience to clients for anywhere, anytime access to news and account information. The current apps provide everything from account balances and research to foreign exchange services to building custom products for mobile phones and tablets.

FST MEDIA: How are you leveraging big data and analytics to meet customer demand for personalised UBS products?

TANTOCO: Analysing large data sets from the combination of internal and external information presents a great source of personalised services that can keep us and

FST MEDIA: What are the obstacles preventing banks from addressing the threat of Apple, Google and Facebook?

TANTOCO: The challenge for traditional banks will be to assure that compliance and regulatory requirements are met, while new business models and competition pop up from technology sectors. In addition, new entrants do not have to contend with legacy systems and existing platforms, but neither do they have the experience as the incumbents. It is going to be an interesting and exciting industry for years to come.

FST MEDIA: What are your priorities for the next 12 to 18 months?

TANTOCO: From an innovation perspective, the four key areas are mobile, social, big data, and cloud. And the fifth key area is the cumulative effect of the combination of these four. Each of these major trends are intertwined and should not be treated in

isolation. Social media is being accelerated and transformed by mobile. Mobile is impacting business and personal interactions, which both in turn are generating huge stores of data which can be mined and analysed.

Much of this is enabled by applications in the cloud which can be accessed by any device and connected to the Internet of Things (IoT).

It is important to track and start to predict how these will impact our clients’ day-to-day decision-making and transactions, and how the workplace will change as these trends mature to the ‘new normal’.

FST MEDIA: How do you encourage a culture of innovation in your team?

TANTOCO: The emphasis here is on ‘applied’ innovation – in other words, to think in terms of a business-led driver for the innovation, such as revenue, new clients, new markets, rather than let the technology drive the innovation. Start with aligning to the business strategy and then match the technology to support it. At the same time, be on the lookout for game changers such as non-banking players offering financial services, which are on the rise in the financial technology sector. Disrupt yourself or someone else will.

FST MEDIA: Every leader has a legacy they wish to be remembered for. What is yours?

TANTOCO: When I started out years ago in software development and emerging technology, I expected there to be many more women in technology by now.

Beyond participating in successive waves of innovation such as artificial intelligence, electronic publishing, online advertising, mobile strategy, big data, and social media, I am proud of my achievements as a woman role model.

I hope my legacy is to be one of the visible women in technology with a software startup, CTO title, and four US patents, but my passion is for my legacy to be that I encouraged the next generation of women to create and drive this exciting technology revolution. We need both men and women to drive this change and this is just the start.

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W H O’ S W H O Q& A // F ION A F LOY D

Fiona Floyd AUSTRALIA

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, SUNCORP LIFE

finance and risk management. Great writing, speaking and commercial skills are essential as well as understanding how a board operates and what they expect from executives.

FST MEDIA: What is the ‘holy grail’ that technology and innovation are yet to deliver in life insurance?

FLOYD: New technologies continue to raise customers’ expectations for engaging experiences. Delivering a customer experience that is personal, holistic and sustainable is the ‘holy grail’. This means recognising your customer, regardless of the channel that they are engaging you in, and providing them with solutions that are relevant to where they are in their lives.

The technology to transform customer experience already exists. The secret is in its application and delivery. In terms of newer technologies, wearable technology and Anonymous Biometric and Objects Data Sensors (ABODS) are interesting for uses such as targeting healthy lives.

FST MEDIA: What are your IT priorities for

FST MEDIA: How is technology enabling

the next 12 to 18 months?

Suncorp’s direct life insurance provision?

FLOYD: In the near term, we are focused on maximising the investment we have made in technology to deliver unbelievably great service to our customers. We have made significant progress in our cloud journey and will continue this in the coming months.

Our plans also include an investment in life claims capability, developing capacity and flexibility in the workforce and investment at the front-end of our business, across all channels.

FLOYD: Suncorp offers direct life insurance products across multiple channels and brands. We reach customers online, via mobile technologies, through call centres and branches using our brands AAMI, Apia, GIO and Suncorp. In New Zealand, we have successfully sold direct life insurance for many years with our joint venture partner, the Automobile Association (AA).

By leveraging the group’s common online framework, we can quickly and easily make and adjust offers to customers in their preferred medium.

At the back-end, we have simplified our technology architecture using a single policy admin engine, supported by contemporary underwriting and pricing engines. Life’s call centre staff work side-byside with our general insurance call centre staff and use the same technology for customer interactions.

FST MEDIA: What skills do you think aspiring technology chiefs should invest in now for future success?

FLOYD: Besides keeping their technology skills current and maintaining a healthy curiosity about the world around us, an aspiring CIO must understand the fundamentals of business, especially 76

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FST MEDIA: How will you leverage technology to improve Suncorp Life’s pricing capability?

FLOYD: We are already using the group’s pricing engine to support our direct life products, and will leverage this in the future for our advised products. The pricing engine we are using was originally developed for the life insurance industry, so there are many opportunities for us in this space.

FST MEDIA: What do you consider to be the greatest achievement of your career to date?

FLOYD: As a leader, my job is to create the circumstances for my team to thrive and succeed for our business. Therefore, my greatest achievements are not really mine, but the many achievements of my team.

For example, when we were planning to significantly grow our direct life business, we had a number of different options available to support the business technologically. I wanted to demonstrate to the executive team that we could deliver quality, cost and time efficiency that was world class.

My team ran one of our ‘FedEx’ days to demonstrate the ‘art of the possible’.

Working with our colleagues from across Suncorp’s technology community, the team configured a product and implemented it across the stack – admin, underwriting, pricing, online and business intelligence – in under a day. Late in the afternoon, the team showcased this to a seriously impressed executive audience.

There was a palpable shift in the energy in the room as the ‘art of the possible’ played out in front of us. Apart from the terrific business impact this had, it was a very proud moment to see my team doing what they do best and being recognised for it. It is moments like this that make me want to come to work every day.

FST MEDIA: Every leader has a legacy they wish to be remembered for. What is yours?

FLOYD: I would like to be remembered as a values-driven leader who created an environment in which her teams thrived and the business succeeded.

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W H O’ S W H O Q& A // TON Y F O R WA R D

As a result most insurance companies are enhancing their capabilities using more sophisticated software, especially around ratings engines and claims management.

The ratings engines enable more accurate pricing to risk, which means we can offer our customers better pricing that is more reflective of their individual risk.

Enhanced claims management capabilities are improving customer experience by ensuring efficient processing and settlement of claims, reducing unnecessary delays during what is usually a very stressful time for them.

FST MEDIA: What will be the most significant challenge facing insurance in the year ahead?

Tony Forward AUSTRALIA

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, QBE AUSTRALIA

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FST MEDIA: What technology or innovation is proving to be the single biggest game changer for insurance?

FORWARD: The main innovations in insurance are being driven by the need to keep pace with our customers – to ensure we are providing them with the channels through which they want to interact with us – as well as the vastly improved capabilities of modern software that enable us to be more innovative.

From our experience, customers are increasingly expecting to engage with us via electronic channels, whether it is mobile or browser-based. That is old hat for industries such as music and banking, but insurance is being transformed by that too. For example most personal insurance lines, such as motor, home and contents, are now being sold online but the majority of software used by the Australian insurance industry is not suited to online distribution.

FORWARD: For insurers the biggest unknowns in any given year are the potential losses caused by catastrophes such as bushfires, floods and cyclones. Aside from being terrible events in terms of the pain and suffering felt by those directly affected, they pose significant challenges to our industry.

One of these is the challenge of processing a large volume of claims quickly and appropriately in order to help our customers get back on their feet as soon as possible.

To help us best serve these dramatic peaks of demand, we have invested in a major consolidation of our operations to utilise our scale effectively. This is why we are investing in claims processing systems to gradually reduce unnecessary manual processes.

FST MEDIA: What are your IT priorities for the next 12 to 18 months?

FORWARD: Our major IT priority at QBE Australia and New Zealand during the next year and a half is the implementation of a systems replacement program for several of our businesses. Like many other companies that have been in operation as long as QBE, we have legacy software issues and there are some old systems that need to be updated.

Our people have done an outstanding job of maintaining and interconnecting these systems, and providing them with internet front-ends. That often results in a great deal of complexity that could potentially increase costs and create risks that should be avoided.

C O - SPONSO R E D A R T I C LE

Redefining Customer Engagement Managing the power shift The customer is now in control of the relationship with their financial services providers, as the balance of power has shifted from the business to the customer.

Today’s customers are more empowered, and their expectations are higher than ever before. They seek personal, real-time and relevant approaches to services. Financial services organisations need to look at their customers as individuals, and personalise their interactions and offerings with each one in order to create stronger relationships and build customer engagement. As business models increasingly become more collaborative in nature and are based on real-time context, organisations must understand their customers’ needs and behaviour and use this knowledge to inform their interactions.

relevant and engaging experience unified across all touchpoints through the customer journey. The result is that businesses have more power to drive revenue, brand strength and differentiation.

Who is the custodian of the customer?

A survey conducted by CMO Council found 62 per cent of respondents see the chief marketing officer (CMO) as a key player in the move to customer centricity, and we also view this role as the custodian of the customer. With the rise of enterprise cloud technology designed for the business user, the CMO is now far better placed to deliver against this.

Andrew Mellor However, in recent years the role of chief customer ANZ Vice President, officer (CCO) has also gained traction to help lend Thunderhead.com a boardroom voice to the customer. For financial services organisations to be successful in the age of the customer an efficient service design will be central.

Scaling up customer engagement According to recent Thunderhead.com research, 80 per cent of Solid, long-term customer relationships are the most valuable businesses are deluged with data on customers but do not know assets of a business. The fundamental challenge facing financial what to do with it or how to organise it. The increasing synergy services organisations is how they manage and develop between the CIO and CMO can help as the use of technology engaging relationships at scale. Thunderhead.com helps financial allows customer-facing teams to have a single, structured view of services organisations proactively manage these relationships the customer in near real-time allows for increased, more relevant by giving businesses the ability to listen and learn from every and valuable customer experiences. customer interaction and use this to inform valuable, relevant and personalised experiences at all touchpoints. Our ‘ONE Engagement Hub,’ is a suite of powerful Software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions The challenge for financial services for enterprise engagement and customer experience management.

A strategic priority for financial services organisations must be to ‘ONE’ ties together customer insight, journey behaviour and focus on digital transformation. Today’s customers expect the same context, giving businesses a single view of their customers and experience regardless of whether the interaction is across digital enabling communication across multiple channels. channels or in person. They also expect to be able to complete a Our experience working with some of the world’s most transaction through their channel of choice and not force them to customer-centric companies suggest five principles are needed another channel. to underpin effective engagement. Customer interactions and Banking products, investments and insurance offerings are experiences need to be: personalised and tailored, contextually no longer sold just through advisors or branches, but instead appropriate, relevant and accurate, informed by knowledge and in an online marketplace that features fierce competition. As a delivered through end-to-end customer journeys. result, financial institutions are under intense pressure to develop a personalised online experience that not only improves user engagement, but also drives customer acquisition, retention and Predictive analytics – taking customer engagement cross-selling. The type of experience that requires companies to the next level to leverage in real-time everything they know about a particular When predictive analytics is used to provide a better understanding customer across multiple systems and sources. of customer behaviour and intent, this can be coupled with realtime customer context to provide actionable insight at every To learn more, go to www.thunderhead.com interaction, driving value for both the customer and the business.

Contextually-aware predictive analytics enables the delivery of relevant, personalised information to the customer across any channel of their choice at any point in the journey, whether it is fact-finding, making a purchase choice, or looking to resolve a product or service issue. Delivering value consistently over time leads to lasting long-term customer engagement. Thunderhead. com’s solutions enable organisations to deliver a more personal, W HO ’ S W HO O F FS I

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We would also like to be able to implement change quickly and efficiently.

Therefore we are embarking on some core system replacements with all the constituent components of a general insurance stack involved – from online sales and underwriting, to policy administration, ratings, pricing and billing. This will take some time but we are [converting] it into digestible components so we can achieve a return on investment for each book brought into the platform.

Another top priority this year will be replacing our email and collaboration platform across all of our Australian offices.

FST MEDIA: How is QBE leveraging the upgrade of its technology interface for insurance brokers and advisers?

FORWARD: We have long offered brokers an industry-leading interface. Our ‘c.ch@nge’ system was the earliest online broker software implemented in Australia and we continue to invest in the system in order to maintain its value and ensure it remains a benefit to our business partners.

We are trialling some significant enhancements in our Asia Pacific business that we will be bringing back to Australia in the year ahead. We have also made a key investment in a new broker access interface for our New Zealand business.

FST MEDIA: How is QBE’s ‘Insurance Box’ car telematics delivering value to the business and how will you measure its success?

FORWARD: The ‘Insurance Box’ product monitors driver behaviour with two goals.

Firstly to reduce the risk of an accident by giving the driver feedback about safe driving behaviour and, secondly, to reward drivers with a lower premium when they demonstrate safe driving. It is a win-win for us and our customers.

The success of a venture like ‘Insurance Box’ will ultimately be measured by the customers we attract. We are an early adopter of this technology in this market and we expect these approaches will significantly alter our industry over the longer term.

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At QBE we believe we can drive greater value by finding ways to draw further insights from data we already hold.

FST MEDIA: What notable examples have you seen of insurers innovating to acquire and retain the growing Gen Y customer base?

FORWARD: This is an area where our industry still struggles. Some of this is likely due to the perception that Gen Y customers may present a higher risk.

Innovations such as our ‘Insurance Box’ product allow us to identify Gen Y drivers who are lower down the risk curve, and that could be an attractive incentive to the younger generation.

FST MEDIA: How are you leveraging big data analytics to reduce risk and premiums?

FORWARD: Big data is one of those phrases that has become incredibly popular and the definition is still rather loose.

At QBE we believe we can drive greater value by finding ways to draw further insights from the data we already hold.

Fraud detection is a good example. By better analysing the appropriate data we have, we may be able to accurately identify which claims require further investigation, assisting us to reduce instances of fraud and the costs to our business and our customers.

FST MEDIA: How do you see the rising roles of chief digital and marketing officers impacting the traditional function of senior technology executives?

FORWARD: Senior technologists are first and foremost leaders of the companies they work for, albeit with the specific skill set that technology brings. We need to be part of the team that is growing our businesses.

Take the objective of designing systems with the end-customer in mind. That goes to the slickness of the user interface, for example, but also beyond it to the design of the business services embodied in those systems, including the design of the service levels, and the cycle time that the service has to achieve to meet customer expectations. If there is a shared understanding of the needs of the customer and the desire to develop great customer experiences, then there should be a constructive relationship between digital and marketing leaders and those responsible for IT operations.

FST MEDIA: If you weren’t working in financial services, what would you be doing?

FORWARD: There are always a number of sectors offering something interesting to tackle, for example, the energy industry, where IT is a key part of the transformation taking place. If I was not working, I would be learning a second language.

FST MEDIA: What do you consider to be the greatest achievement of your career to date?

FORWARD: The ‘Super for Life’ system that we built at BT Financial a few years ago was the first online superannuation system properly integrated into an online banking system and it has become a successful platform in Westpac’s wealth division. As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and it has been adopted by a number of competitors.

FST MEDIA: Every leader has a legacy they wish to be remembered for. What is yours?

FORWARD: I have been privileged to have had the opportunity to build and lead some great teams and I think that has led to many of my people creating meaningful and rewarding careers. Where they had the ambition, many of those people have gone on to significant success in their own right. I would like to be remembered for being a great leader of, and advocate for, the people I work with, and for helping to nurture the success of the next generation.

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Envisioning the Future of Information Automation The next step to information automation Australian financial services organisations are leading the way with new work environments such as ‘activity-based working’ in offices and for mobile workers. Ricoh has assisted many of these organisations by implementing ‘follow you printing’ for office and mobile devices, allowing staff to print anywhere, anytime. This improves visibility and accountability which can result in reducing print volumes by up to 30 per cent.

Financial services organisations can take the next step to complete automation of information by moving towards electronic documents and workflow approval systems, automating the capture of information and reducing the need for people to review compliant documents.

Improve customer satisfaction and business growth As financial services organisations continue to look for ways to improve core business efficiencies, the convergence of document management technologies offers a way to better automate information capture and workflows currently handled by manual back office processes.

Not only does information automation free up personnel resources, it also provides the potential to improve customer facing processes which will ultimately generate business growth.

John Hall, Managing Director, Ricoh Australia

Accelerating the benefits of automation Documents flow into organisations in a number of different forms including traditional mail, email attachments and increasingly through online systems. Ricoh can automate and streamline this ‘capture and distribute’ process by providing advanced capture at the device that can report on exceptions when necessary. Ricoh provides workflow process automation software integrated with Ricoh hardware. An example of this end-to-end document capture and workflow automation is Ricoh Finance, which has automated all contract document processing, increasing productivity by 25 per cent and reducing costs by an estimated 20 per cent.

Reduce your carbon footprint True sustainability is not only about reducing carbon use but also reducing cost and waste. Ricoh helps organisations reduce their carbon footprint by reducing their printing and helping them transition towards electronic document management.

Deliver value through a cloud-based approach

Turning customers into partners

Ricoh believes that partnerships with clients are vital; the better a supplier understands a client’s business, the more value it can deliver to meet their needs in the best way possible. Most organisations are looking to rationalise supplier arrangements, particularly for delivering enterprise workflow processes across the organisation.

Ricoh has assisted a number of major financial services organisations to rationalise and improve the process for their printing environment. The next stage is assisting these organisations to utilise that digital infrastructure to automate the capture, management and distribution of information so that the right information is available at the right time in the right format.

In October 2012 Ricoh Australia acquired IMC Communications, an Australian IT integrator with a history of delivering successful IT solutions and services to major organisations since 1994.

Through this acquisition Ricoh has expanded its IT services capabilities to provide a data centre based at Homebush, Sydney offering cloud-based workflow solutions with the peace of mind that the data will stay in Australia.

To learn more visit Ricoh at www.ricoh.com.au

A key business driver for financial services organisations is reducing infrastructure costs and moving to consumptionbased pricing for services. Ricoh’s cloud approach is not about simple storage but more about adding value to the service through customised workflow solutions and providing reviews and groundwork before the document enters the workflow. This is how the customer receives the information they need.

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W H O’ S W H O Q& A // A N DY TA N

Andy Tan MALAYSIA

GROUP CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, RHB BANKING GROUP

Things (IoT) – and innovation in the area of services delivery are two changes that will have significant impact to how we attract, acquire, retain and deliver products and services to the customers.

replacement, customer relationship management and digital banking to leverage on the increasing sophistication and acceptance of mobile technologies to enhance our products and services.

FST MEDIA: How does RHB plan on

FST MEDIA: What skills do you think

building on the success of collaboration with PayPal as the demand for mobile wallets increases?

aspiring technology chiefs should invest in now for future success?

TAN: We plan to have more in-depth collaboration with PayPal to further enhance our products and services to targeted customers.

FST MEDIA: How are the bank’s smart branches ‘Easy by RHB’ expected to deliver value to the business and how will you measure success?

TAN: ‘Easy by RHB’ will continue to enable our reach to targeted segments, while further enhancing our brand and mindshare. We are now embarking on new initiatives to revamp ‘Easy by RHB’.

FST MEDIA: How are you leveraging FST MEDIA: What are your priorities for the next 12 to 18 months?

TAN: The RHB Banking Group is undergoing a major transformation to position us among the top financial services groups in Malaysia and as a leading multinational financial services organisation in ASEAN. There are many initiatives that will pose a challenge to IT in order to align these aspirations.

Some of the major initiatives are core banking replacement, customer relationship management (operational and analytics), digital banking and reorganising our operations both in business and IT for better efficiencies and effectiveness to operate as a regional powerhouse.

FST MEDIA: What technology or innovation

big data and analytics to meet customer demand through ‘Easy by RHB’ and ‘RHB Now’?

TAN: We are at the initial stage with big data. As for analytics, we have been applying it for segmentation and other insights to enhance the development of products and delivery of services.

FST MEDIA: What is proving to be your most effective customer acquisition channel?

TAN: Our branch network augmented by ‘Easy at RHB’ and our electronic channels like RHB Now, and OSK188 enable us to reach out to more prospective customers.

FST MEDIA: What technology initiatives

is proving to be the single biggest game changer for the financial services industry?

will be key for RHB to simplify IT systems and increase efficiency and responsiveness to customer needs?

TAN: Mobile technologies – with new devices and the advent of Internet of

TAN: We are embarking on businessdriven initiatives such as core banking

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TAN: They must have a good grasp of technologies and business knowledge, particularly in areas such as innovation.

FST MEDIA: How do you see the rising roles of chief digital and marketing officers impacting the traditional function of senior technology executives?

TAN: With more innovation coming from digital banking, there is a great need for banks to create a position for Chief Digital and Marketing Officers roles, which may be separate or combined roles, to tap new frontiers. The acquisition of WhatsApp by Facebook and acquisitions similar to that are the testimony of its growing importance.

FST MEDIA: What are the obstacles preventing banks from addressing the threat of Apple, Google and Facebook?

TAN: Lack of understanding of their potential and becoming too concerned with legacy issues are some of the obstacles to banks. The other major change for banks is to embrace the culture and dynamics characterising these generations of users and technologists such as being nimble, experimental and daring to fail.

FST MEDIA: Every leader has a legacy they wish to be remembered for, what is yours?

TAN: My legacy would be as someone who was a strong partner to business and helped build an agile organisation, enhanced operational efficiency and effectiveness, and was a driver of business innovation.

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W H O’ S W H O Q& A // M I C H A E L L E U NG

Michael Leung HONG KONG/CHINA

CHIEF INFORMATION AND OPERATIONS OFFICER, CHINA CITIC BANK INTERNATIONAL LTD

FST MEDIA: Which emerging trend or innovation is currently flying under the radar that you feel is destined to make a significant impact on financial services?

LEUNG: The mobile platform is definitely flying under the radar. We are moving further from the web-based and desktop banking toward mobility, mobile devices, smartphones, tablets and wearable devices.

The first aim is to match the internet banking with the mobile device. We aim to do everything that internet banking is now able to do on the digital device. We are not there yet, but we are working towards this.

The second priority for the mobile platform is to cater uniquely for mobile devices such point-of-sale mobile payments. One particular platform is ‘WeChat’, which is a revolution in mainland China, and is developed by Tencent Holdings. Many banks in China use it as a platform to deliver banking services. In Hong Kong, a few banks are working on ‘WeChat’ as a platform to deliver banking services on mobile devices, a major trend in the banking industry.

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FST MEDIA: What are your IT priorities for the next 12 to 18 months?

LEUNG: CITIC is quite a large enterprise with banking as one of our businesses. In the next 12 months or so our first priority is to stabilise the bank to keep the engine room running for CITIC Bank International, with my top priority being stabilising and making the IT and operations units sustainable.

The second priority is to build a much stronger team. The bank has come through difficulties in the past couple of years. The morale and the skillset needs to be built up and revamped.

The third priority is to build infrastructure.

The bank has gone through many changes, leaving the systems and infrastructure fragmented and not integrated or holistic.

With many systems and servers, the infrastructure needs to be, in some cases, rebuilt from the ground up.

The fourth priority is application-level integration. Sometimes even the same function will have multiple systems doing the same thing but for different business units.

Mobility is one key area of focus – we are looking at the smart branches and talking about new concept branches as well as customer facing initiatives like e-cheques and electronic bills.

FST MEDIA: How is ‘CITICmobile’ app delivering value to the business, and how will you measure future success?

LEUNG: Like many banks, CITIC has developed and launched its own mobile Android and iPhone app, and with this native app you can do everything people used to do on the desktop. It has brought value to the business and for customers who like the mobility, and for those who are travelling or are on-the-go.

We will further this with another development we are working on using ‘WeChat’, which has a unique function called ‘bundle’. You bundle a number of accounts or credit cards to the ‘WeChat’ account, so customer does not have to login to mobile banking anymore, it is already pre-bundled.

For example, when you make a small payment at the point-of-sale checkout

or a payment transfer, with the bundling feature, you simply press two keys to complete your transfer in a matter of seconds. These are mobile banking functions that will have quite a big impact on the behaviour of customers.

FST MEDIA: How are you leveraging big data and analytics through online and mobile to deliver targeted and individual products?

LEUNG: Discussions abound in the banking industry around big data, analytics and business intelligence. And they are about not just one contact channel, but all the customer contact channels, branches, ATMs, phone banking, internet and mobile banking.

We are gathering all the contact history of High-Net Worth customers and, based on this and behavioural data, we will be able to track, collect and further analyse.

FST MEDIA: What notable examples have you seen of financial organisations innovating to acquire and retain the growing Gen Y customer base?

LEUNG: A notable example is ‘WeChat’, which is instant messaging just like WhatsApp. Most if not all of the users of ‘WeChat’ are likely to be that younger generation who use it all the time. ‘WeChat’ also has an engine to chat using voice, enabling one ask questions.

In banking, for example, one can ask ‘if I have a million dollars, what is the best deposit interest rate I could get?’ ‘WeChat’ can give an answer through the bank.

FST MEDIA: What skills should aspiring technology chiefs invest in now for future success?

LEUNG: I always encourage young people that want a career in IT to take on the ‘CORE’ principle: C for creativity, or curiosity; O for openness or open-mindedness; R for riskaversion or risk-awareness – this is important especially in IT because it is changing so rapidly, and E for energy – to have the energy and enthusiasm to pursue your goal and career. You cannot afford to lie back in the IT or banking industry because it is changing very rapidly.

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That’s not your cloud.

That’s everybody else’s cloud.

(Your cloud is invisible).

When you work with TAS, you have your own very private and secure cloud. Only you know it’s there and how it can enable your business to succeed.

We have been quietly hosting and managing core banking systems for over fifty financial institutions with the confidence of over twenty five years of expertise and experience.To know more visit: www.tasol.com.au/fst If you’ve never seen or heard of us, it’s because we prefer it that way.

W H O’ S W H O Q& A // SI M ON P OM E ROY

FST MEDIA: What are your priorities for the next 12 to 18 months?

Simon Pomeroy NEW ZEALAND

CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER, WESTPAC NEW ZEALAND

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FST MEDIA: What technology or innovation is proving to be the single biggest game changer for retail banking?

POMEROY: The buzz at the moment is wearables. Google and others in the wearable technology space have a good chance of success with the way they are developing those technologies. If consumers pick it up then that will add another new dimension to banking, not just from a customer point of view, but also from the way staff work.

The one advantage we have over other countries are the Kiwi consumers, who are recognised the world over as early adopters, open to new technology and are strong on providing constructive feedback. We want to tap into that as much as we can and it is one of the reasons we believe we can truly be innovative on a global level in this rapidly changing landscape.

POMEROY: A key priority for us is delivering our new fully-responsive online banking platform that allows customers to do all of their banking online, giving them the same tasks and processes on whichever device they use – smartphone, tablet, laptop or a PC. Our objective is for customers to be able to do 90 per cent or more of what they currently do in a branch on the device of their choice. This is not just transactions but loan originations and other processes. Our fully responsive online banking platform is a first for New Zealand and Australia and we will be one of only a handful of banks globally to deliver this capability.

Once the platform is established, we can add functionality in response to customers’ needs and then supplement it with smart apps for specific tasks. Crowdsourcing will help us deliver those apps. So far, we have crowdsourced in New Zealand and the UK with exciting results. All our digital channels lead back to a trained staff member who can assist the customer and we will be extending this program.

Another priority is extending our use of data. We have already achieved some excellent results in being able to have more targeted conversations with customers about products and services they need as their circumstances change. We have doubled the number of customers we talk to and our contacts per customer have gone from around four per year to more than 10 and are much more meaningful to the customer.

FST MEDIA: How do you plan to leverage the success of the Westpac App Challenge?

What lessons will you apply to future crowdsourcing initiatives?

POMEROY: Apart from sourcing some excellent apps it has been particularly useful to tap into how the developer and designer community think about banking. We ask them to think of their bank and identify a pain point for them as a customer and then remedy that using their unique skills to develop an app or digital solution.

SI MON POM E ROY // W H O’ S W H O Q& A

We noted with interest the difference in thinking between New Zealand and UK developers and designers borne out of different environments. Crowdsourcing requires one to have an open mind not only toward new concepts but also how you think about things as a business. Banks tend to be traditional in their thinking and many churn out apps based on their own internal thinking and capability. We have flipped that on its head and have some great innovations we will look to deliver.

FST MEDIA: What is the next big thing in payments and how is Westpac NZ enhancing its payments functionality?

POMEROY: Payments is an important and exciting area for Westpac NZ and we have many ideas on how we can make payments easier and faster for customers. Initially we are looking at how we can make smartphones the payment tool of choice at point-of-sale so customers can ‘tap and go’.

Beacon technology also has the potential to allow consumers to pay for things within a retail environment.

Biometric technology is also going to allow further options in the payments space, especially with wearable technology like Google Glass and smartwatches. Customers will not need a PIN or login in the future.

They will activate their mobile device through voice recognition or via thumb-print security.

FST MEDIA: How do you balance your firstmover advantage in emerging technologies against the potential risk of low consumer adoption given Westpac NZ’s trials with the Cash Tank app on Google Glass and Apple’s iBeacon technology?

POMEROY: Consumers are driving the change to traditional business models all over the world by their uptake of new technology, particularly the speed of that uptake. Our objective is to deliver into channels that customers choose. We do not want to wait until consumers have already adopted a new channel – Google Glass, for example – because by the time you have developed something that customers want in that channel the horizon has moved again.

Catching up will not be easy because some businesses are underestimating the speed of its uptake.

Catching up will not be easy because some businesses are underestimating the speed of its uptake.

Google Glass has a reasonable chance of being picked up by consumers. When it is finally released to the public it will have a raft of apps available to make life easier for the user and we want our customers to be able to tap into it from the start.

It is similar with iBeacon technology.

Smartphones are ubiquitous nowadays and the benefits of the technology from a service, product and personalisation point of view make a pretty compelling case. We have been trialling it in branch and our customers and staff like it. We are looking to roll it out across the network over the next 12 months.

FST MEDIA: How can banks balance the need for security and privacy with the proliferation in devices?

POMEROY: New mobile devices will continue to enter the market in New Zealand as they will globally, and our customers’ privacy and security is paramount. We will never put any solution in the hands of our customers unless we are 100 per cent satisfied it is safe and secure. Customers can be assured that banking via mobile device of choice or online is completely secure.

FST MEDIA: How is Westpac leveraging the unstructured data from digital platforms?

POMEROY: We are actively using both structured and unstructured data to significantly enhance the customer experience. Unstructured data is allowing us to understand customer sentiment and trends

in real-time and respond quickly if needed.

This is enabling us to extend the services made available to customers, particularly through digital channels, and ensures the customer experience is easier, faster and seamlessly transitions between digital and frontline channels.

FST MEDIA: What information sources do you consider invaluable for your job, and why?

POMEROY: I always analyse customer feedback and satisfaction data, and talk to frontline staff around New Zealand. Our staff are as important as our customers. They are the ones who back our digital strategy, and understand our approach. I also talk to SME customers regularly and try to provide solutions that will help them and their customers. Two recent apps we launched in this space are ‘Get Paid’ and ‘Get Feedback,’ which provide practical support in two key areas that are critical to business success – cashflow management and customer experience.

Then there are the great Kiwi companies, like Air NZ who were first to introduce selfcheck-in kiosks in airports in 2008, or Vend, which is integrating payments into point-ofsale systems for retailers. These companies all showcase the importance of understanding their respective customers’ needs and that is what Westpac NZ aspires to.

FST MEDIA: With respect to career development, what is the best advice you ever received?

POMEROY: Do not be afraid to have ambition. If you want to achieve something go out there and give it a shot.

FST MEDIA: Every leader has a legacy they wish to be remembered for. What is yours?

POMEROY: My legacy would be being open-minded and embracing change. Life, as we know it, is changing fast with no sign of slowing down and it is a terrific time to be involved in a traditional business like banking.

The opportunity is to make a real difference that will change the way a business operates.

It is the old saying, ‘He who hesitates is lost’ and you can never say that about me.

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Irianto Kusumadjaja INDONESIA

TECHNOLOGY AND OPERATIONAL DIRECTOR, PT BANK ANDARA

competition has forced them to innovate.

However, innovating without a technology product base will be unlikely to continue.

FST MEDIA: What will be the most significant challenge facing the microfinance industry in the years ahead?

KUSUMADJAJA: There is still the idea that microfinance businesses only provide small scale loans. The microfinance industry includes many businesses such as micro insurance, bill payments and more. The real challenge is how to provide adequate understanding of the microfinance industry’s products and services to the unbanked community, as well as understanding how banking products and services will be beneficial to them.

Based on coverage, mobile banking technology is more suitable to the unbanked community, but there are challenges as they are unlikely to easily adopt and trust new technology.

FST MEDIA: How is partnering with

FST MEDIA: What are your priorities for the next 12 to 18 months?

KUSUMADJAJA: Bank Andara’s priorities in the next 12 to 18 months are to strengthen existing technology, and have a more efficient operation system supported by the existing technology. We currently have several systems including core banking, mobile banking platform, switching, and a business process reengineering application, but we have not maximised the technology’s usage internally.

Another priority for us is to further explore how to implement and develop the existing system and application to support our operational efficiency program as well as our business processes.

FST MEDIA: What technology or innovation is proving to be the single biggest game changer in financial services?

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microfinance institutions in Indonesia delivering value to Bank Andara, and how will you continue to grow customer engagement?

KUSUMADJAJA: Bank Andara was established in 2009 and has exclusively served as a strategic partner for the microfinance sector in Indonesia with the aim to realise poverty reduction through partnerships with Microfinance Institutions (MFIs), expanding financial access to lowincome and unbanked communities via a formal finance service.

Bank Andara is committed to partnering with MFIs to continue growing transaction volumes, products and services and capacity. We provide this commitment in the form of full support in training and workshops, products and services as well as technology support, in addition to providing loans.

Bank Andara has four branch offices that help us get closer and provide better service to MFI partners. We also provide venues for MFI training, workshops and gatherings.

FST MEDIA: How will you build on the bank’s investment in software-enabled customer products such as ‘BPM+’ and how will you measure success?

KUSUMADJAJA: ‘BPM+’ is a part of our business process reengineering that will accelerate the loan application process.

The operational processes will also become more efficient by identifying and resolving routine issues that arise during the loan approval process. We are optimistic that by having a faster credit approval process we will increase customer satisfaction and increase our capacity to handle more credit applications.

FST MEDIA: How do you encourage a culture of innovation in your team?

KUSUMADJAJA: I always emphasise to my team: actively interact with the business team and know the bank’s vision and mission. Only then can they implement and optimise their expertise as well as actively address new ideas to add value and to keep thinking of new risk factors.

FST MEDIA: What information sources do you consider invaluable for your job, and why?

KUSUMADJAJA: I consider seminars, workshops and social media to be invaluable. Even though some of the information cannot be implemented directly, that might be possible in the future. Also of importance is intensive communication with the peer group – the business team, for instance.

FST MEDIA: What is your definition of success?

KUSUMADJAJA: My definition of success is how I realise my life goal targets. One of those is the contribution to my family and society. Talking about success at Bank Andara, my dream is that Bank Andara will be beneficial for the community. Success is providing value to the unbanked communities via formal financial service.

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Reinventing Digital for Smarter Banking Which banking technology trends are you keeping an eye on?

What are the challenges moving to data-driven customer engagement?

Smarter banks are currently undergoing a process of digital reinvention to respond to the individual-centred economy. This requires the leaders to not only look within, but also towards adjacent industries for critical lessons to improve efficiency, productivity and profitability.

IBM advocates three key themes for smarter banks.

1. Think like a retailer – no industry understands how to collect, analyse, and act upon customer data better than the retail industry. Leading banks are applying data analytics and channel personalisation to differentiate themselves on advice, customer experience and quality of service.

2. Act like a manufacturer – banks need flexible processes and the ability to roll out relevant products and services to keep up with customers’ rapidly changing needs. To optimise the lean manufacturing process, achieve efficiency and low-cost speed-to-market, leading banks are raising the bar with technologies that enable fulfillment capabilities. These include business process management, digitisation (paperless) and straight through processing.

3. Embed risk management – while learning from retailers and manufacturers constitutes a good offensive, banks should also shore up their defenses. That is why the most successful banks embed sound risk-management principles throughout their enterprises. The approach and technologies are enterprise-wide from information-based to process-based risk management.

The underlying theme that cuts across all of the above solutions is the convergence of analytics, mobile, social, security and cloud.

In addition, IBM believes cognitive computing is a game changer, and recently announced an investment of more than US$1billion to establish a new business unit for Watson, with 2,000 employees.

Results from a recent IBM poll at the IDC Financial Insights Congress suggested that 99 per cent of the respondents see data as a strategic asset to drive competitive advantage with 97 per cent believing that it will derive two times or more business value if they leverage all available data.

The biggest barrier in leveraging all available data was lack of management bandwidth (37 per cent), lack of internal skills (22 per cent), lack of understanding (19 per cent) and ability to get data (13 per cent).

How can banks drive innovation while balancing security and costs?

How can banks leverage information for improved customer experience?

Clients are changing rapidly. About 80 per cent of CEOs think they deliver a superior customer performance, but only eight per cent of their customers agree. Mobile banking users cite lack of mobile capabilities as the key decision factor for switching banks. About 86 per cent of customers use multiple channels; four to five times more is spent by multi-channel buyers.

On the ‘pull side’, social and digital channels are used for mining social trends and triggers by collecting market signals from unstructured data, in addition to traditional structured data. The key to unlocking hidden value is to make sense of the large amount of data generated both within and outside the firm every single day.

It is this combination that will deliver actionable insight and considered response for a specific client through the right ‘push side’ channel like mobile, social and digital – in a specific context, at just the right moment. For example, banks have started deploying solutions for mass affluent clients providing personal management capability.

IBM Watson technology is a prime example of driving innovation while balancing security and costs. IBM Watson will transform banks by empowering clients with proactive, personalised advice to achieve their goals. Watson transforms client experiences via cost-effective personalised advice, increasing customer satisfaction and attracting new capital; financial advisers and analysts instantly take advantage of every new piece of information. Watson transforms analyst roles by expanding insight and providing proactive advice and guidance. It also automates risk management while enabling new investments by evaluating all cases against policies and guidelines.

DBS will soon get investing advice from Watson, the same IBM Technology that triumphed over human “Jeopardy!” contestants. The Singapore-based bank plans to begin using the tool, which will answer questions in conversational language and learn from responses, to aid financial planners in guiding the wealth management unit’s affluent customers.

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and anti-money laundering systems together with an asset-liability management system.

We give equal priority to the proactive use of IT for risk management, expansion of our footprint and cross-selling and up-selling initiatives.

FST MEDIA: What is the ‘holy grail’ that technology and innovation are yet to deliver in financial services?

NIJASURE: For decades, financial services organisations have been trying hard to emulate the fast-moving consumer goods, consumer electronics, sports goods and automobile organisations. They want to capture customer hearts so customers will love them and take pride in being associated with a particular bank or finance company.

Telecom and ‘cool’ IT companies have made this challenge even more daunting by monopolising substantial airtime and occupying sweet spots in customers’ mindshare. Financial services organisations are on a ‘mission impossible’. Each of them needs to attract a version of Tom Cruise to realise their dreams.

FST MEDIA: What technology or innovation is proving to be the single biggest game changer for banks in Indonesia?

Kanchan Nijasure INDONESIA

DIRECTOR AND CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, PT BANK DANAMON INDONESIA

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FST MEDIA: What are your priorities for the next 12 to 18 months?

NIJASURE: In the next 12 to 18 months, we aim to enhance our value proposition to the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and mass affluent customers by implementing multi-channel integration, an enterprise customer information file (CIF), customer communication hub and relationship management capability.

We will also enhance our internet banking and mobile platforms for these and associated customer segments. We will also implement new credit acquisition system for the SME business along with a new trade finance system.

We have initiated our ‘Enterprise Data Warehousing (DWH) Program’ combining risk analytics, fraud detection

NIJASURE: Indonesians – both individuals and companies – are at various stages of their journey in adopting multiple technologies like the internet, mobile platforms, social media, and cloud computing. It is unlikely that one technology will become the single biggest game changer for banks in Indonesia. The banks making the most innovative use of these technologies to strengthen their current market position and widen their appeal to win customer hearts will become gamechangers in banking services.

FST MEDIA: How are your ‘Mobile Branch’ and ‘Mobile SMS’ banking initiatives expected to help the bank branch transformation in the years ahead?

NIJASURE: We see tremendous potential in reaching out to a wider cross-section

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of customers and prospects through our ‘Mobile Branch’ channel. We intend to increase our footprint, or rather wheel-print very significantly over the next two years for our mass market customer segment. These mobile branches support almost all transactions that can be done in a bricks-and-mortar branch. Further, we aim to use the mobile SMS banking and mobile electronic data capture (EDC) capability to extend our reach to our mass market and customer network.

The most important skill for aspiring technology chiefs is relationship management and communication skills to build bridges across different cultures, perspectives and generations.

FST MEDIA: How are you leveraging big data and risk analytics to address security concerns?

NIJASURE: We have initiated an ‘Enterprise DWH Program’ combining risk analytics, fraud detection and prevention along with anti-money laundering systems.

FST MEDIA: How do you see the role of the traditional bank branch evolving or transforming in the year ahead?

NIJASURE: Across different customer segments, we see an increasing use of electronic channels for routine transactions.

These channels are providing considerable convenience and efficiency for customers.

At the same time, the need for traditional bank branches remains for three different reasons.

Firstly, there continues to be customers that find more comfort and security in bricks-and-mortar branches. Secondly, traditional branches can serve a very useful role in community banking, helping banks to embed themselves within customer communities. Thirdly, traditional branches – redesigned through judicious use of IT – can become very powerful mechanisms for significant cross-sell and up-sell.

FST MEDIA: What must the banking industry do to combat the entry of non-bank competitors?

NIJASURE: Banks need to adopt a threepronged strategy. The first is to focus on assessing the value proposition of

non-bank competitors and deciding whether to combat or to co-opt. The second is to design banks’ products and services, complying with the regulatory framework to displace or out-manoeuvre non-bank competitors. The third is to urge regulators to extend appropriate practices to non-bank competitors in order to safeguard customer interests.

FST MEDIA: With the growth of digital wallets and online payments, what role do you see physical cash playing in the future?

NIJASURE: The growth of digital wallets and online payments along with physical cash will help bring larger segments of the unbanked population within the scope of banking. It will help bring more inclusive growth to emerging market countries like Indonesia and India.

FST MEDIA: What skills do you think aspiring technology chiefs should invest in now for future success?

NIJASURE: The most important skill for aspiring technology chiefs is relationship management and communication skills to build bridges across different cultures, perspectives and generations. They need to share the customer orientation and a sense of urgency typical of marketing and sales professionals. They need to foster a service and process orientation

of operations and collection teams.

At the same time, they need to listen carefully to risk management teams and regulators.

As upwardly mobile professionals, they need to be well-informed of rapidlychanging IT landscape while mastering the flavours of IT currently being used in different areas of financial services.

This requires dynamic balancing between different generations of information technology, their suppliers and users.

This implies keeping the right balance between safeguarding your organisation’s business interests and keeping pace with new technologies.

It is important to try new technology platforms in partnership with suppliers because they may provide significant benefits tomorrow. At the same time, all of them are neither proven nor best suited for each business. They need to go through essential proof of concept before they are deployed.

FST MEDIA: How do you see the rising roles of chief digital and marketing officers impacting the traditional function of senior technology executives?

NIJASURE: The business environment is much more challenging today due to the rapid change of customer expectations, the need to drive efficiencies and complexity of regulatory requirements. I see the necessity as well as an opportunity for a collaborative approach between chief marketing officers and chief information officers.

Together they should drive digitisation and innovation strategy of diverse organisations and evolve themselves to play additional roles as chief digital officer and chief innovation officer respectively.

FST MEDIA: Every leader has a legacy they wish to be remembered for, what is yours?

NIJASURE: I would like to be remembered as the Chief Information and Innovation Officer that has helped an organisation to reinvent and reposition itself in the market.

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In particular, the ‘Joint Lab’ aims to develop commercial and executable solutions and products in the financial sector, conducting new research and leveraging existing Intellectual Property (IP) in data analytics, mobile, social platforms and other leading technologies.

FST MEDIA: What will be the most significant challenge facing the financial services industry in the year ahead?

David Gledhill SINGAPORE

MANAGING DIRECTOR, GROUP EXECUTIVE AND HEAD OF GROUP TECHNOLOGY AND OPERATIONS, DBS

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FST MEDIA: How should banks respond to the competitive threat from non-traditional players such as Google or PayPal in the mobile wallets space?

GLEDHILL: With new and evolving technologies, a critical challenge to the industry will be the increasing need to keep abreast of evolving challenges, and constantly boost efforts in security. Banks and other financial services organisations should also be looking at new, nontraditional competitors entering the arena, for example, in the payments and mobile solutions space. PayPal, Google and Alibaba have all made inroads, and in the future, people will still need banking, but they may not necessarily need a bank in the traditional way. Hence, our plan to invest SG$200 million over the next three years to establish a digital banking initiative, as part of our innovation journey.

FST MEDIA: What are your priorities for the next 12 to 18 months?

GLEDHILL: Increasingly, the competition for

GLEDHILL: Over the next 12 to 18 months,

banks and financial institutions will come from non-traditional players such as Google, Alibaba, and PayPal. Banks can view this as a threat, or an opportunity to drive innovation.

At DBS, our innovation journey has taken a leap, by acknowledging the need to be at the forefront, shaping the future of banking.

Apart from an investment in a digital banking initiative, DBS has a partnership with A*STAR’s Institute of Infocomm Research in our home market of Singapore, setting up a joint lab driving innovation through research. Leveraging the institute’s extensive network of research talent, the ‘Joint Lab’ will be a collaborative workspace for research, experimentation and innovation, focusing on creating new ways of engaging customers through the use of innovative technology.

our three overarching technology priorities are to build world-class robust capability and world-class infrastructure, build nimbleness in the organisation, and to foster the spirit of innovation, encouraging staff to ‘go explore’.

A robust infrastructure remains at the forefront of what we do, especially in the context of the fast-evolving landscape. Our ability to respond quickly to customers and to new technologies will be a key enabler of an organisation. Hence, being ‘nimble’ and driving innovation are critical to our success.

As customers embrace a digital lifestyle and the way they bank, we see the opportunity to leverage new technology to make the customer experience more interactive and intuitive, integrating banking solutions and products into their lives in a meaningful way, accessing large retail markets.

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Moving Beyond Passwords for Stronger Authentication With millions of passwords routinely stolen via data breaches, coupled with high administrative costs for replacing them when lost or forgotten as well as lost productivity, the password’s time as a primary authentication credential is over.

The security value of the password has eroded.

Lengthening and strengthening passwords in the mobile environment erodes the user experience. For example, entering a random string of alphanumeric numbers and characters into a mobile keypad is difficult and frustrating.

It is time for something else; something easier.

Mobility and BYOD: security enablers, not threats Many business cycles have been spent wrestling with the potential vulnerabilities of mobility and BYOD (bring your own device). The newest generations of mobile devices, however, offer considerable promise for strengthening security. Mobile solutions are currently available that offer ‘no typing’ logins using biometrics and cryptographically strong digital certificates for authentication.

This removes the vulnerability of password databases, and means that users do not need to input eight character strings.

The end user initiates a login by scanning a custom QR code.

A variation permits step-up authentication or out-of-channel transaction verification when higher value transactions need extra security.

If multiple levels of authentication are required repeatedly during typical online banking or e-commerce transactions, this can potentially impact the user experience. Compounding the challenge, what happens to the customer experience when multiple banks deploy different authentication approaches?

Anecdotal evidence suggests that if authentication approaches become too complex, consumers begin to work around the security measures that organisations put in place. Have you experienced users who employ the ‘rest your password’ process each time they login?

The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model of mobile authentication services reduces the implementation effort

associated with PKI (public key infrastructure) or biometric technologies. The global app stores allow users to self-provision a PKI digital certificate – a process that was not possible several years ago. The SaaS model also maintains account protection when the user’s device is lost or stolen.

The additional benefits to PKI digital certificate based authentication is assured mutual authentication.

Customers can trust a message they receive from an app that is authenticated using self-provisioned digital certificates. The customer knows it is not a phishing attempt and will be more willing to take advantage of an offer delivered via this channel.

A streamlined user experience Authentify xFA™ provides a streamlined user experience that reduces the cost and complexity of multi-factor authentication. xFA offers all the features mentioned above, plus the ability to incorporate technologies such as FIDO approved fingerprints and facial scans via a single interface. Features include NFC and Bluetooth authentication options to support standard features of smartphones.

Authentify, Inc. 8745 W. Higgins Rd. Suite 240 Chicago, Illinois 60631 USA Voice: +1-773-243-0328

Authentify, Inc. Authentify Ltd. 12/F, Capitol Centre, Tower II 28 Jardine’s Crescent Causeway Bay Hong Kong Voice: +852-9304-6699 Robert.soden@authentify.com www.authentify.com

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FST MEDIA: How is DBS leveraging mobility to deliver value to the business, and how will you extend its success?

GLEDHILL: At DBS, we have been leveraging a whole suite of mobile solutions, both internal and external, to enhance the customer experience. When engaging our staff, our approach was to design from the perspective of the users, and how we can drive the journey towards the future of work, through the design. We identified four different personas in the organisation (similar to job types) and we now have a roadmap for that journey, custom designed to each of those.

From the perspective of the customer, leading edge mobile solutions are fast becoming critical. Mobile usage is growing at a very high, double-digit rate year-on-year.

From our experience, customers are much more willing to transact on their mobile devices. This means that we now have more opportunities to interact with our customers more frequently on those mobile devices.

FST MEDIA: How are you leveraging big data analytics to target products to individual customers and increase security measures?

GLEDHILL: DBS’ collaboration with IBM is among our initiatives to harness big data to deliver a better customer experience – providing more precise, customised and quality actionable insights that meet our customers’ needs.

With Asia creating wealth faster than anywhere else in the world, coupled with increasingly sophisticated and digitally-savvy customers, banking relationship managers need to be empowered with sophisticated and intuitive tools to respond more speedily with insightful and tailored solutions.

IBM Watson, an artificial intelligence super-computer, will help DBS’ relationship managers analyse large volumes of complex unstructured and structured data, including research reports, product information and customer profiles, identify connections between customers’ needs and its growing corpus of investment knowledge, and help advisers weigh various financial options available to customers.

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Applying IBM Watson’s capabilities will enable DBS professionals to take control of a ‘data deluge’ and arm them with data-driven insights that can personalise the customer experience.

Applying IBM Watson’s capabilities will enable DBS professionals to take control of a ‘data deluge’ and arm them with data-driven insights that can personalise the customer experience.

FST MEDIA: What notable examples have you seen of financial organisations innovating to acquire and retain the growing Gen Y customer base?

GLEDHILL: The ‘millenials’ is a consumer group that most organisations are reaching out to via digital platforms. However, in order to be truly successful in the process, it should not be just going digital for the sake of doing so. At the core of the customer experience – be it via social or mobile platforms – there needs to be meaningful engagement. At DBS, we have taken what our CEO calls an ‘inside-out’ approach to digital initiatives, putting our products and services on various digital platforms to enhance the customer experience. Going forward, with the commitment to building a digital banking initiative, we will look at an ‘outside-in’ approach to truly integrate banking into the customers’ digital lifestyle, and making the experience more intuitive and interactive.

needs to constantly innovate. At DBS, we have built a team with the mandate to focus on innovation and driving change, with the customer experience at the core of the innovation journey.

FST MEDIA: How do you see the rising roles of chief digital and marketing officers impacting the traditional function of senior technology executives?

GLEDHILL: Increasingly, the digital and marketing functions in organisations are beginning to crossover and become more aligned as technology and customers needs evolve, offering more opportunities to leverage one for the other. Over the last few years, technology has moved to the forefront of how we develop product and services for the organisation, rather than an afterthought.

Senior technology executives and the teams they lead need to focus on that mindset shift, and drive synergy and collaboration across the organisation, with the customer experience as the endgame.

FST MEDIA: How do you see the role of the physical branch transforming in the years ahead, and how will DBS improve its retail branches?

GLEDHILL: At DBS, we have embarked on the journey to transform the physical branch by introducing technology to enhance the customer experience. For instance, we have iPads and an interactive wall at our flagship branch at our headquarters at DBS Asia Central, Marina Bay Financial Centre, which helps customers access insights and information at their fingertips while they are in our premises. We are very much focused on human-centred design to transform the customer experience in our physical spaces.

FST MEDIA: Every leader has a legacy they wish to be remembered for, what is yours?

FST MEDIA: How do you encourage a culture of innovation in your team?

GLEDHILL: The leadership team at DBS is

GLEDHILL: To ‘go explore’ is part of the messaging and positioning that we use to articulate the point that business today

focused on creating the future of banking.

What I hope to be remembered for is to be part of that journey and to have helped put in place the building blocks of a great firm.

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Evolution, Not Revolution How has technology disruption changed how financial services organisations should invest in technology?

There are significant benefits from business process standardisation and speed-to market from off-premise solutions, as well as the primary benefit of reducing capital expenditure.

In some markets there is a lack of understanding of how cloud can reduce the total cost of ownership and improve speed-to-market. Those organisations who embrace the new deployment models will have a significant financial advantage.

We would recommend a full assessment of the available opportunities and comprehensive consideration given to data security, supplier management and commercial models.

For all the disruption wrought by the flood of new technology, some question the extent to which it has changed the fundamentals of financial services.

Yet to be delivered in many instances is significant and sustainable business transformation. We have seen many organisations invest in new, innovative and lower cost technologies. However, in all but a few cases, the fundamental metrics of the organisation have not changed.

Investment is required to deliver deep customer Andrew Pitcher insight at the point of sale in real time – including Senior Vice President pricing, risk and settlement. The need for and General Manager What is the value of insight? omni-channel business processes for customers and of Financial Services, The majority of our customers are hard at work staff, straight-through processing, innovation Asia Pacific, SAP in the implementation of their customer-centric in payments, flexible technologies that provide strategies. As part of these strategies, financial business control, substantially improved data management services organisations are most interested in gaining insight about capabilities and innovative deployment methods that will their customers to ensure they are best equipped to address their significantly reduce the total cost of ownership of technology customers’ needs and concerns. in the ‘new financial services industry’.

As an example, several SAP clients in the region are changing That is not to say the banking and insurance industries are their sales and service platform strategy and offerings to respond sitting still – far from it. I have observed considerable innovation to direct customer feedback received on a sustained basis in financial services in Asia Pacific over the last three years through social media. Allied to this is the desire of customers and points out that most of SAP’s customers have Chief Innovation to be able to purchase new simple banking products via social Officers who operate across their businesses, not simply media channels. in technology.

The winners will be those who use advanced analytics to We see a lot of focus on innovation in customer experience, in intimately understand the sentiment of social media and those who payments, in the cloud – with business-to-business (B2B) solutions then invest in driving increased customer advocacy.

– and in the way social media is being leveraged. Financial services organisations have finally started to work out how to bundle Why make the switch to real-time processes? products for their customers and to price risk in a more dynamic To get the most out of the big data, SAP offers predictive analytics and real-time way. solutions. The faster a bank can analyse data, the better the predictive value of it, and as a result we see the industry moving from batch to real-time processing Is moving to the cloud realistic?

SAP’s in-memory capabilities (SAP HANA) will help banks not Cloud is making a significant impact on the region’s markets. only process large volumes of data faster, gaining more predictions, Twelve months ago many countries said cloud was off limits, now turning capability into tangible value. cloud adoption is almost everywhere, as the need to reduce capital expenditure has dominated. For the most part, SAP customers are To learn more visit SAP at www.sap.com using cloud for customer relationship management, business-tobusiness exchanges of financial information, in enterprise resource planning and data management.

Interestingly, our financial services network, which links corporates directly to their banks via the cloud to improve cash management, treasury and payments, is also gaining traction with our clients in the US, Japan, South East Asia and Australia. It could be a game changer.

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Driving Value with a Holistic View of the Customer

By Jayajyoti Sengupta, Vice President and Head of ASEAN & Greater China, Cognizant

The global banking and financial services industry is facing unprecedented, historic challenges. With customer and regulatory demands soaring while revenues plateau, financial services enterprises cannot simply tinker with existing processes for incremental boosts in revenue or small cost reductions.

Banks now have transformational tools at their fingertips, including social, mobile, analytics and cloud technology architectures – or what we term ‘SMAC’.

While each of these technology pillars has impacted business in its own way, it is only when the individual parts are harnessed holistically that banks can unleash unprecedented business value.

These powerful tools allow executives to adopt variable cost structures, increase revenue, improve products and services, expand market share, and achieve nonlinear revenue growth.

2020: When computers outnumber humans 10 to 1 According to multiple estimates, by 2020:

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customers as they accelerate collaborative behaviour in the workplace.

Here’s how: Social: Social media helps banks engage customers on a more personal level and gain insights into their likes, dislikes, habits, and whereabouts. Thereby enabling financial services enterprises to deliver more targeted messages and provide individual support, ultimately boosting customer loyalty. n Mobile: As tablets and smartphones proliferate across today’s society, mobile technology allows customers to engage in transactions anywhere, anytime, increasing convenience for them and reducing branch costs for financial services enterprises, while also lending insights into customers’ on-the-go habits and preferences. With the future promising much more evolved devices and unprecedented connectivity, the possibilities are endless. n Analytics: From banking to retail to manufacturing, companies are gathering enormous amounts of information to understand customer behaviour and business trends. Applying data analytics technology to crunch the trove of data gathered from customers’ social and mobile behavior allows banks to gain a more granular understanding of their customers’ preferences, and serve customers based on these insights. n Cloud: Cloud technology instils a creative disruption the business world rarely faced.

Leveraging cloud technology allows financial services enterprises to collect and deliver data anywhere, anytime, at a global scale or at as-needed intervals, while dramatically transforming fixed costs into variable ones. n

n n n

The SMAC stack will represent $5 trillion in combined spending.1 As many as 100 billion computing devices will be connected to the Web.2 Corporations will be managing 50 times the data currently managed.3

Social, mobile, analytics and cloud transform customer insights Fundamentally, SMAC technologies allow banks to gain a more holistic view of

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The multiplier effect The real power of SMAC technologies emerges when the four components are used together, giving an unprecedented 360-degree view of each customer. For example, the data generated by users’ social media postings can be coupled with location-based data from their mobile devices, which can, in turn, be analysed in real time on a virtual cloud platform. The explosion of data and analytics technology allows financial services enterprises to store, manipulate, and analyse greater volumes of data and extract meaningful insights about customers’ preferences.

Combining SMAC technologies into an integrated approach transforms a bank’s ability to understand and meet its customers’ needs. This comprehensive view of the customer can be used to effectively engage existing and potential customers through tailored marketing strategies.

Services and products can be presented based on customers’ preferences.

Individualised sales and marketing strategies can help banks target different customers for easy mobile deposits, mortgage loans, small business loans, and so on.

Ultimately, this granular, 360-degree customer view made possible through SMAC technologies can improve the loyalty of existing customers, help banks engage these customers in new services, and increase the market share by attracting new customers.

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Overcoming the challenges of implementation The challenge many financial services enterprises face is that even though they may have a mobile banking platform and a social media program in place, the technologies are siloed, obscuring a holistic view of the customer.

The fundamental question is how to achieve the multiplier effect and gain a granular view of their customers. The following steps are fruitful starting points for financial services enterprises to integrate and leverage SMAC technologies to achieve the multiplier effect.

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Make the most out of the ‘easy data’: For starters, make sure you are maximising each opportunity to gather insights about your customers. Think in terms of the available background on customers from interactions and channels. For example, when onboarding new customers, configure your backend system so the customer interface is easy to use and captures data effectively.

Ensure the data follows the customers, so if customers have completed a credit card application, they do not need to provide the same information for a mortgage loan.

Rethink customer service: Consider what types of end-to-end services can engage customers and improve their experience. Imagine, for example, a banking customer has trouble processing an online transaction.

A truly integrated SMAC approach would let the customer dial into the call center, and the client services person should be able to see exactly where the client is with the online transaction and help process it.

Challenge the norm: Continuously think about how you can develop services, products and experiences based on the insight gleaned about your customers’ preferences. Bring internal teams together and consider involving a specialized partner to share best practices from other institutions.

Understand where you are today in leveraging SMAC technologies to

gain a comprehensive view of your customers and prioritize where you want to deliver tailored services. The outcome of these discussions should lead to agreement on steps that enable eventual implementation.

Financial services enterprises that leverage SMAC technologies to gain a holistic 360-degree view of their customers are leading in the industry by increasing market share, and are bending the curves through nonlinear growth.

The landscape of SMAC technologies is emerging and growing, and organisations that stay ahead of the curve will understand how to develop and maintain strong relationships with their customers by delivering better and more contextualised, customised, relevant services on a significantly lower cost base.

To learn more go to www.cognizant.com Footnotes 1 “IDC Predictions 2013: Competing on the 3rd Platform,“ IDC, November 2012.

2 IEEE Computer Society Journals 3 “2011 Digital Universe Study: Extracting Value From Chaos,” IDC, 2011.

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W H O’ S W H O Q& A // R E NZO V I EG AS

Renzo Viegas MALAYSIA

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, CONSUMER BANKING, CIMB BANK

to protect and enhance yields. An important personal priority is to develop talent and inculcate a high performance culture within the organisation.

FST MEDIA: How is CIMB’s virtual banking site ‘CIMB Clicks’ deliver value to the business and how will you measure success?

VIEGAS: ‘CIMB Clicks’ is integral to our digital banking agenda and is one of the most recognisable brands in the industry to date.

A growing base of active ‘clicks’ users with increased volume of transactions is a key measurement of success.

Through ‘CIMB Clicks,’ the bank has also gained recognition and won the ‘Best Internet Bank in Malaysia’ award from Global Finance for three consecutive years from 2011 to 2013. Winning this award is a testament as well as a measurement of success that CIMB Clicks is delivering value to our customers.

FST MEDIA: How is CIMB benefiting from

FST MEDIA: What will be the most significant challenge facing the financial services industry in the year ahead?

VIEGAS: The key challenges are heightened competition, thinning margins, increased regulations and cost of compliance.

FST MEDIA: What are your priorities for the next 12 to 18 months?

VIEGAS: My priorities will revolve around intensifying efforts in growing customers’ wallet share, enabled by advanced data mining and decision science. We will also be seizing opportunities to grow fee income, keeping a strong focus on areas such as wealth management, bancassurance, remittance and credit cards. We will also increase focus on digital banking, in line with Bank Negara Malaysia’s efforts in driving e-payment systems.

We will also continue our efforts to improve cost synergies and productivity, as well as re-balance our deposit and asset portfolios

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social media like Facebook to provide banking services to Gen Y through services like ‘Octopay’? How will you build on this success?

VIEGAS: Innovation is an important agenda for us at CIMB Bank. We constantly strive to deliver the best products and services for our customers. We believe Gen Ys are the future, and in the last 12 to 18 months, we have launched several initiatives which specifically targeted this group.

‘Savings Circle’ was one such initiative. It was the world’s first fully integrated bank deposit campaign that ran completely on the Facebook platform. The campaign used strong crowd-sourcing elements to reward individuals as well as their friends for saving together as a group.

Another recent initiative is the CIMB ‘Kwik Account,’ which is Malaysia’s first online account that caters specially to Gen Ys. This account was developed based on consumer insights that the younger generation is constantly on the move and desires more control.

The CIMB ‘Kwik Account’ enables customers to have full control by opening

their own savings account without having to visit any bank branch. Users may instantly use it for online shopping, bill payments, money transfers and prepaid reloads.

FST MEDIA: How will CIMB grow on the success of ‘Octosend’ and how is online and mobile expected to change the way customers transact with one another?

VIEGAS: We see a lot of opporunity for ‘OctoSend,’ because it is easy and convenient. We foresee customers using OctoSend actively between friends and their families, and embracing it as part of their lifestyle.

FST MEDIA: What is expected to be your most effective customer acquisition channel and why?

VIEGAS: Two things stand out. The ‘CIMB@Work Program,’ which goes to the workplace to help customers with their banking needs. With the newly-developed ‘bank-in-a-briefcase’ technology, we help make instant decisions in offering loans as well as opening a deposit account without having the customer come to the branch.

It is paperless and fulfillment is done within minutes.

Secondly, through a strong relationship with our eight million customers and our extensive branch presence, we continue to receive and generate new customer leads to grow our customer base. We are also deploying telesales to deepen the relationship with our customers with new product offerings.

FST MEDIA: Every leader has a legacy they wish to be remembered for. What is yours?

VIEGAS: I aspire to make a difference in unleashing and realising the full potential of CIMB Bank in becoming a truly leading regional consumer bank. I also support the development of talent and taking risks, challenging people with bigger and different roles. I would like to encourage and foster great teamwork and collaboration, breaking down all the silos within the broader group.

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W H O’ S W H O Q& A // A N DY W E I R

Andy Weir AUSTRALIA

EXECUTIVE GENERAL MANAGER, ENTERPRISE SERVICES AND CIO, BANKWEST

digital experience for our customers who are increasingly looking to financial services organisations to help them make their life easier. Secondly, we are looking to deepen our data analytics capabilities to focus on delivering what really matters to our customers. Finally, we are planning further transformation of our delivery models to increase agility, value to customers and colleague engagement.

FST MEDIA: How does Bankwest’s innovation approach deliver value to the business and how will you measure its success?

WEIR: Our ultimate goal from driving

FST MEDIA: What is the ‘holy grail’ that technology and innovation are yet to deliver in financial services?

WEIR: The ‘holy grail’ is the ability to take insights from how customers transact and behave and then providing services back to them in a way that makes their lives easier and better. For example, my bank knows who I am, where I live, how much my house is worth and where and how I spend my money. The challenge for financial services organisations is to use insights from vast data sources to facilitate an easier lifestyle for customers – informing, advising and offering simple choices to take the hard work out of banking.

FST MEDIA: What are your priorities for the next 12 to 18 months?

WEIR: Firstly, Bankwest will be building on the success of our mobile app developments to create a straightforward and integrated

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innovation into the DNA of Bankwest is to deliver the best possible value for our customers in the most productive way.

The foundation of our innovation approach is creating the right organisational culture that fosters collaboration and empowerment.

Our ‘Activity-Based Working’ environment is critical as it enables colleagues from across the value chain to work together to find the best solutions for our customers.

Also critical are internal events such as our ‘Hack Days’ which provide an opportunity for hundreds of colleagues from across the organisation to work together in a self-directed way to create innovative solutions.

This innovative culture enables us to deliver a ‘trifecta’ success to Bankwest – improved customer satisfaction, business performance and increased colleague engagement.

FST MEDIA: How has Bankwest adapted their infrastructure to further greater agility?

WEIR: We believe one of the critical key success factors for financial services organisations in the future will be a flexible and agile infrastructure to underpin innovation efforts. At Bankwest we have significantly invested and will continue to invest in configuration, deployment and testing automation as part of our ‘Continuous Delivery’ strategy.

Virtualisation has also provided our delivery teams the opportunity to establish development and testing environments in a fraction of the time experienced previously.

FST MEDIA: What are the biggest challenges facing retail banking in the year ahead?

WEIR: The biggest challenge is picking the right innovation bets. Customer behaviour is evolving, as it has always done, but it is evolving at significantly different speeds across different segments of the population.

There is a fine line between investing in solutions that are ahead of their time and those which appeal too narrowly, or we will miss the boat entirely. In a population whose preferences are evolving at varying speeds, it is getting harder to find the trend that will appeal to the mainstream.

FST MEDIA: What is the most important lesson you could offer someone looking to create an omni-channel experience?

WEIR: The most important lesson is to be courageous. Creating a truly seamless experience for customers irrespective of where, when and how they want to interact with you requires a transformation across all aspects of an organisation’s operating model – people, process and technology.

Unwinding years of organising in a certain way, developing truly customercentric processes and utilising technology to facilitate the experience all require the highest levels of effort. Even then, customers’ demands are higher than they have ever been before and trying to push them in a direction they do not want will ultimately prove ineffective, or comes at the expense of lower customer satisfaction and advocacy. Organisations need to remember that the customer is the only authority on what really matters to them.

FST MEDIA: Every leader has a legacy they wish to be remembered for. What is yours?

WEIR: To have helped transform Bankwest into one of the most customer-focused, agile and productive organisations in the world.

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J U L I E B A L E // W H O’ S W H O Q& A

Julie Bale AUSTRALIA

GROUP CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, BANK OF QUEENSLAND

Our key IT sourcing partnerships have progressed well, and are key to driving improved customer centricity, innovation and operational efficiency.

Our architectural simplification agenda is maturing and driving a lot of value and capability into the organisation and will continue to shape our future. While cost efficiency is front of mind, our architectural approach also needs to support the bank’s growth strategy over the next 10 years.

FST MEDIA: How will BOQ’s IT simplification program deliver value to the business and how will you measure its success?

BALE: I have both an internal and external

FST MEDIA: What technology or innovation is proving to be the single biggest game changer for retail banking?

BALE: Peer-to-peer (P2P) payment has the potential to be a game changer. The current lack of deep legislative and regulatory oversight, coupled with the ability to lend across international boundaries at the click of a button means this is an area banks are watching closely. While personal lending has been around for some years, we are seeing business loans being funded in this manner too.

FST MEDIA: What are your IT priorities for the next 12 to 18 months?

BALE: The main priority is to drive transformational change through everything Bank Of Queensland (BOQ) is doing.

Our move to a new head office at the end of 2014, for example, will showcase our transformational journey, with leading-edge technologies that support our move to the ‘workplace of the future’.

view of the value proposition that will result from the BOQ’s IT simplification journey.

Speed-to-market and agility are key priorities internally as is the need to manage costs and derive real value from each dollar invested.

My focus externally is to ensure we provide a seamless and ubiquitous customer experience from the moment our customers engage with us, regardless of channel. Satisfying customer needs through the use of technology is the measure of success I strive for.

FST MEDIA: How is the integration of ‘Virgin Money’s banking systems delivering benefits to BOQ and what role will industry partnerships play in enhancing the bank’s technology?

BALE: ‘Virgin Money’ is an exciting prospect for us from a technology perspective.

The company does not have the restrictive legacy systems common with more established organisations, giving an opportunity to try something new. The VMA opportunity enables us to be far more innovative, rather than just leading with BOQ’s technology footprint.

FST MEDIA: How do you see the rising roles of chief digital and marketing officers impacting the traditional function of senior technology executives?

BALE: The trend over the past few years has clearly been one of blurring of boundaries, which is terrific. The business has become

very tech-savvy and technology departments are far more business oriented, driving more informed organisational decisions.

FST MEDIA: If you weren’t working in financial services, what would you be doing?

BALE: I do not need to work in financial services to work as a leader in the technology field – that is the beauty about technology.

The skills I have built up over many years are transferable, regardless of industry.

Financial services is an exciting industry to be a part of.

FST MEDIA: What skills do you think aspiring technology chiefs should invest in now for future success?

BALE: Aspiring technology chiefs will undoubtedly have the technical background but it is important to understand the business you work with and the people you lead.

I had a period of time out of IT and in a business role and this was an invaluable learning experience for me. Get to know the business and immerse yourself in every aspect you possibly can, as this will help set you up as a technology leader in the future.

In addition, take on leadership opportunities as they come up – leadership is the most satisfying aspect to my role but requires a real interest in people and the value they bring to an organisation. There is nothing quite like seeing your team develop into something quite special.

FST MEDIA: What do you consider to be the greatest achievement of your career to date?

BALE: The greatest achievement was being given the opportunity as CIO at BOQ. It is an amazing organisation with some great people, and is full of exciting opportunities.

FST MEDIA: Every leader has a legacy they wish to be remembered for. What is yours?

BALE: My team is now in execution mode against the business strategy. IT is now a firm partner at the table with the rest of the business. This is something we will continue building on over the coming 12 months.

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W H O’ S W H O Q& A // JO H M A R G A ZO

Johmar Gazo INDONESIA

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, COMMONWEALTH BANK INDONESIA

foundations in our core banking processes and systems through our transformation program. This focuses on exposing more product and service offerings through more channels, and better structuring and analysing information to make faster and more insightful decisions. This will make it easier for our staff to serve customers, and for our customers to have access to a broader range of products and services whenever and wherever is convenient.

We are also focused on strengthening our culture and capability of continuous improvement, embedding this into the day-to-day DNA of our people.

FST MEDIA: How has mobile banking for Blackberry and iPhone delivered value to the business and how will you measure success?

GAZO: Our initial foray into mobile banking in

FST MEDIA: What will be “the next big thing” in financial services across Indonesia?

GAZO: There are several forces combining to change the nature of retail banking in Indonesia – the rapidly growing affordability and penetration of online-enabled devices, the growing confidence of tech-savvy customers in transacting electronically, and their increasing expectations in demanding an experience that meets their lifestyle needs.

Banks are trying to react to this by integrating personalised customer experiences through various channels with industrialised back-end processes and platforms, driven and supported by a deep and insightful understanding of the customer. Getting this right is difficult, but has significant benefits.

FST MEDIA: What are your priorities for the next 12 to 18 months?

GAZO: We are continuing to secure and enhance the financial well-being of our customers. We are focused on enhancing the

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Blackberry and iPhone devices was primarily focused on transaction banking. It allowed us to understand what our customers wanted to do through electronic channels, and what they were comfortable with doing. This has also changed over time.

Ultimately, we want to be able to provide a convenient and reliable service to our customers – anywhere and anytime. Over time, we want our customers to use more selfservice and low-cost channels, allowing us to handle increased transaction volumes without having to increase our branch network or staff costs. In this regard, the positive experience of our customers and the return on investment from our early mobile banking offering has been a success.

FST MEDIA: How are you leveraging the internet banking security token for customers, and what has been the response?

GAZO: The security of our customers’ information and banking transactions is of utmost importance. In our early focus groups with customers, a large majority preferred the security of a hard token for enabling twofactor authentication to ensure data security when transacting online.

Now, our customers are more confident in transacting online, and convenience is becoming an increasing preference.

We are looking at alternative ways to provide our customers with security.

FST MEDIA: How does Commonwealth Bank Indonesia plan to reach the unbanked population, and what technology will help ensure that you continue to reach these customers?

GAZO: Commonwealth Bank’s vision is to secure and enhance the financial wellbeing of people, businesses and communities in Indonesia. We continuously explore ways to add value, in line with what is possible through banking regulations for a bank of our size, and with the practicalities of reach through our branch network.

Our assessment shows that there is a gap we can fill in providing financial services to small businesses. Having mobile technology that offers convenience to small businesses in managing cash flow, payments, and credit allows us to provide services to a segment of customers that is currently not being adequately serviced by the banking industry.

FST MEDIA: What has been your most effective customer acquisition channel and why?

GAZO: Our most effective channel is still the branch network. In choosing the right bank and services, we find that people and businesses still want to have direct contact and conversation, particularly for more sophisticated financial products. However, for servicing and product research, more and more customers want the convenience of self-service through electronic channels whether it is transaction banking or managing their investments.

FST MEDIA: With respect to career development, what is the best advice you ever received?

GAZO: A manager early in my career once said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal – what is important is continuing to learn from your experiences and moving on.” Over the years, this has helped to keep things in perspective, and held me in good stead.

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Tackling the skills deficit The financial services industry is up against a worsening skills shortage as it seeks to drive ever-more sophisticated tools for modern financial services in the coming years.

As the industry transforms itself for the digital age with improved products and services, leveraging data insights to personalise service offerings, mining social media and the explosion of data on numerous channels, it will need the right multi-disciplinary skillsets to enable the science and business skills behind these intelligent financial products of the future.

Innovation is the number one challenge for financial services organisations and the Australian Technology Network of Universities (ATN) Industry Doctoral Training Centre provides the must-have, cutting-edge talent to enable a unique, multi-disciplinary approach for future applications. The (ATN) Industry Doctoral Training Centre in Mathematics and Statistics (IDTC) operates an Australian first, four-year industry PhD trial program administered by the ATN across its five member universities.

The IDTC commenced in 2012 with seed funding from the (then) Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research.

IDTC operates a model in which ATN researchers work together with businesses and other organisations to identify real research and development problems requiring mathematical or statistical analysis. These may include, for example; a scheduling or supply chain problem; the physical modelling of a new plant process; or the statistical analysis of huge data sets or time series. The IDTC works with the industry partner to identify either an existing employee or an outside recruit to solve the problem as a PhD student in the IDTC.

“Innovation is the key challenge for financial services organisations” Professor Attila Brungs, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President (Research) University of Technology, Sydney

For more information on the ATN and to profit from fresh thinking contact ATN Executive Director, Vicki Thomson, on vicki.thomson@atn.edu.au or (08) 8302 9135.

“Data is the currency of social and customer engagement. How you join data to other data in a relevant context in real-time is a vital skillset.”

Greg Stone, Chair, ATN’s Industry Doctoral Training Centre

The ATN comprises five of the most innovative, enterprising and outwards facing universities in Australia: Curtin University, University of South Australia, RMIT University, University of Technology Sydney, and Queensland University of Technology.

W H O’ S W H O Q& A // DAV E G RU B M A N

FST MEDIA: What are your IT priorities for the next 12 to 18 months?

GRUBMAN: American International Group (AIG) has three key initiatives underway.

Firstly, we are continuing the deployment of our global consumer, commercial and claims platforms throughout the Asia Pacific region.

The second pillar is the further standardisation and professionalisation of our teams operating in the IT function within our 14 countries. Lastly, we need to retool and calibrate our support models so that as the company moves more toward direct interaction with consumers through the digital platforms and mobile technologies we are ready to support that from the standpoint of 24/7 availability and the different nature in which people are interacting with us.

AIG is also investing in more mobile sales and service solutions for our agents.

FST MEDIA: How is technology supporting insurance in an industry where face-to-face touch points are still critically important for complex products?

GRUBMAN: With the click-to-chat technology

Dave Grubman ASIA PACIFIC

REGIONAL CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL GROUP, ASIA PACIFIC

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FST MEDIA: What technology or innovation is proving to be the single biggest game changer for insurance?

GRUBMAN: I am excited about leveraging mobile apps to enhance agent capability, productivity and effectiveness. In Singapore, our iPhone app which sells various insurance including travel, personal, accident, and home, has generated over US$10million in total premium – it is a very important medium for us.

The other area that intrigues me most is the Internet of Things (IoT) – the explosion of sensors, nano-sensors and the ability to embed them in all kinds of things, including people, which sounds a little scary. The sensors, and the data and analytics associated with those types of things will help us deliver more cost-effective product and will improve safety and well-being of customers.

of text, voice, video, companies can offer a level of interaction that can equal, if not exceed, what is possible face-to-face.

An insurance policy is a necessary evil. The touchpoint of buying it is not necessarily that exciting for somebody. The key for insurance is when you have an unanticipated issue or a problem and the insurance takes care of it.

The claims experience is the single most important touchpoint as an insurance company. We want to make sure that you are treated fairly, compassionately and quickly.

Applying state-of the-art technology aims to achieve that, so that you come out the other end of that process feeling you have been treated fairly and the company did an efficient job handling the issue. That is the single most important thing that we can do to build customer loyalty and satisfaction.

AIG has standardised on a toolkit from IBM called ‘Worklight’ which supports multiple mobile devices and operating systems so that we can develop an application once and deploy it to different solutions without a lot of related costs.

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Empowering Smart Banking Experience with Optimised Operations In this age of smart cities and the Internet-of-Things (IOT), the financial services industry will use emerging technologies to transform operating models to better engage its stakeholders, better utilise resources and optimise its operations to deliver improved business performance.

To stay relevant, sustainable and ahead of competition, financial services organisations need to harness the power of emerging technologies to not just empower collaboration in the workspace, but also enable situational intelligence to foster enhanced customer engagement. NCS integrates business analytics, digital engagement and awareness technologies within its ‘Solutions for an Urbanised Future’ (SURF) solutions to help banks push the boundaries of workspace and deliver a critical competitive edge.

Social media listening tools coupled with real-time data analytics help financial services organisations make informed decision for sales, promotion and marketing campaigns. They are able to customise their product offerings, prioritise services, improve relationship with profitable customers, reduce resources spent on non-profitable customers, deliver better offerings to new customers based on the intelligence from the customer segment that they belong to and develop and bundle products based on the customers’ segment profiling.

Lai Weng Yew Vice President Business Application Services, NCS

Optimising a virtual yet collaborative workspace To achieve operational excellence and efficiency, technology has to support the financial services organisation’s diverse workforce and operations. Collaborative mobile applications such as OneTouch™ are changing the game. The application enables the account or wealth managers to access and process data, content and services from back-end systems while on the move. The seamless integration of the application with enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) systems and business analytics on-the-go will enable sales, risk and collection departments to collaborate instantly.

Enhancing delightful customer experience With consumers’ increasingly discerning lifestyles, financial services organisations are also moving from providing a transactional experience to a retail experience. Instead of asking customers to complete pages of paper forms to apply for a financial product, customers can now fill out an electronic form using tablets while waiting for their turn.

The customer service officer can service and engage customers through these devices to streamline the process and enhance customer service experience. This improves the turnaround time for applications and eliminates errors due to manual processing and paper work.

In remote or rural areas, bank customers usually experience a time lag between the submission and clearance of their cheques into their accounts. Customers can now use a banking mobile application that allows them to take an image of the cheque and send it via the app to the bank’s cheque clearing system for processing. This shortens the waiting time for cheque clearance, resulting in lower cost of operations.

Providing a secure mobile banking experience

The way customers purchase and pay for goods and services is changing as the world migrates from cash and credit cards to applications running on smartphones.

It is expected that transactions through the online and mobile channels will continue to grow over the next few years. The maturity of NFS technology and the availability of NFC smartphones will further fuel this growth.

This cost-effective transaction channel has fuelled financial institutions’ efforts to enhance the self-service functionalities in their portal and mobile applications. This enables a secure and seamless mobile banking experience anytime and anywhere.

Fraudulent transactions are a perpetual challenge for financial services organisations. Fraudsters are constantly changing tactics to exploit loopholes. While no single technology can combat fraud effectively, advancement in technologies can help mitigate fraud risk by identifying, correlating and triggering alerts on suspicious activities. For instance, banks can now immediately alert a credit card owner and disable the card if any suspicious activity based on the customer’s historical spending behavior is detected.

Another example of banks combating fraud is in the detection of suspicious activities in cash withdrawals using ATM cards. If the bank were to detect any ATM withdrawals using the same card within a five-minute interval, it will be treated as a potentially fraudulent withdrawal and will trigger an alert to the customer. With these capabilities, financial services organisations can take a more proactive approach in fighting financial crime.

As a leading IT service provider for international financial institutions, NCS understands the drivers behind the future of banking. Through our proven unifying IT approach and our endto-end suite of infrastructure, applications and communications services and solutions, NCS is able to assist you in every stage of your financial operations and businesses.

Contact Us Email: reachus@ncs.com.sg Website: www.ncs.com.sg W HO ’ S W HO O F FS I

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W H O’ S W H O Q& A // DAV E G RU B M A N

FST MEDIA: How is AIG’s rollout of AIG Direct delivering value to the business and how will its success be measured?

GRUBMAN: Our key focus with the ‘AIG Direct strategy’ is to provide customers with a broader range of distribution points through which they can interact with AIG. The customer is no longer limited to accessing our product offering via an insurer broker.

Customers now have the choice to purchase through the phone, internet or mobile.

This broader ‘web’ allows AIG to access a previously untapped customer base that seeks to deal directly with the insurer, rather than through an intermediary.

Aside from the obvious financial benefits of opening up new segments, there are other strategic benefits. ‘AIG Direct’ allows greater control and ownership of customer data, independence from third parties including insurance agents or other partners such as telcos or banks as well as branding synergies as direct marketing budgets help to support increased brand awareness.

Success will look like an increase in revenue coming through a broader range of channels that effectively deliver value to the customer.

FST MEDIA: What will be the next big thing in telematics?

GRUBMAN: I would not be surprised to see car companies leveraging data collected from their vehicles to offer consumers a usagebased lease and insurance package. Wearable devices, embedded devices are going to open up opportunities to improve peoples’ lives, and from an insurance standpoint help deliver more cost-effective and efficient pricing.

The more we know about what you do and where you go, the easier it is for us to build an accurate model and a price associated with that model for products. There are huge privacy concerns, and it should not be limited to just an insurance company. It should be delivered to the whole food chain associated with those devices. The information potentially could be scrubbed and made more anonymous, but the nuggets of data that could be collected from a wearable device could benefit the consumer and the insurance company in a big way.

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Perhaps most importantly, no matter how important a technological solution may be for the future of the business, success hinges on buy-in from stakeholders across the organisation.

technology. My view is there will be some dissonance between these roles for some years to come.

FST MEDIA: If you weren’t working in financial services, what would you be doing?

GRUBMAN: For approximately half my career, I have been working in IT at large financial service firms. The other half of my career has been spent with software and internet startups. That is likely where I would be if not with a large financial services firm.

FST MEDIA: What do you consider to be the greatest achievement of your career to date?

FST MEDIA: How is AIG using technology platforms to target SME segment growth?

GRUBMAN: We have invested in a number of web and mobile solutions that help our agent and broker partners sell insurance to the SME segment. These solutions let our distribution partners work interactively with a business customer to quickly define a customised insurance solution.

FST MEDIA: What notable examples have you seen of financial organisations innovating to acquire and retain the growing Gen Y customer base?

GRUBMAN: Alibaba’s online money market fund has been a huge success. Yu’e Bao, an online payment platform signed up 81 million customers in less than a year in China. The average age of an Yu’e Bao customer is 28, and through leveraging the platform, a keen understanding of Gen Y and an attractive interest rate, Alibaba has built the largest money market fund in China.

FST MEDIA: How do you see the rising roles of chief digital and marketing officers impacting the traditional function of senior technology executives?

GRUBMAN: There is clearly an interesting dynamic at play here. You have a material overlap between disciplines that historically were distinct – marketing, distribution and

GRUBMAN: I enjoy taking on challenging problems and coming up with creative solutions. A few years back, I was asked to move a large chunk of software maintenance work away from an incumbent vendor. I managed to turn the exercise into a venturecapital type transaction where the work itself became capital. In the end, the work moved successfully and the equity we received yielded a gain in excess of US$15 million.

FST MEDIA: Every leader has a legacy they wish to be remembered for. What is yours?

GRUBMAN: While IT can revolutionise business, one must temper bold technology initiatives with pragmatism and sound business logic. Perhaps most importantly, no matter how important a technological solution may be for the future of the business, success hinges on buy-in from stakeholders across the organisation.

I hope my legacy will be that of a leader who knew how to take bold, innovative ideas and execute them in a large, complex organisation.

FST MEDIA: What will insurers look like in 2020?

GRUBMAN: The global insurance marketplace today is dominated by American and European players.

By 2020, I am certain several Asia-based players will have joined the club.

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W H O’ S W H O Q& A // SH E L L E Y RU H A

for example ‘YouMoney’. Finally, in an environment of constant change and increasing regulation, making things easier for our customers and our staff is a priority.

FST MEDIA: What technology or innovation is proving to be the single biggest game changer for retail banking?

RUHA: Looking at retail banking from an IT perspective, the single biggest game changer for retail banking is still mobility. Mobile transactions have grown rapidly while other channels have remained steady.

We have an increasing number of customers who only interact with us via mobile and we expect this trend to continue.

Mobile is a focus for innovation, with a constant stream of mobile app releases and new products like ‘PayClip’. We are also investing heavily in mobile payments initiatives like the mobile wallet. Combining mobility and information to provide value to our customers is a critical part of this.

FST MEDIA: How is BNZ PayClip delivering value to the business and how will its success be measured?

Shelley Ruha NEW ZEALAND

DIRECTOR, ENTERPRISE SERVICES, BANK OF NEW ZEALAND

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FST MEDIA: What are your IT priorities for the next 12 to 18 months?

RUHA: Information is a key priority for Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) right now. Data quality, data analytics, creating a single view of our customers, and information security are all part of that mix. The biggest challenge for us is how we use this valuable resource in a manner that provides meaningful benefits to our customers.

Our customers are changing the way they want to interact with us. They are increasingly mobile and looking for a genuinely omnichannel experience. Because our systems were not built to be used in this way, creating that experience for our customers is complex and a key priority.

Creating new products and new experiences for our customers is also a key priority for BNZ, particularly in the digital space. We are releasing new market firsts, such as ‘PayClip’ and at the same time building out our existing digital platforms,

RUHA: Payclip is a new product that BNZ introduced into the New Zealand market in late 2013. It is a small device that plugs into a smartphone that enables businesses to take card payments. This product has removed the cost barrier to having a mobile point-of-sale solution. When we designed the solution, we were thinking about small businesses in particular because it allows them to move away from being an invoice-based business juggling cash flow demands to immediately receiving payment for products or services.

FST MEDIA: How can customer experience be enhanced through initiatives such as BNZ’s ‘NFC SmartPass’ payments?

RUHA: The ‘SmartPass’ currently being trialled by BNZ, Vodafone and Visa is the next step in bringing NFC mobile contactless payments to New Zealand.

‘SmartPass’ offers customers control and flexibility with a greater capacity to manage the card in a manner that suits them through

W H O’ S W H O Q& A // SH E L L E Y RU H A

their smartphone over plastic. The security aspect of being able to lock a phone is also a compelling advantage over a card.

Apart from shrinking the contents of pockets and handbags nationwide, a key benefit of a mobile wallet is that your phone is the only thing you need to grab before leaving the house. I have teenage boys who manage to look after their phones, but they regularly lose their debit cards – loading a virtual card onto their phones is the solution.

The next step will be when the Trusted Service Manager (TSM), a joint venture between the four main banks and the three mobile operators, launches a common platform for mobile payments.

FST MEDIA: How is BNZ’s use of voice recognition technology impacting authentication time for call centre customers and how is it delivering value to the business?

RUHA: We are pleased to have seen a significant reduction in authentication times from around two minutes to manually identify customers, to an average of five seconds for those who have registered for voice recognition. Freeing up this time is allowing staff to have more meaningful conversations that help our customers manage their money. Value-wise, we are seeing increased security and less frustration from customers around the authentication process.

FST MEDIA: How is BNZ innovating to attract and retain the growing Gen Y customer base?

RUHA: BNZ has invested strongly in the Gen Y and millennial customer base as we want a lifetime relationship with our customers.

BNZ launched the biggest industry development aimed specifically at this group last year. Our customisable ‘YouMoney’ product was designed in partnership with young customers and set a new standard in personalised banking.

We looked at what was being offered to the youth market and everyone was doing much the same – products were homogenised, commoditised and really only differentiated by price. Before we started we spent a great 110

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A key benefit of a mobile wallet is that your phone is the only thing you need to grab before leaving the house.

deal of time finding the core expectations of the segment. Our focus has predominantly been in the digital space which research shows is core to youth customers.

‘YouMoney’ was a ground-up platform rebuild enabling functionality such as drag-and-drop payments, personalisation of accounts and payees through editable nicknames and photos. Customers have total control and can open and close additional accounts as they choose, which is proving very popular.

We know what we are doing is appealing to the youth market because they drove the product development. Innovation in the digital and mobile space will continue to meet the needs of millennials as well as other tech savvy customers.

FST MEDIA: What role will geo-location have in BNZ’s future plans for mobile banking developments?

RUHA: We believe it is vital to use new technologies to add value to the customer experience, rather than being just a platform to promote how innovative we are.

Geo-locational services offer some interesting opportunities to provide context to the customer situation and therefore make the experience more seamless.

At BNZ we have also embedded these capabilities into our new-to-bank customer identification tool in order to provide a second factor when we are validating the customer’s home address.

Moving forward, there are some great opportunities to enhance a variety of processes that customers find cumbersome today, particularly around security. However,

when it comes to geo-locational offers, we are less certain. Unless you can make significant improvements to the recommendation engines and make these offers genuinely relevant and interesting, they risk becoming an annoying interruption.

FST MEDIA: How do you see the rising roles of chief digital and marketing officers impacting the traditional function of senior technology executives?

RUHA: As a result of changes in customer behaviour and enabling technology, we are becoming increasingly aware of the value of information, and in response to that we are placing increasing importance on the capture, storage and use of data and data analytics.

The emergence of these roles has been beneficial in bringing technology and the business closer together to focus on how to drive more value from information and to turn this into value for customers.

FST MEDIA: What skills do you think aspiring technology chiefs should invest in now for future success?

RUHA: I would prefer to hire someone who is exceptionally curious and teach them technical capability. It is also more important than ever that technology be closely aligned with the bank’s strategy and the customerfacing businesses. I would like to see more movement across the bank both into and out of technology. Individuals need to follow their own passion when it comes to developing their careers and deciding where to invest time in developing capability but, in terms of the business as a whole, I would like to see more diversity in our workforce – people with a broader range of backgrounds like social sciences and engineering, as well as our traditional technologists and more women in technology.

FST MEDIA: Every leader has a legacy they wish to be remembered for. What is yours?

RUHA: I would like to be remembered for making a positive difference. I love my role at BNZ and I hope that everyone who works here feels the same way.

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W H O’ S W H O Q& A // B R E T T B E N N E T T

Brett Bennett ASIA PACIFIC

HEAD OF SERVICE DELIVERY AND CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, ZURICH, ASIA PACIFIC

FST MEDIA: What technology or innovation is proving to be the single biggest game changer for insurance?

BENNETT: Mobility will be the biggest driver and having to deal with Gen Ys as they start to become the next generation of insurance customers. The insurance industry faces challenges with the new customer base coming through and social media plays a large part due to decision-making behaviour of Gen Ys who purchase based on what they hear from their social groups. They also want customer experience to be easy, prices to be cheap, and to feel valued. These expectations need answering. Straight-through processing automation is a start, but to engage the next generation of customers, insurance as a whole should be utilising the forums they trust.

FST MEDIA: What are your IT priorities for the next 12 to 18 months?

BENNETT: Zurich’s strategy across Asia Pacific is to consolidate and virtualise our services 112

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into two main data centre hubs, the biggest being Hong Kong, which supports eight countries in Asia, and the Australia hub.

We have done some fairly large migrations into our main hub for Asia Pacific, our regional data centre in Hong Kong. We now need to bring on [migrations] from some of the smaller businesses across Asia Pacific, particularly our general insurance operations from Indonesia. We have also established a small-sized data centre in Taiwan using hosting, storage, virtualisation and middleware infrastructure.

Our strategy also includes the decommissioning of the IBM Lotus Notes platform. With a 60,000-strong internal customer base, this will be a big step. We are looking at various models we could move to with Microsoft Exchange in-house or in the cloud as we are just entering pilot mode. We have Microsoft SharePoint deployed across the globe at various stages, which we are looking to consolidate and expand and add Microsoft Lync for messaging. Video is also an option.

FST MEDIA: How are Zurich’s technology infrastructure and platforms upgrades delivering value to the business and how will you measure success?

BENNETT: Our upgrades include networks, mobility solutions, disaster recovery and business continuity. The business is seeking flexibility and delivery capability allowing us to develop cost-effectively in our chosen markets. We cannot afford to house infrastructure in every country in Asia Pacific. In some countries, such as Indonesia, domestic infrastructure housing does not work due to a lack of infrastructure and skills.

In a number of Asia Pacific countries, insurance regulation is getting tighter and more closely aligned to banking industry regulation. Customer privacy, data handling and back-up regulations are increasingly stringent.

Thanks to our data centre in Hong Kong, most [IT functions] happen at the back-end.

Desktops are provisioned at the back-end along with all of the application capabilities across shared platforms. The benefits include facilitating growth and branch expansions by

turning the dial from our regional data centre in Hong Kong.

FST MEDIA: How will Zurich’s virtual desktop environment facilitate expansion throughout the APAC region?

BENNETT: The big benefit is the delivery of advanced solutions on desktops into locations where we could not otherwise justify the cost. This is broader than just the virtual desktop strategy. It encompasses all of our shared platforms and operational capabilities including service integration.

If infrastructure is based in one location, sharing platforms, networks and recovery capability, it can yield great benefits.

FST MEDIA: What notable examples have you seen of financial organisations innovating to acquire and retain the growing Gen Y customer base?

BENNETT: Social media and mobility are some ways to present a stronger prospect to Gen Y, as they would rather do things centred on convenience. This translates to mobileenabled services, which the banking industry has advanced into.

The first challenge is educating youth about why they need insurance. They will prefer a monthly subscription like they do for a lot of other services, as opposed to the current model of annual premiums. A challenge from that shift is demonstrating ongoing value with the framing of those solutions. From a business perspective, we need to shift to a model where we reward long-term customers.

FST MEDIA: Every leader has a legacy they wish to be remembered for. What is yours?

BENNETT: My focus has always been the people side of any capability. Where people are happy to come to work and give their maximum.

The mark of success is to be able to walk out of an organisation with everything I have constructed running as it should.

Leadership is thinking about providing opportunity to individuals to progress their careers, developing sustainable and highperforming teams.

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W H O’ S W H O Q& A // S T E V E C OL ES

our central product platform; enhancing the resilience of the underlying IT infrastructure; and re-engineering our documents across the business.

FST MEDIA: What is the ‘holy grail’ that technology and innovation are yet to deliver in financial services?

COLES: We have not yet realised the potential success of IT-enabled change.

Business Process Reengineering (BPR), the internet and the more recent digital developments of social, mobile and cloud were all supposed to have transformed our markets. Yet they have had limited success.

The technology available today will deliver benefits that BPR projects in the 90s targeted but never quite managed to deliver.

My ‘holy grail’ is to take a holistic approach and harness all of these techniques to deliver IT-enabled business change.

FST MEDIA: How can Allianz Australia further leverage on the back of its early investment into component-based architecture?

Steve Coles AUSTRALIA

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, ALLIANZ AUSTRALIA

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FST MEDIA: What are your IT priorities for the next 12 to 18 months?

COLES: Allianz Australia has a long-term IT strategy that has seen investment increase year-on-year and as IT becomes more important to our business. Our focus has been on investing in strategic platforms that we can leverage across our operations.

This enables us to realise economies of scale, skill and scope.

For the next year, our focus will be on six areas: agility and innovation through IT to enable change.

Secondly, we are migrating to a strategic multi-channel customer experience platform.

Furthermore, we will exploit business intelligence opportunities. On the product side, we will migrate our product suites to

COLES: We have invested in core platforms to set them up for the future and selected the best-of-breed component-based technologies to respond to the digital opportunities across the business.

This enables us to leverage the investment in core platforms and deliver a high level of flexibility and robustness to respond to the emerging requirements of our business.

It also helps us leverage the economies of scale, scope and skill, meaning we have one strategic policy administration platform covering life and general insurance and one set of technologies that are applied to sales, service and claims.

Whether we sell an insurance policy through the internet or contact centre, or lodge a claim, we use the same componentbased technologies.

FST MEDIA: What role will insourcing of IT services play in the future of insurance?

COLES: Allianz Australia has bucked the trend by insourcing many services over the

S T E V E C OL ES // W H O’ S W H O Q& A

last 10 years and has realised significant business benefits.

A great example is our service desk, which had gone from a ‘tick and flick’ model to a team of dedicated customer service experts that resolve more than 70 per cent of requests during the first call. The service desk is the ‘shop window’ into the IT function and it is critical that it displays the right customerfocused values that reflect the culture of the broader business unit. In the past, some of my colleagues tried to bypass the service desk by coming straight to my management team, but now they clog my inbox with compliments.

Another benefit is the savings that we were able to realise through better resolution at first point of contact were ploughed into ‘DigiDesk’ – an initiative where we invested in improving the online tools available to our teams.

Insourcing has been a successful strategy for us, especially when it is linked to accountability. Colleagues have to take personal accountability for executing the strategies they develop. It is always interesting how this simple technique focuses the mind.

In addition, we recently announced the offshoring of the majority of testing services to the ‘Allianz Testing Centre of Competence’ in India. This decision was driven by a belief that we could deliver a step change improvement in testing capability by working in partnership with our group colleagues.

FST MEDIA: How do you see the rising roles of Chief Digital and Marketing Officers impacting the traditional function of senior technology executives?

COLES: I work closely with our chief marketing manager to ensure we are aligned, especially around the digital agenda. The most successful chief information officers (CIOs) are those who have the responsibility for influencing business thinking as well as execution.

There are three things we have to do extremely well The first is running the business, managing the high volume transactions and delivering performance and availability.

On the horizon, is driverless car technology and this could have a more disruptive impact on the insurance business and that could happen sooner than we think.

The second component is engaging and influencing the business to identify and shape IT-enabled change.

Finally, CIOs need to execute the change programs to meet the technical and business objectives of their organisations.

Today it is feasible for a CIO to maintain effective oversight and leadership of these three pillars. However, as they become more important in their own right, coupled with the importance of technology to businesses, it is likely the traditional CIO role may split. That could be a chief digital officer, but more likely someone who focuses on business transformation, of which digital is just one part.

FST MEDIA: What will be ‘the next big thing’ in telematics and how do you plan to use telematics to improve your products further?

COLES: Telematics has promised much but the market delivery to date would indicate that the potential benefits have not been realised. We are working on focused telematics initiatives both locally and within the Group, and are excited by the potential for broader sensor-based technologies.

On the horizon is driverless car technology.

This could have a more disruptive impact on the insurance business and that could happen sooner than we think.

FST MEDIA: If you were not working in financial services, what would you be doing?

COLES: I would have loved to have done something in the sporting world but given my lack of sporting prowess, I was destined to do something else. In saying that, those of us in financial services and IT sometimes do not appreciate how lucky we are.

FST MEDIA: What do you consider to be the greatest achievement of your career to date?

COLES: I have always considered myself market-aware and I make decisions for the best interest of the company. In fact, I was a bad consultant in a previous role as I always ended up going native and putting the customers interest first.

I have never been one to follow what is in vogue and am prepared to buck the trend if the reasoning is right – whether that is a decision to insource functions, commitment to platforms, or the migration to new component technologies. These types of decisions have a material impact to our business and I want to get the best outcome for our business, even if it is not fashionable.

I have built a team that has managed to execute on these decisions to deliver business value at an IT expense structure which is one of the best in the Allianz Group and still under two per cent of revenue.

FST MEDIA: Every leader has a legacy they wish to be remembered for.

What is yours?

COLES: I wish I leave a legacy that is less complex than the one I had inherited but unfortunately the bare facts are that technology is now more complicated than ever and this is not always realistic.

My leadership style is to encourage a balanced focus rather than expect that there is one area that can deliver success.

I would hope that people value this balance around a strong customer focus, building high-performance teams and successful career paths for people, investing in new technology and delivering new IT-enabled solutions and innovative processes, and doing this while maintaining a highly competitive expense position.

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W H O’ S W H O Q& A // PH O E B E WON G

Phoebe Wong HONG KONG/CHINA

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND HEAD OF RETAIL BANKING, DAH SING BANK, LIMITED

the market. Ultimately, whether customers adopt these depends on whether there is real value and benefit. I am not disputing that mobile technology enables speedy and convenient service delivery that would create delightful customer experience. The key to deployment success is to deliver real value to the customers.

focus on providing mobile banking solutions to customers with real value and benefits. The newly launched ‘ONE+’ credit card is a good example to demonstrate our commitment to offer a real-value mobile credit card solution for customers with an app, embedded with a series of exciting merchant offers via mobile and an attractive loyalty reward program.

FST MEDIA: How does Dah Sing Bank and Visa’s ‘Pay@Mobile’ service deliver value to the business and how will you measure its success?

FST MEDIA: How do you encourage a culture of innovation in your team?

WONG: ‘Pay@Mobile’ provides merchants with a convenient, simple and cost-efficient solution to accept credit card payment using a dongle and a mobile app. It is especially suitable for small-to-medium sized enterprises, mobile businesses or exhibitions.

FST MEDIA: How does Dah Sing Bank’s partnership with Octopus Cards deliver innovative, integrated services to customers, and how will you expand on this success?

FST MEDIA: What are your plans for the next 12 to 18 months?

WONG: The financial services industry is undergoing unprecedented changes with mobile, social and digital transformation. To integrate their developments into strategy is a balancing act. The business value has to be obtained together with customer value.

For the next 12 to 18 months, we will stay focused on deploying selective digital solutions that will enhance the customer experience with reasonable return on investment for the bank.

FST MEDIA: What technology or innovation is proving to be the single biggest game changer for the banking industry?

WONG: As a business driver, technology is just an enabler. The biggest game changer is not the technology itself but the mentality and attitude of the people deploying it.

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WONG: Dah Sing Bank has a long-held partnership with Octopus Cards and we have jointly launched many innovative products and services to customers with real value.

We were the first bank in Hong Kong to launch the credit card ‘Octopus Auto Add Value Service’ which provides customers with unparalleled convenience. We also launched the first cash card with Octopus function which offers customers a card with standby cash and payment convenience.

FST MEDIA: What is Dah Sing Bank’s mobile payments strategy? How will the bank adapt to emerging NFC platforms?

WONG: Smartphone penetration is high in Hong Kong. Customers are looking for speedy, convenient and simple banking solution via mobile, with functions and offers that fit their lifestyle and needs. In the mobile payment arena, smart ways to pay and to be paid are equally important. Other than Pay@ Mobile which offers a smart way to be paid, Dah Sing Bank will also launch its mobile wallet so customers can make credit card payment using their mobile phone. We also

WONG: I always encourage colleagues to think out-of-the-box and think from the customers’ perspective. Identifying how our products and services can be enhanced to better suit customers’ evolving needs is crucial. I also encourage the team to observe closely for what is new in the market.

Employee engagement is a key to our success.

FST MEDIA: What information sources do you consider invaluable for your job, and why?

WONG: Market information in terms of customers’ evolving needs and lifestyle, technology, potential risks, market environment, channels, and processes is all important information. In this dynamic market, the more intelligence we have, the better understanding on the market we have, helping us make better decision on our products and services.

FST MEDIA: What skills do you think aspiring technology chiefs should invest in now for future success?

WONG: Innovation is only meaningful to customers if it induces real value and benefits.

Aspiring technology chiefs should invest their time in understanding customers’ needs, exploring the latest technology solutions and deploying for real value and benefits.

FST MEDIA: With respect to career development, what is the best advice you ever received?

WONG: Always focus on beating your past successful business model with a new one. If you do not, others will. There is no room for complacency in this fast changing world.

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W H O’ S W H O Q& A // M A RY JA M ES

Mary James MALAYSIA

GROUP CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, ALLIANCE BANK

the demand for banking products may slow down significantly.

There are products within the consumer space that allow customers to reduce market volatility and give customers an enhanced yield or a decent return on their investments.

Thirdly, the rollout of the ASEAN Link will provide Malaysians with the opportunity to tap into investment opportunities. The best-of-breed funds are domiciled out of Singapore and Malaysia, and their youth can use it to plan for their retirement.

Fourthly, with ongoing regulatory changes, further margin compression is expected to impact the banking industry as a whole. However, with the opportunities that we have identified, we are of the view that fortune favours banks that are well prepared to weather these changes. There will be ample opportunities that the market will present to us.

FST MEDIA: What are your IT priorities for the next 12 to 18 months?

FST MEDIA: What will be the most significant challenge facing the financial services sector in the year ahead?

JAMES: The key challenges for the banking sector in Malaysia continue to be net interest margin compression: the rising personnel costs due to competition for talent in the industry and tighter regulatory guidelines aimed at curbing household debt levels.

From retail banking’s standpoint, it will be challenging given the four significant contributors.

Firstly, the slowdown in the property market. The property sector has always been the catalyst of economic growth due to value chain creation – both forward and backward. We expect developers to scale down on the launch of their projects until the dust has settled.

Secondly, the expected Quantitative Easing (QE) tapering in the US will see a lot of volatility in the foreign exchange, equity, capital and fixed income market in the region. With economic volatility, consumer sentiments will be impacted and, 118

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JAMES: Our IT priorities over the next 12 to 18 months will include enterprise mobility, virtualisation, and the mobile ecosystem.

Over the past couple of years, we have begun initiatives that enable us to launch into enterprise mobility in areas such as application virtualisation, enterprise wireless, enterprise virtual private networks, mobile device management and more.

We will also continue to look for opportunities to capitalise on virtualisation in our daily operations. We have witnessed considerable and encouraging successes in cost containment and management with infrastructure virtualisation, and are continuing to explore investment into this.

A mobile ecosystem is also among our priorities in system upgrades, and we will soon embark on several initiatives to make our customers’ lives easier with the availability of this application.

FST MEDIA: How are you leveraging big data and analytics, after upgrading your data platform, to meet customer demand for personalised banking products?

JAMES: Analytics play a big role in our business as we continually evaluate the relevancy of our products and services and ensure that they fit our customers’ lifestyle requirements. While we are making great strides in this area, and seeing great results there is much more that remains to be done.

We are in the midst of exploring its use as it will have a positive impact on the business as we continue to evolve in the social space.

FST MEDIA: How are self-service terminals changing the role of the physical branch, and what are your plans for expansion?

JAMES: Self-service terminals complement our physical branches and help us to move traffic away from the branches.

They continue to be an important channel as our customers still require the use of selfservice terminals for their banking services.

However, self-service terminals will soon evolve as transactions progressively move into the digital sphere.

FST MEDIA: What do you consider to be the greatest achievement of your career to date?

JAMES: I remain heavily invested in people, and consider it the greatest achievement in my career. Any boss can achieve his or her financial objectives and Key Performace Indicators (KPIs), but to be known as someone who goes after the ‘intangibles’ edge – encouraging the team to be more daring in their goals, broadening their minds about the possibilities that exist in the technology realm and inculcating in them leadership qualities is what matters most.

FST MEDIA: What skills do you think aspiring technology chiefs should invest in now for future success?

JAMES: I would advise those who are interested in being good technology chiefs to learn all aspects of business and to not just be a technologist. Technology for the sake of technology is meaningless. To be a good chief information officer, one needs to enhance one’s ability to be able to engage both global and linear-thinking abilities.

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W H O’ S W H O Q& A // G IL B E R T C H UA H

Gilbert Chuah SINGAPORE

HEAD OF INTERNET CHANNELS, UNITED OVERSEAS BANK

FST MEDIA: What are your priorities for the next 12 to 18 months?

CHUAH: Having a digital channel is no longer a differentiator and competitive advantage comes from providing a digital experience that is highly relevant to the customer and is easy to use. United Overseas Bank’s (UOB) key priority is to deliver a superior customer experience across our digital channels throughout the region. We have already started on this journey by continually enhancing the UOB ‘Personal Internet Banking’ website and the ‘UOB Mobile’ app to provide our customers with convenient ways to manage their financial portfolios.

FST MEDIA: How are the bank’s SMS-based ‘UOB Mobile’ cardless transactions adding value to the business, and how will you measure future success?

CHUAH: We see the UOB mobile app and

FST MEDIA: Which emerging trend or innovation is currently flying under the radar that you feel is destined to make a significant impact on the financial services sector?

CHUAH: While we feel there is no single technology that is a game changer for financial services, we believe the right use and deployment of digital intelligence will be an important differentiator for banks.

Customers today expect their bank to know and anticipate their financial needs and involve them actively in developing tailored solutions that meet their individual needs. Banks must have the capability to collect and analyse data from multiple channels to provide relevant financial solutions.

At UOB, we are continually working to ensure our internet and mobile banking channels can offer our customers financial products and services that help them achieve their financial goals and needs. One example is where we provide travel insurance products during peak holiday periods to customers who we know are frequent travellers.

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its features as an important part in making banking more convenient for our customers.

The app puts a branch in the hand of our customers to help manage their finances.

The UOB ‘Mobile Cash’ feature is an industry first which provides customers with the ability to make cash withdrawals and transfer funds to others with just an instant text message and a one-time password at more than 600 ATMs in Singapore.

FST MEDIA: How do you encourage a culture of innovation in your team?

CHUAH: We have a culture of innovation which we build by sharing and learning from colleagues and industry experts from across the region. We also frequently engage with industry experts who share their views on the latest technology and applications.

Across the bank, we also have innovation programs where all employees are encouraged to share ideas that are explored and deployed if they are found feasible.

FST MEDIA: What information sources do you consider invaluable for your job, and why?

CHUAH: Besides studying research papers by industry experts and consultants, speaking

to and learning from experts in the industry is a good way to continually spark innovation and ideas. I frequently participate in industry seminars and also try to be involved in roundtables and panel discussions.

FST MEDIA: What do you consider to be the greatest achievement of your career to date?

CHUAH: The launch of ‘UOB Mobile,’ Singapore’s first mobile banking app to enable cardless cash withdrawals, was an incredible achievement for the bank and for me personally. Our customers were the first in the market to have access to physical cash with just an instant text message and a one-time password on top of being able to manage their finances on-the-go. Also, the increasing use of ‘Personal Internet Banking’

by UOB customers is a good reflection of the convenience and relevance of our internet banking channel as customer habits change.

FST MEDIA: How is UOB’s back-end ‘integrated regional operating and technology platform’ delivering value to the business, and how will you measure consistency and efficiency across all channels?

CHUAH: For our digital channels, we believe in building our assets once and deploying it across the region. As we continue to develop and enhance our digital banking channels, we are also rolling out these enhancements to our customers across the region. This approach has seen significant savings in cost and time taken for deployment outside of Singapore. It also means our customers around the region can enjoy a more seamless intra-regional banking experience.

FST MEDIA: Every leader has a legacy they wish to be remembered for. What is yours?

CHUAH: Helping to groom a new generation of digital banking professionals who are passionate and not afraid to utilise digital technology to meet the increasingly sophisticated needs of our customers is a very important priority to me. This will not only make a difference at UOB but also drive the industry to greater heights.

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W H O’ S W H O Q& A // T I M T H O R N E

Tim Thorne AUSTRALIA

CHIEF INNOVATION AND DISRUPTION OFFICER, TAL, AUSTRALIA

challenge. Those who fail to change will be left behind.

FST MEDIA: What are your priorities for the next 12 to 18 months?

THORNE: My innovation priorities are to get a strong pipeline based on a better understanding of our customers’ and partners’ needs. Within that pipeline, I want to combine great creativity with strong commercial thinking. I want TAL to take some risks and experiment, but always have customers at the centre of our approach.

FST MEDIA: What role does a chief innovation and disruption officer play?

THORNE: My job is to challenge the way we think about doing business today, to foster development, do testing and piloting, launch new ideas, and find new ways to help more people get the right level of financial protection they need.

FST MEDIA: What is the ‘holy grail’ that technology and innovation are yet to deliver in insurance?

FST MEDIA: What will be the most significant challenge facing insurers in the year ahead?

THORNE: The past year has been a difficult one for the life insurance industry in Australia. The pressures to pull back, cut costs and focus purely on short-term profitability are very strong. Like any business we need to be efficient and profitable, but we must also recognise our customer needs are evolving rapidly and we have to invest in better ways of meeting them.

While we believe it is important for people to obtain quality financial advice, the reality is that many people do not seek it out. The newer channels via superannuation and direct, including new online challengers, have been important to expand the reach of life insurance to help people get cover when they otherwise would not.

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THORNE: The ‘holy grail’ is allowing consumers to take control of their life insurance. A growing number of consumers want to make better-informed decisions about requirements and products, but we are yet to deliver the solutions to meet this need while ensuring they get the right advice.

FST MEDIA: What role will telematics play for insurance in the future?

THORNE: It will not just be telematics but the whole world of mobile data from location-based marketing to wearables. It will fundamentally change our industry over the next 10 years. Technology is not the issue. It is the business and consumer needs that will determine the pace of change. I was funding telematics insurance trials a decade ago in the UK, which has seen changes in regulation.

We see the same types of trends and business needs emerging in life insurance.

Changes in medical technology, diagnosis and treatment mean many of the

assumptions made when policies were originally written are outdated. This will mean the industry will need to develop propositions around health promotion, disease prevention and rehabilitation.

Wearables and remote medical monitoring will have a large role.

FST MEDIA: What lessons does your success with crowdsourcing cancer research hold for financial services?

THORNE: It is amazing what you can achieve with a great idea. My last crowdsourcing project at Cancer Research in the UK saw people from 180 countries analyse 1.5 million samples in two weeks, yet the cost of the project was in the tens of thousands of dollars. In today’s highly connected world a great idea can catch on within hours.

FST MEDIA: How can technology chiefs achieve actionable big data insights?

THORNE: There is lot of data but you need intuition about the insights you are looking for. It is not just a question for technology chiefs, it is about business users being open to challenging the current ways of doing things and wanting to find new insights. If the question is framed properly, the data can usually deliver an answer.

FST MEDIA: How do you encourage a culture of innovation across the entire organisation?

THORNE: Allow people to challenge the status quo, give them the time and tools to do it, allow for experimentation and be passionate about delivering really good outcomes for customers.

FST MEDIA: Every leader has a legacy they wish to be remembered for. What is yours?

THORNE: I love seeing people in my teams develop and grow. I hope they think of me as fun to work with, but challenging and stretching at the same time, and that they are proud of what we achieved together but that it was not the only highpoint of their career, just the first of many.

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M AT H E WS G EORG E // W H O’ S W H O Q& A

Mathews George AUSTRALIA

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, METLIFE, AUSTRALIA

it for years. Customers now expect every interaction to be personalised.

Mobility in its traditional sense of phones and tablets is something that customers already expect from their insurer. Mobility strategy should include wearable devices or any device from the Internet of Things (IoT) to help an insurer differentiate themselves.

As analytics and mobility become commodities, gamification, will be the biggest game changer to develop a deeper customer engagement, undoubtedly the final frontier of competitive advantage for any business.

FST MEDIA: What are your IT priorities for the next 12 to 18 months?

GEORGE: MetLife’s biggest IT priority

FST MEDIA: What will be the most significant challenge facing insurance in the year ahead?

GEORGE: The challenge facing insurers in the year ahead will be responding to changing consumer behaviour. As these behaviours change, companies that are not listening to their customers and adapting will lose out and others who are more engaged and responsive will benefit.

FST MEDIA: What technology or innovation is proving to be the single biggest game changer for insurance?

GEORGE: The convergence of mobility, analytics and gamification is the key to the future. Analytics is ‘table stakes’ for insurance companies. Taking it to the next level by understanding customer behaviours and personalising the interaction will bring the insurance companies on par with companies like Amazon and Google who have been doing

continues to be supporting and fuelling business growth. As a business-to-business (B2B) organisation each new partner we sign up requires an understanding of the people and culture, aligning the common processes, and implementing the technology to service the partner and their customers. Enhancing our customer touchpoints is a key IT priority.

We have identified data as a strategic priority to understand and anticipate customer behaviour. Another key IT priority is to utilise our data warehouse, operationalise our data governance framework and support the business to build an advanced analytics capability leveraging the work being carried out in other parts of MetLife.

Our final priority is to extend our foundational capabilities and create a scalable and flexible operating environment for our employees.

FST MEDIA: How will MetLife’s Mobile Ubiquitous Life Insurance Access Network (MULAN) customer service application deliver value to the business and how will you measure success?

GEORGE: MULAN brings insurance policy to your mobile – no paperwork, no queues, just 24/7 self-service within arm’s length. It is a great example of how technology is transforming the way we do business through flexible,

easy-to-use and personalised interactions with our customers.

In our Korean business we implemented MULAN and within a few months saw 30,000 downloads and a corresponding shift of 6,000 transactions from the call centre to mobile. This meant that six call centre representatives could be redeployed from policy enquiry and servicing to customer retention activities.

MULAN has delivered business value and success is being measured by the increase in customer satisfaction, brand awareness, retention rates and sales as this 24/7 channel becomes available for personalised cross and up-sell opportunities.

FST MEDIA: How will MetLife’s ‘The Wall’ inform your data analytics plans?

GEORGE: ‘The Wall’ is an innovative solution that provides a 360 degree view of a customer’s interactions and relationship with MetLife. It pulls customer data from disparate systems and presents it to the customer service representative in a Facebook-like interface.

Initially built in the US, and also operational in our Japan business, it utilises a big data platform to make this search happen in less than a fraction of a second.

FST MEDIA: If you were not working in financial services, what would you be doing?

GEORGE: Probably a nature photographer.

As a child I would gaze at the cover of National Geographic for hours, marvelling at the colours of nature.

Then computers came into my life. But my passion was still to build something that makes people happy – insurance is a very noble cause in that sense and that is why I like working where I am.

FST MEDIA: Every leader has a legacy they wish to be remembered for. What is yours?

GEORGE: Think big, understand the bigger picture and communicate. Plan ahead, anticipate change and prepare for it.

Act fast, execute your plans with a sense of urgency.

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Mobile, Social and Payments in an Emerging Multi-channel Landscape

Top row (from left to right): Parvez Ahmad, Director Marketing, Oracle Financial Services; Iwan Agus, Head, e-Banking Network & Usage Business, Bank Internasional Indonesia (Maybank); Endra Halim, Group Head, Core Application Management, Bank Central Asia; Dickman Maulana, VP, Head of ATM & EDC Business, Bank Danamon; Mahesh Ranade, Group Head, SVP IT Strategic Business Solutions, Bank Mandiri; Johanes, SVP, Head of Liabilities and e-Channel Product, Commonwealth Bank; Adi Haryadi, Head of e-Business Management, Bank Muamalat. Bottom row (from left to right): Siddharth Sabherwal, MD & Head, Operations and Technology, Citi Indonesia; Irianto Kusumadjaja, COO & CIO, Bank Andara; Iwan Kamaruddin, EVP & GM Transactional Banking Services, Bank Negara Indonesia; Theresia Tristini, Deputy CTO, Commonwealth Bank; Refyul Rey Fatri, Head of Project Management, Bank Tabungan Negara; Venky Srinivasan, VP Sales, Oracle Financial Services; Victor Korompis, EVP, e-Channels and Credit Card Systems, IT Services, Bank Danamon.

The executives featured in this roundtable editorial held the above positions at the time of publication.

PARVEZ AHMAD, ORACLE FINANCIAL SERVICES: I am very pleased to introduce Mahesh Ranade, Senior Vice President IT Strategic Business Solutions at Bank Mandiri, to deliver some opening notes to help us discuss channel transformation further.

MAHESH RANADE, BANK MANDIRI: I have chosen five areas to touch upon. The first area is the impact of Mobile Financial Services. Second is the impact of social media in banking. The third area is our National Payments Gateway. Then fourth will be financial inclusion (branchless banking) and, fifth, multi-channel, which is everybody’s favourite topic. In terms of Mobile Financial Services, one consideration is that there are many more mobile users than banking users.

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We see over time the customer’s link to branch and ATM is getting weaker.

ATM was the ‘in thing’ many years ago.

Now mobile is becoming the channel of choice. Another aspect with the mobile user regarding financial inclusion is that there are more people who can now access and utilise banking services. Then there is the development of e-cash or e-money.

Potentially, e-money will keep more money in the official economy instead of the shadow economy. There is a faster adoption of e-commerce, even by small shops – because there is no set up required, just mobile transactions.

But some of the challenges that we see from a technology perspective are that there are so many different kinds of devices and

operating systems. How do we as banks manage this? Customer expectations are also changing rapidly because they are exposed to Facebook and Twitter. If we move more towards mobile, how do we stay synchronised with the other channels?

In terms of social media, again there are a lot more users. I read that Facebook has 50 million users in Indonesia. It is faster, it is by word of mouth and it is community based.

If you ‘Like’ something, 100 people will certainly see it. But it raises other challenges – if customers give bad feedback on a product or service, maybe 200 people will see it. I heard some banks in other countries have started using Facebook and other mechanisms for credit risk assessments.

How many people in the community know

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you? Are you dependable? If you have more friends and you have forged relationships, then maybe you are not such a big credit risk. From Indonesia’s perspective, if I look at my colleagues’ mobile use, I can see that it is an addiction. So can banks become part of this addiction? This is something that we discuss often with our business colleagues.

In terms of the National Payment Gateway, we know that telcos are interested in running it. But how do we operate on a level playing field? The regulator has to make sure that all the parties are at the same level and rules are clear. We have the capacity and capability to do it. Other countries have attempted it successfully, so I believe personally that Indonesia can do it as well. The other aspect to consider is what it will mean for our consumers, our customers, our merchants and the banks? When this comes in, are we able to create the differentiation? Today, you have so many different types of cards available – so how do we differentiate when we have a National Payment Gateway?

On financial inclusion, it is basically banking for the unbanked, and Bank Indonesia has done a pilot with five commercial banks. Most banks have an interest in this, but they want it to succeed commercially as well. So is there a real business case? I visited some other countries to see what they are doing, and I could not see a real business case as yet, or the ROI takes a long time. Another challenge is the critical need for customer education and to control fraud.

Finally, everybody agrees that multichannel is needed, but I do not think there is yet a consensus on what is needed.

Mobile first, but then, what? Which aspects of multi-channel need to be tackled first or prioritised? I have heard of some banks in the region having problems trying to achieve multi-channel. Is there something to learn from that? Perhaps the gathering will give their perspective on how they look at multi-channel.

PARVEZ AHMAD, ORACLE FINANCIAL SERVICES: I would like to discuss some thoughts on how customers in Indonesia have high social and mobile penetration.

What is the distribution strategy across channels in Indonesian banks?

IWAN KAMMARUDDIN, BANK NEGARA INDONESIA: In Indonesia, we have a situation of extremes. Our demographic is made up of those who are savvy and high-end and those who are not. We in the banking business in Indonesia are moving very rapidly into unchartered processes.

Frankly speaking, we are not used to this.

We have leaders – like Bank Central Asia.

We all say we have developed our channel strategy, but how well we have done it is the question, because there is still a large [part of the] market that has not actually taken on this benefit.

I think the second part is that for banks we all talk about who our customers are, we cannot just define all customers as being the same for any bank. We define our customers differently. For us, segmentation is key.

So we looked at the segmentation, and we noticed that other players are educating the market – telcos are driving the technology, and so the market is being educated far faster than we are educating them. From this education process, the needs are moving really fast. They are asking for things that banks do not normally provide, and this is [moving into] unknown territory.

On top of that, we have our commissioners who are saying, “How much are you spending on this and how are you making money?” And on top of this is the question: “How ready is the bank?” The state of readiness for the banks is an issue. Then we have the issue of the government, the regulators and the ministries who have impact on the markets that we sell to.

We have to also manage corporates as consumers and the individual customers we serve. So the B2B and B2C businesses, I would say, are quite different. The models, the services, the features and the solutions are not the same. The individuals from the markets are driving the corporates, and the corporates are moving towards the banks, and the regulators are managing the banks.

So the cycle, driving and changing the customer. Underlying all that is the risk.

What about IP and operational risk? What about fraud? What about cybersecurity?

Is Indonesia safe? I think the context that Mahesh has put forward gives us a clear agenda as to where we are going: from a

banking perspective we are moving forward, technology is moving forward with solutions, so we need to consider the state of readiness for banks to adopt these changes.

PARVEZ AHMAD, ORACLE FINANCIAL SERVICES: Endra Halim, from a Bank Central Asia perspective, how do you see your strategy changing over the next three years? How fast are we changing?

ENDRA HALIM, BANK CENTRAL ASIA: I think we all believe that mobile banking will become fast-growing. But the other challenge that we are facing is that we do not have a standard yet for the different types of mobile device – Android, iPhone, and Blackberry, for example. Every time you build an application, you must build for at least three different operating systems and also for each device type. You cannot have the same application deploy once for any device; you need to customise it for each device type. That is the challenge. It is very costly because the customers say: “Why does it look like this?”. We say: “Yes, okay, we will fix it.” But three months later, Blackberry or iPhone will launch a new device, and we need to update our application again for that new device. It is a very costly and tedious job.

PARVEZ AHMAD, ORACLE FINANCIAL SERVICES: So standardisation is proving to be a big challenge with changing technology?

ENDRA HALIM, BANK CENTRAL ASIA: Yes. If we had standardisation, I think it would be very helpful for us.

IWAN AGUS, BANK INTERNASIONAL INDONESIA (MAYBANK): Customer behaviour has changed our strategy.

Considering Indonesia has a lot of difference in demographic and geography, mobile banking has become the only solution feature because at the moment we are tied to our mobile phones. They say if you leave your house without your wallet today, now you can survive. You cannot survive without your phone. I agree that the problem is that there are many types of products.

A big problem for the banks is how to adapt with changing mobile phone W HO ’ S W HO O F FS I

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technology and different browsers. At the moment, there are three or four browsers that people are using: Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer and Firefox. This is also a problem because there is no standard across the platform, so we have to adjust one by one. Due to this, the customer will prefer to use multi-channel.

If we can provide the mixed channel for the customer, stickiness will increase. I think the business case for multi-channel should be that it reduces cost. If a customer uses their own device, it is cheaper for the bank because we do not have to provide the ATM or branch. But ATMs will still be there; branches will still be there – bricks and mortar are still needed. Customers need branches so they can say, “Okay, this is my bank”. That is why people are still interested in the branch because they believe in something they can touch.

PARVEZ AHMAD, ORACLE FINANCIAL SERVICES: Let me just go over an area

From my study in 2010, there were about 200 mobile banking projects, but only two are considered to be a success. One is in Kenya and the other in the Philippines.

However as with Bank Andara’s mission, the bank invested in mobile platform technology and in core banking to set up a system to support the micro finance e-solution. The unbanked and underbanked are living across rural Indonesia, so the question again is how to reach them. The only way is using the mobile network, so what are the products that banks can provide?

IWAN AGUS, BANK INTERNASIONAL INDONESIA (MAYBANK): The problem is that in Kenya they mostly run M-Pesa for the immigrants because everyone is working in Nairobi or in the bigger cities, and they need to send money back to their families. That is why M-Pesa has become very successful because it is easy. In Indonesia, the business case is not as good. The only projects that are doing really well are in the Philippines, Kenya and maybe Denpasar; other than that, there is no real success story.

in which I think channels will make a huge impact in the future. That is really the underbanked segment, and it is very important in Indonesia. Bank Andara is doing a huge amount of work in that area as well as Bank Mandiri and Bank Danamon.

How have you responded to the behaviour and habits of customers and what are you doing in that space to reach out to them?

Exactly; I think we can implement it, but we have to implement it in a different way. The banking infrastructure is already there in Indonesia, so we can partner with the telcos or even with competitor banks.

IRIANTO KUSUMADJAJA, BANK ANDARA:

VICTOR KOROMPIS, BANK DANAMON:

Irianto Kusumadjaja, Bank Andara: I joined Bank Andara in 2008 because I was interested in an initiative by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to find out how to support millions of unbanked and underbanked people in Indonesia. One of the NGOs undertook some research in 2007 and I was part of the team that ran a study looking to know which financial institutions could support these unbanked and underbanked people. There were many Micro Finance Institutions operating in rural areas that could reach more than 60 million people in Indonesia. We found that there is only one solution to reach the unbanked, which is through the mobile networks. So I visited Kenya, Cambodia and India to study how mobile banking worked there.

We also did some research on M-Pesa three years back. M-Pesa is a success in Kenya because traditional banking is not possible there. They do not have ATMs. In Indonesia, we have around 20,000 ATMs. So they really need this branchless model, the agency model. You cannot use the same model in Indonesia. If you want to go to mobile, you need a totally different strategy. For example, when we started the business in 2004, we were the second bank to move into micro banking – after Bank Negara Indonesia. When we went to the online market, in just three months we achieved ROI [Return On Investment]. Why? Because the vendor market was not saturated, it was empty. Today, there are 10 banks in the same market. But coming back, multi-

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IRIANTO KUSUMADJAJA, BANK ANDARA:

channels can take its place now. We also see that the people using microfinance models are getting smarter. When it started, users did not even know how to use signatures, so we proposed biometrics. With the use of biometrics, the finger scan replaces the PIN and signature. But now, 10 years down the line, everyone is saying that they want ATM cards and ATMs. So what are we going to do? We are trying to find a balance. The mobile proposition that we use is more for our staff using mobile PCs to do transactions on the online markets. The other part is that we are doing mobile collections, so if you are doing collections, the data will be downloaded into the smartphone devices. And then for the customer, the next challenge is how to find the local ATM that can fit the purpose of the microfinance business. So we see it evolving as well. I do not believe M-Pesa model’s success in Indonesia is a totally different game plan. There is a lot of room to do mobile banking, but there is still more education needed on this level.

SIDDHARTH SABHERWAL, CITIBANK: What I can add from a Citibank perspective, regarding branch coverage, is that we would not be able to compete with some of the large local banks on their branch footprint and hence are not going down that path.

However, our endeavour is to provide the best customer experience when a customer walks into any of our branches. Citibank has Smart Banking branches in Singapore and Hong Kong and we are evaluating implementation of similar Smart Banking branches in Indonesia, where we have state-of-the-art automation and client experience on offer. Having said that, obviously, one size does not fit all and this model needs to be adapted to the local culture of the environment we operate in. That said, other channels like online and mobile are very important to simplify banking and reach a wider cross-section of the market. We are investing in technology to optimise this experience.

VENKY SRINIVASAN, ORACLE FINANCIAL SERVICES: It is an interesting thought. I mean, I understand the trust phenomenon,

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but with social collaboration, with Facebook, has that been commoditised? Is the customer looking for the best deal possible? Is it as simple as buying a laptop?

JOHANES, BANK COMMONWEALTH: In our experience many customers are doing research online. That is why for us it is important to give as much information as we can to the customer – to be as clear as we can and transparent about the products and services that we offer. The other thing that we have invested in is engaging with both the existing customer and the prospective customer and trying to better understand what their needs are, then moulding our product to fit those needs.

PARVEZ AHMAD, ORACLE FINANCIAL SERVICES: Are you seeing the customer demands on the corporate side?

ADI HARYADI, BANK MUAMALAT: I think for Islamic banks like us this is a very interesting period because our clients are very centred in their beliefs, so the segmentation is not only broken into demographic segments of affluent, middle upper, and middle class, but also the rationale segments too. Due to this we are moving quite aggressively and changing our business model. So what we are referring to are the major changes in our business processes, regardless of retail or corporate side. For the corporate side, they are requiring us, as banks that support their business, to also support their new projects for automation and innovation all around the lines of speed of process, transparency, accountability and efficiency. We have major projects around the country right now. A big driver for us is segmenting the rational and emotional sides of the market in terms of retail and corporate customer demands.

VENKY SRINIVASAN, ORACLE FINANCIAL SERVICES: Are you saying that whatever is happening in the classic retail space, it is no longer a retail channel, but you are looking at it quickly going into the corporate sphere?

ADI HARDYADI, BANK MUAMALAT: Yes, that is right. It follows the value chains in our business.

VENKY SRINIVASAN, ORACLE FINANCIAL SERVICES: I like the question that Mahesh

IWAN AGUS, BANK INTERNASIONAL INDONESIA (MAYBANK): We are doing

framed: is it all a myth, the entire market of multi-channel? Oracle’s viewpoint is that there is a transformation starting to happen, depending upon where it is in the majority cycle in the channel space. It is all being driven by what the customer wants and how they want to transact with the bank, rather than how the bank wants to treat its customers.

Everybody realises that there is no magic pill to solve the problem. It is a progressive transformation. But unfortunately the external environment is just changing too fast. Now the problem is how to give a customer a single experience across all channels.

The multi-channel architecture is in my view not a myth, it is a requirement – not because the technology wants it, but because our customer wants to transact with the bank in different ways, whether it is on social media, with wallets or mobile devices, or whether it is a seamless experience coordinating a customer on a transaction – it has to change.

The fundamental place where there has to be a shift – whether it is at the architecture front or whether it is at the model front – is if you have many systems trying to serve the same customer. There is going to be an impact on the cost of transaction and customer profitability. And when you start segmenting customers and start differentiating customer behaviour, the transaction cost has to come down and the technology is not yet enabled to bring the transaction cost down.

some successful core banking changes.

The bank product is not ineffective at all – it is only cash and term deposits. You cannot create another product that is too complicated, especially in Indonesia, because banking is the most regulated industry.

That is why core banking transformation is painful, and I do not think that a lot of banks want to do it. It is better to create various applications to incorporate the existing core banking with the new core banking.

If you were to do a core banking transformation, it would take around three to five years. Like Commonwealth Bank Australia (CBA), I think it is around five years in its transformation journey, and it is not yet finished. The problem is, the moment you appoint one vendor to create new core banking, when they go live in five years’ time, it is already obsolete.

MAHESH RANADE, BANK MANDIRI: One thing I have noticed is that when many of us talk about multi-channel, we leave it at the technology level. What are the changes that need to happen to really enable this multi-channel plus CRM, as well as analytics? Everybody is focused on the user experience – that we need to have the most beautiful looking front-end, with all bells and whistles. But if we want to service customers properly something else has to happen, which is review and improvement of end-to-end processes.

ADI HARYADI, BANK MUAMALAT: The challenge is not about the system itself, but whether our front liners feel satisfied using the new processes. That is the big challenge.

The other issue is moving from one system to another. The legacy system is usually not communicated or documented well enough to plug into the new system. That is a big change in core banking. The last thing is you have to be sure of your road map, not only for three years or five years, but for the next ten years. That is the biggest thing to decide when you are figuring out if this is the core banking you need. What kind of workflow will you have? What kind of customisation will you need in the future?

PARVEZ AHMAD, ORACLE FINANCIAL SERVICES: That is a very interesting point.

This has been a really good, collaborative discussion. We started off talking about mobile standardisation, microfinance and how changes are happening there, and how microfinance customers want more. We talked about what the global banks are doing, and how branches are still alive and kicking.

We touched upon solutions; we talked about plumping versus creating something new – there were good opinions on that. Thank you to everyone for an active conversation.

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W H O’ S W H O Q& A // M I C H A E L F OONG

Michael Foong MALAYSIA

GROUP CHIEF STRATEGY OFFICER, MAYBANK GROUP, MALAYSIA

FST MEDIA: How has Maybank’s peer-to-

leaders work together to achieve a common goal under a very strong, clear vision and a united team.

The functions played by marketing heads will be more demand-oriented and will increasingly derive relevance from the bottom-up customer insights. This will help drive new investments in technology.

However, it will not replace the roles of senior technology executives as these new investments still need to be delivered into actual products, services or capabilities.

peer (P2P) mobile transfer service delivered value and how will you measure success?

FST MEDIA: If you were not working

leading regional financial services provider.

My immediate priorities are to help us achieve that goal, which includes achieving customer-centricity and enabling a seamless customer experience across all touchpoints.

Other priorities include raising productivity and driving higher efficiency across all our operating entities, and to enable the different units to harvest synergies and benefits from regional projects and investments.

FOONG: Both our new services, Maybank ‘Mobile Money’ and ‘Cardless Withdrawals’ have seen good take-up. Feedback from customers has been very positive, and we are also seeing offshoots.

We are entering an evolving age of innovation, and must review what we measure as success. Of course, returns on investment must be quantifiable, but it cannot be purely financial anymore.

Learning, leadership and building of skills are equally important. Just as important is mind-share and P2P initiatives that play an important role.

FST MEDIA: Which emerging trend or innovation is currently flying under the radar that you feel is destined to make a significant impact on the financial services industry?

FOONG: A lot has been said about big data and analytics, but I have yet to see anyone in the financial services industry really accomplish the promised success. Done right, analytics has the potential to change the retail banking game. But we need to be able to connect the dots between the plethora of software solutions on offer with the kinds of business problems that are faced by financial services players in order to come up with defensible business cases that yield clear benefits.

FST MEDIA: What are your priorities for the

FST MEDIA: What are Maybank’s plans to capture the unbanked market?

FOONG: The unbanked market segment is an area that we believe holds gret potential in particular countries and some regions.

We will be studying the characteristics of this segment by geography and will then make investment decisions on how to approach these segments in a way that generates a win-win situation. This will differ country to country, as we do not see a cookiecutter approach being of value in addressing this particular segment.

FST MEDIA: How do you see the rising roles of chief digital and marketing officers impacting the traditional function of senior technology executives?

next 12 to 18 months?

FOONG: Maybank has a clear strategy of where we need to be by 2015 to become a

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FOONG: I do not think any one particular role can drive the bank to where it needs to be. What is more important is how all our

in financial services, what would you be doing?

FOONG: I would be in the mobile technology arena, perhaps doing something with enabling new services for retail customers.

That is the most exciting industry to be in today, and will continue to be interesting for the next decade. It is certainly a good area to be a part of it now.

FST MEDIA: What will banks look like in 2020?

FOONG: By this time banks are likely to become much more digital in nature, and yet not lose its physical presence close to communities. Services are likely to be much more seamless, and by 2020 customers should be able to enjoy more “smart” assisted recommendations as opposed to having to prompt banks to address their needs.

FST MEDIA: Every leader has a legacy they wish to be remembered for. What is yours?

FOONG: I hope to be remembered as the leader who helped shape and then drive the transformation program for Maybank Group. It has, and continues to be, an invigorating journey.

It has been my passion and commitment over the past six years. I hope that the capabilities and achievements we have generated will be sustainable so that, 10 years from now, I can look back and enjoy knowing that I was part of the pioneer group that helped bring Maybank to the next level of competitiveness and capability.

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A Regional Solution for Transaction Banking

By Andrew Goh, Vice President and Assistant Director of Group Business

Banks today have begun offering more complex transaction banking services and the level of sophistication has increased over the years. Although the more established banks have begun to provide more comprehensive transactions and liquidity services, these have largely been domestic-oriented.

Local corporations have begun to expand overseas and the need for a global solution to assist these corporations (as well as incoming foreign multinationals) to manage their liquidity and cash positions is rising. Banks in South East Asia in particular have started to explore and embark on providing a single-platform, global cash management solution. And this is not merely about providing more functions or about providing multiple local solutions in isolation from each other. Banks need to understand the expectation of today’s globalised corporations, the competitive market landscape and the available technologies that can be leveraged to provide a truly global transaction platform.

With this, we think the key questions arising are: n What are the key issues and challenges when considering implementing a truly global solution? n How and what constitutes a good solution to serve regional customers, what services, features and functionalities? n How to differentiate and grab market share in servicing these large corporations? n Is there local and regional competition as well as against foreign financial institutions?

Digital Transaction Banker (DTB) – the global transaction banking platform There are various approaches and interpretations defining a global cash management platform. The investment for such a solution will be considerable and hence, it is important that banks are well informed to make the decision. We think there are five key criteria: 1. Global single-platform DTB is a single-platform solution supporting global, single source architecture, with multi-language, multi-currency and multi-bank capabilities. DTB’s Unified Transaction Store (UTS) brings data, interfacing with various source systems across border. This allows customers to have a single consolidated view of their account portfolio across the region and enables the corporation to make informed decisions based on its total holdings. For corporations seeking global oversight, this information will help them assess the position of all their subsidiaries, facilitating controlled disbursement, enabling them to make snap decisions on whether to allow large disbursements of funds on a daily basis.

2. Fast time-to-market in deploying new products A differentiator prized by any bank is the ability to launch new

products very easily and quickly with their transaction banking platform. DTB comes equipped with a flexible Product Configurator to help banks launch new products including customised products for selected customers. Attribute changes such as change in cutoff time, product limits, cross currency limits among others are easily configured by the bank.

3. Segment and serve targeted services and content The ability to differentiate customer segments via industries, roles and from there, define and configure targeted content and functions has many advantages when the platform is used by corporations globally.

DTB comes with our Digital Portal Manager (DPM) which allows banks to tailor the contents, functions and features based on the different customer segments and even user role.

4. A user-centric solution As solutions become richer and inevitably, more sophisticated, customer experience will become increasingly important. The current generation of decision makers expects good experience using the system and are not afraid to voice their dissatisfaction and shift their business to another bank that will listen to their needs. DTB is a user-centric solution, deployed on a collaborative framework using our DPM which facilitates the system’s easy navigation and targeted content management.

5. Mobile-ready With today’s younger generation of leaders fully embracing the use of mobile, it is inevitable that banks avail their banking services across the various platforms, having a clear understanding of the services to be made available on mobile. The target market for mobile in cash management services is the decision makers and hence, should not follow the path of retail mobile banking which caters for the mass market.

Why Hitachi eBworx Faced with so many questions and potential challenges, it is not easy for banks to consider all their options. Hence, it is important to look for a partner who has both the experience consulting banks with similar visions as well as the implementation experience and proven solution to help carry through the implementation in a strategic and well thought plan to ensure you obtain the targeted benefit of implementing a global transaction banking system.

To learn more go to www.hitachi-ebworx.com

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Sim Preston ASIA PACIFIC

GROUP CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER, AIA

We believe ‘iPoS’ provides a significant competitive advantage to AIA’s advisers and bank partners. Since launching in Taiwan in 2011, we have now implemented ‘iPoS’ in nine AIA markets. More markets are in the pipeline for launch next year – as is a suite of additional ‘iPoS 2.0’ features that will redefine the customer experience and help our advisers in their daily customer sales and servicing activities.

FST MEDIA: What technology or innovation is proving to be the single biggest game changer for the insurance industry?

FST MEDIA: What are your priorities for the next 12 to 18 months?

PRESTON: We will continue strengthening our technology and operations leadership by improving the structure and depth of expertise of our teams, modernising our technology platforms, providing operational support to our local markets to improve business efficiency, and supporting employee and agent productivity through the implementation of ‘iPoS’. ‘iPoS,’ which stands for interactive Point of Sales, is an industry-leading electronic sales tool for doing insurance business on a tablet. ‘iPoS’ features a full range of functionality for our advisers including needs analysis, quotation, application, auto-underwriting, electronic signature and premium payment.

Where regulations allow, the entire sales process can be completed on the tablet in a fast and paperless process. ‘iPoS’ also offers training and marketing materials for our advisers and their clients.

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PRESTON: ‘iPoS’ is definitely one of the game changers for AIA, and is redefining the insurance industry’s sales and service model in Asia. We believe consumers will increasingly demand a paperless, interactive, one-visit buying experience on a tablet from the whole insurance industry.

I see four such trends affecting the industry in the next few years: Consumer expectations: Individuals will expect the industry to become much easier to do business with. Insurers will need to adopt modern technologies rather than continue to rely heavily on paper.

They will need to be accessible to the consumer however and whenever they choose, whether online, on the phone or face-to-face.

Health and wellness: People will work with insurers to lead healthier lives and cut the costs of cover. AIA Vitality, a sciencebased wellness programme, is our innovative response to this important trend.

Social behaviours: As social media becomes integral to many consumers’ lives, they will expect their service providers to integrate their propositions in a seamless way. This will have profound implications for how insurers interact with their clients.

Mobile device adoption: Consumers will want to link their personal technologies to their insurers’ technology infrastructure using wearable accelerometers to record physical exercise or GPS-tracking telematics to measure driving style and speed.

FST MEDIA: How do you encourage a culture of innovation in your team?

PRESTON: AIA has a long and impressive record of business innovation spanning 94 years in Asia Pacific. The choice of words is important. Innovation should always have a business result in mind rather than enhance technology for its own sake. In my team we always start any innovation discussion by asking ‘What is the business problem we are trying to solve?’ Only after having answered that question do we evaluate alternative ways to address the problem. The answer includes a combination of technology, process and people so innovation has to span all three.

Successful innovation requires a blend of creative and structured processes to facilitate a safe environment for risk taking. I would suggest: take the customer’s perspective. At AIA we are far more focused on innovation that improves the customer experience, and that makes people more likely to do business with us, than we are on innovation to cut costs. Customer-oriented innovations often deliver positive knock-on efficiency benefits.

Create the right conditions: we are giving people at all levels the freedom and funding to propose ideas and take those forward. This needs to happen at all levels, and pushed deep down into the organisation.

FST MEDIA: AIA has been rolling out the iPoS in Asia, how has it delivered value to the business and how will you measure success?

PRESTON: We measure the success of ‘iPoS’ in a number of ways: customer experience, advisor productivity and efficiency improvement.

The cost savings are obvious as ‘iPoS’ allows straight-through processing and reduces paper, printing, scanning, archiving, postage and much of the manual work.

Advisers using ‘iPoS’ are more productive by meeting more customers as the whole sales process can be completed in one visit. ‘iPoS’ is their mobile briefcase. They no longer need to go back to their branch office to pick up sales material or to produce amended forms.

In terms of customer experience, buying insurance interactively on a tablet is totally different from filling out a paper form.

The needs assessment and application process is dynamic, rather than constrained by a fixed process.

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K E V IN A NG L A N D // W H O’ S W H O Q& A

expectations in respect of richness of information they want to have access to as well as the demand for access anytimeanywhere. Secondly, location-based services allow for proactive and targeted offering of services to customers, for example locating the nearest panel shop in the event of a motor accident. Finally, big data and analytics is the lifeblood of our business and real-time access to and use of customer data and analytics by our staff enables them to tailor services and pricing to reflect the individual customer risk, rather than offering a ‘mass-market’ service or price.

FST MEDIA: What are your IT priorities for the next 12 to 18 months?

ANGLAND: We have a challenging but

Kevin Angland NEW ZEALAND

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, INSURANCE AUSTRALIA GROUP, NEW ZEALAND

FST MEDIA: What will be the most significant challenge facing the insurance industry in the year ahead?

ANGLAND: Our biggest challenge is completing the move from unlimited replacement home insurance to specified sum. To date only a third of all New Zealand households have responded to requests to re-estimate their cover. This is despite the industry spending a huge amount on an education campaign, IAG has spent over NZ$13m. Customers need to understand the implications of these changes to ensure that they have the right level of protection in the event of a major loss.

FST MEDIA: What technology or innovation is proving to be the single biggest game changer for insurance?

ANGLAND: There are three aspects that are already having a significant impact. Firstly, mobility solutions have increased customer

exciting year ahead. Our key focus will be completing the integration of the technology environment of AMI Insurance, which we acquired in 2012, into Insurance Australia Group (IAG). We are also completing the implementation of a new insurance software package for the AMI business. We are live on the system for all motor vehicle products and are in the process of building out the home, contents, farm and boat products for the AMI business. Furthermore, we are focusing on delivering greater Business-to-Business (B2B) connectivity for our NZI insurance business and the completion of a full-site business continuity management test for our primary data centre.

FST MEDIA: How is the IAG NZ technology delivery upgrade improving customer interaction and staff collaboration?

ANGLAND: Ease and convenience of interaction are key tenets of IAG’s customer strategy. So most of the new capabilities our technology teams are delivering are focused on improving the customer experience, or making it easier for our staff to engage and interact with customers.

In the past year this has resulted in a complete redesign of a number of our websites to simplify and streamline the sales and service process, including the use of external data sources. Examples include location and vehicle details look-ups, and W HO ’ S W HO O F FS I

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the introduction of click-to-chat technology.

As a result we have seen improved customer and staff experience.

FST MEDIA: What direction will IAG NZ take with BYOD following its early trials?

ANGLAND: Our preference is to continue to provide corporate devices to our staff.

Currently the Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) usage relates to email access only.

Our preference is to provide a sufficient level of Windows ‘device options’ to meet the broader needs of the organisation. We are currently piloting a program that offers the choice of a desktop, laptop or tablet, based on the role being performed and preferences of the individual. This allows us to wrap existing customer support programs around the device and all the corporate applications contained on the device.

FST MEDIA: What role will industry collaboration such as IAG NZ’s integration with Lumley Insurance into one core system play in the company’s future IT roadmap?

ANGLAND: The IAG technology roadmap was reviewed and updated following the acquisition of the AMI business in 2012. As a result we have moved from a ‘continuous improvement’ cycle of change to an IT transformation cycle. Over the past two years we have built our two new state-of-the-art data centre platforms to replace our four existing data centres, implemented a new wide area network, and migrated to a single voice platform. We have also commenced migrating our core insurance systems, many of which are more than 25 years old, onto a modern insurance package. Replacement of all our core insurance systems will be a three to five year program.

FST MEDIA: How is IAG’s use of cloud services

We have moved from a ‘continuous improvement’ cycle of change to an IT transformation cycle.

computing as a good thing generally.

It typically leads to a lower total cost of ownership for IT services, and it provides new levels of flexibility or choice to organisations in respect of how they acquire and consume

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FST MEDIA: What skills do you think aspiring technology chiefs should invest in now for future success?

those services. Our new data centre platform has been based on a Cloud Reference Architecture which has been designed and implemented in a way that ensures we are ready for a move to cloud when we determine this is the right solution for our business.

Within the technology domain we expect to move to a hybrid (public-private mix) cloud service for our non-production environments over the coming year. Much of the technology that makes up core business systems is of an age and type that does not easily lend itself to cloud services. For these systems, the move to the cloud will be considered when we implement our new application roadmap.

ANGLAND: Becoming more strategic is going to be fundamental to ensuring success and that is what is going to make the difference.

It is not about CIOs of the future keeping their hands on the technology stack, but about using it to create sustainable business value. Some people will thrive and some will not. In five years time the CIO position will still be as influential as today. However, CIOs will need to do more than ever to earn that influence.

FST MEDIA: How are you leveraging big data and analytics to meet customer demand for personalised insurance products?

ANGLAND: My appointment to the CIO role

ANGLAND: Creating insights from our data helps us to better understand our customers and their preferences. Our key focus is to really understand and price insurance risk.

Over the past two years there has been a significant increase in the cost of reinsurance provided to the New Zealand market. As a result home insurance premiums have increased – sometimes to levels that make it less affordable for customers. More accurate pricing for the individual customer allows us to keep insurance premiums at more affordable levels over the long term.

likely to progress in the coming year?

ANGLAND: I see the evolution of cloud

digital officer and chief marketing officer roles are complementary and will cross over. Cooperation between heads of the business is more necessary than ever in a world where everything is connected.

Technology is at the heart of our business at IAG and, as CIO, I spend a great deal of time collaborating and cooperating with our executive team.

FST MEDIA: How do you see the rising roles of chief digital and marketing officers impacting the traditional function of senior technology executives?

ANGLAND: Some of the skills required for the chief information officer, chief

FST MEDIA: What do you consider to be the greatest achievement of your career to date? here at IAG. I spent the early part of my career working in a number of roles in the heart of the insurance business. I joined IAG eight years ago and have gradually transitioned from business roles to project roles across to roles in the IT team.

IAG is a great place to work. It is an organisation with a very constructive culture and tremendous opportunity.

FST MEDIA: Every leader has a legacy they wish to be remembered for. What is yours?

ANGLAND: I would like our IAG technology services team to know me for being a leader who cares, who is always willing to listen, and who is helping them to become New Zealand’s leading corporate IT team. For people across the business, I would like to be known for providing them with technology solutions that make it easy for them to connect with our customers and that adds real value to our business.

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Don’t Rip and Replace – Wrap and Renew!

How to deliver upon your customer service requirements whilst leveraging legacy systems Financial services organisations face many challenges to manage costs and optimise operations. But they can save time and money by taking advantage of existing resources in a new way. KANA offers financial services organisations a unified, omni-channel desktop that allows them to transform the customer experience without the cost and complexity of ripping and replacing existing systems.

The abundance of legacy applications in contact centres can trap a business into rigid, inefficient processes and introduce undue complexity. Over the years, mergers and acquisitions and the addition of new business units can clutter the IT infrastructure with redundant systems around billing, enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) and more.

In addition to the maintenance and usability issues, the time and cost required to retire a mission-critical application is often daunting. Besides the maintenance and usability headaches, the time and cost required to retire a mission-critical application is too daunting.

Chief information officers are finding themselves faced with the challenges of disparate systems required to run their dayto- day operations and demands to stretch this infrastructure.

The complexity chain The pain of complex legacy systems has consequences far beyond IT. An individual contact centre or branch associate must hop

from screen to screen during the course of a call, memorise complex processes and copy information. The real victim of this complexity is the customer. While associates are struggle with legacy technology, customers struggle with high volumes of call transfers, long hold times, constantly repeating themselves and getting inconsistent service.

To rip and replace these systems would be prohibitively costly and time-consuming.

Instead, KANA Enterprise allows companies to wrap and renew, using existing assets to transform customer experience.

Wrap and renew

Fast results This approach also addresses the increasing requirements for improved business agility to keep step with changing customer preferences and regulations. Initial deployment, as well as updates and changes are easily accomplished with the help of business tools. At a large British insurer, KANA went live with a unified desktop integrating 15 systems in just 10 weeks.

Once live, the benefits of a unified desktop continue to reduce the ‘cost-to-serve’.

Several customers reduced training times by 50 per cent and are saving millions of dollars annually due to increased productivity.

Using a range of modern integration methods, KANA Enterprise allows financial organisations to access data from disparate systemsand combine them into a single, unified desktop. Rather than presenting staff with every piece of data from every system, ‘Smart Context’ intelligently presents assets that are relevant for the particular issue.

Call centre staff and business users are guided through a process from start to finish on a single screen, eliminating the need to memorise processes or be trained on multiple systems. KANA customers across the globe are seeing the benefits of this new approach to handling legacy applications.

As one customer stated, “We have gone from a high-cost, low-reliability, antiquated complex solution to a modern, high-quality, easily-configurable one. Our phone consultants, IT support staff and contact centre management could not be happier.”

Get the full whitepaper here: http://bit.ly/kanawhoiswho

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organisation, we are focused on ensuring that above everything else, we respect the privacy of the data we have and we allow our customers to govern how and when it is used.

The other big thing customers are demanding more of is real-time services.

Whether it is the ability to apply for a new product or maintain an existing one, they want to be able to do it anywhere, at anytime.

We are investing in NetBank and our other channels, so that we can put offers to and engage with our customer in real time. We are leveraging our core capabilities to look at ways we can offer more real-time solutions to our customers.

FST MEDIA: What are your IT priorities for the next 12 to 18 months?

GARLICK: CommInsure is focused on

Anne Garlick AUSTRALIA

GENERAL MANAGER OF COMMINSURE DELIVERY AND SUPPORT, COMMONWEALTH BANK, AUSTRALIA

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FST MEDIA: What technology or innovation is proving to be the single biggest game changer for insurance?

GARLICK: One of the biggest game changers for insurance is around data and analytics. We need to better understand our customers and their needs, at any stage in life, so we can work with them to deliver the best solution and underwrite that product.

We are currently investing in our data capabilities and how we link that through to the customer offer. Understanding where the person lives and what is important to them helps to manage the risk for both us and the customer.

In saying that, as a financial services

unlocking the potential for people, productivity and technology. It is an exciting time for us.

We are one year into a five-year transformation project that has already delivered a new and modernised claims management system and a do-it-yourself insurance solution called ‘Simple Life’ that leverages our core capabilities.

Our aim is to deliver world-class insurance and customer service capabilities that will support the ongoing development of our insurance businesses across both life and general insurance.

We are working on a number of exciting initiatives aimed at meeting more of our customer needs on the spot by making it easy for them to get the products they want, maintaining those products and rewarding them for doing more business with us.

FST MEDIA: How is CommInsure’s upgrade of its technology platforms delivering value and how are you measuring success?

GARLICK: Last year we set out to improve CommInsure’s claims intelligence to better support our customers and our people, and improve our commercial

W H O’ S W H O Q& A // A N N E G A R L I C K

agility. We have successfully delivered a modernised claims management system that allows our teams to improve effectiveness and efficiency with better data collection and case management.

This technology has automated many of the administrative tasks, freeing teams to focus on case management, decision making, helping customers back to work and identifying non-genuine claims.

We are also investing in automatic underwriting while extending our technology platforms that support our advisers.

While historically insurance has been predominantly face-to-face and driven by the need of financial advisers to support customers, there is a wealth of opportunity for a more do-it-yourself approach.

FST MEDIA: How is technology supporting insurance in an industry where face-to-face touchpoints are still critically important for complex products?

GARLICK: Investment in technology supports face-to-face touch points by providing information ahead of those meetings but on the other side of things the industry is changing.

Our customers are changing and they want to be more self-directed.

Our customers are demanding online solutions.

While historically insurance has been predominantly face-to-face and largely driven by the need of financial advisers to support customers, there is a wealth of opportunity for a more do-it-yourself approach.

There is an opportunity to have younger people engage with insurance, managing their risk through life with a portfolio of insurance products.

FST MEDIA: What notable examples have you seen of insurers innovating to acquire and retain the growing Gen Y customer base?

GARLICK: We are looking at ways we can leverage online tools and apps to engage younger customers.

Our ‘Simple Life’ product is a good example of a product designed to appeal to the youth market. It is a direct life insurance proposition designed for simplicity and speed that provides

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memorable projects include introducing the first data warehousing to the bank, leading the team that implemented two iterations of our leading online banking product NetBank and leading the development and delivery of CommInsure’s technology strategy to modernise, transform, and future-proof our technology platforms.

My greatest achievement, to date, has been creating a great career in IT, along with bringing up two fantastic children with my husband. My children are now adults finding their own careers.

Over my career, I have developed a passion for helping others be the best they can. This has been focused on supporting both men and women in their careers.

My particular focus is one of helping young women stick with IT, role model the behaviour and help educate others on the importance of gender diversity in the work place. I have established and support a number of support groups within the technology area of the bank for women.

customers with a do-it-yourself insurance solution that protects their lifestyle.

Simple Life was also the first implementation to use SAP Insurance, and the team delivered the project in a speed-to-market that is being tagged as an industry-leading benchmark across the globe. It was also the first to market with a true bundle concept and innovative online functionality that uses the Helix platform for responsive design for tablets and mobile devices.

FST MEDIA: Every leader has a legacy

FST MEDIA: How do you see the rising

they wish to be remembered for.

What is yours?

roles of chief digital and marketing officers impacting the traditional function of senior technology executives?

GARLICK: As technology evolves, so do our business functions. It is constantly evolving and in today’s market, it is important for these roles to work together towards an aligned business outcome.

Some think because of the digital world, the basics of technology are going to change, but those basics are still going to be required.

You are still going to have to run data centres, it is where they happen and how that governance happens.

FST MEDIA: What do you consider to be the greatest achievement of your career to date?

GARLICK: In my time at the Commonwealth Bank, some of the more

GARLICK: Firstly, being a positive role model for women in technology. The number of women joining the technology industry is a challenge. It is a fantastic career that can span many stages in your life.

With confidence, resilience, persistence and just being yourself, any woman can have this career. If I can contribute in my own small way through speaking to others, whether it is through my previous school board position, speaking about my career at industry events or even to bank’s internal groups encouraging women to further their technology career, then I will have been successful.

Lastly, I would like to be remembered as someone who led fantastic teams to deliver strategic, positive business outcomes that resulted in transformational change for the insurance industry and, in particular, CommInsure.

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Rethinking Infrastructure For Success How important is innovation for financial services organisations to expand globally?

devices connecting to networks is exploding, not just internally but also for customers and this will only increase as mobility continues its inexorable expansion Innovation often increases complexity, which in turn into wearable technology such as Google Glass increases costs. Innovation is like cholesterol. You and into our homes with Smart TVs. These devices need a certain amount of cholesterol to live, however surf a tsunami of information as the digital universe too much or too little can be fatal. Striking a balance continues its expansion, fed by the Internet of Things with centralisation and de-centralisation, and directing (IoT). Compounding the challenge is the pressure of innovation to where it has the most impact is key to a making sense of this deluge through ever sophisticated positive outcome. Innovation for innovation’s sake leads analytics methods. To keep ahead, not just keep up, to unnecessary complexity and often the effort does organisations should look to platforms that will serve not provide a worthwhile return on investment (ROI). the needs of the modern data centre by reducing Growth through expansion is the number one complexity, increasing availability and importantly priority for CEOs this year. Financial services Matt Oostveen creating an infrastructure that enables rapid service organisations are investigating new and innovative Chief Technology deployment. Platform strategies should be forward ways to bring new services to markets in new Officer, VCE Asia looking to underpin the shift in the way we manage geographies. The approach to innovation will dictate Pacific & Japan infrastructure and reduce the amount of time spent success or failure. Reducing complexity and the configuring systems, instead spending more time on applications speed to deploy services is paramount in providing a platform upon and workloads; the reason we have data centres in the first place. which new services can be provided with agility and velocity. This is easier said than done in the modern industry landscape.

What will be the game changer for financial services industry?

The coming year heralds a fundamental shift for the financial services industry as customers acquire increasing power in negotiations brought about from their growing use of technology which has opened them up to alternative sources of capital.

Information intersected with analytics – often referred to as big data – when combined with cutting edge platforms that can bring together investors and borrowers, is launching a surgical strike at the very heart of the traditional financing model. This coupled with the breakdown in end-to-end business process and flow will disrupt the sector creating opportunity for some and crisis for others.

Disruption brought about by the changing dynamic with partner organisations and customers will be offset by the introduction of technology mash-ups providing outcomes such as broad uptake of digital wallets, payment disruption and more. Banking is essential to a modern economy; banks are not. The same can be said for insurance companies.

How can financial services organisations keep pace with the challenge of running their data centres?

How does VCE support financial institutions in creating a foundation for IT and business transformation?

At VCE we have done the complicated work of invention and innovation on the infrastructure layer, enabling you to redirect your focus to the challenges faced in the modern data centre associated with integration, provisioning and maintenance. Vblock does not just converge the compute, network and storage fabrics but importantly the management layer too. This approach frees up resources to channel innovation to where it is going to give the most ROI and elevate the roles of technical staff away from nonstrategically aligned silo-bound configuration activities to business and outcome-oriented IT. For financial services organisations, VCE’s Vblock has been successful in use cases ranging from PCI compliance, to large scale VDI, allowing rapid provisioning of services for insurance companies to online banking and credit card rewards processing.

Vblock adds hygiene and consistency to financial services environments and provides a stable, reliable, repeatable and highlyscalable platform upon which you can confidently stand the most mission-critical and business-critical workloads and applications.

For more information visit www.vce.com

Keeping pace and merely running a data centre is not good enough for a competitive and innovative organisation. A successful company needs to be ahead of the demand and predict how technology will impact the very heart of their environments – the data centre. Today our data centres are under more strain than ever as they groan under the weight from the impact that the third wave of computing is having on our data centres. The amount of W HO ’ S W HO O F FS I

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A conversation with the Wolf of Wall Street

Top row (from left to right): Balaji Ram, Head of BFSI – Australia & New Zealand, HCL Technologies; Melanie Evans, Chief of Staff, Westpac; Daryl Babus, Head of Mobility & Customer Analytics, BT Financial; Tom Higgins, Head of Technology, IAG; Rebecca Kerr, Head of Technology – Group Operations, AMP; Matt Paterson, Operations & Change Transformation Executive, CGU; Dean Firth, Executive Director, Macquarie Bank; Stephen Dunn, Divisional Director – Digital Platforms, Macquarie Bank; Nicholle Lindner, Head of Cards, Westpac; Greg Schapkaitz, Head of Sales Division, AMP SMSF; Bottom row (from left to right): Brad Barr, Head of Financial Planning – AMP Horizons, AMP; Douglas Talbot, COO – Investments, AMP Capital; Tony Craddock, Chief Architect – Direct Insurance, IAG; Jordan Belfort; Tom Thomas, APAC Business Services, HCL Technologies; Angelo Rentzepis, Advice Sales Leader, AMP; Glenn Goodman, Global Head of Data Quality, ANZ. The executives featured in this roundtable editorial held the above positions at the time of publication.

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JORDAN BELFORT: First I would like to tell you a little bit about my life story because it is a miracle I am where I am today. I come from one of the most ethical, well-respected families in the United States.

No one in my family has ever broken any law – not even jaywalked. My mum, who is now 80 years old, is an amazing lady. She went to law school at the age of 64 and became an attorney at 68. She was the oldest woman in New York to pass the New York State bar. She then spent 10 years doing pro bono work for womens’ foundations and the homeless. My dad, crazy as he is in my book [The Wolf of Wall Street], became a CPA [Certified Practising Accountant]. He is a very ethical guy.

When I was growing up I knew I was supposed to be a doctor. My mum is Jewish. As I was being spoon fed apple sauce in the highchair, she would say to me, “The only noble way to be wealthy is to be a doctor.

You have to be a doctor.” It was like hypnosis as the apple sauce was going in.

My mum and dad were professionals, incredibly intelligent, hard working – and broke. They lacked two core things. Firstly, they were completely risk averse.

They had the Depression-era mentality. They never bought a home and when 50 years later I was making US$50million a year and offered to buy a house for them they asked what they could do with a house.

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They never would take a risk and it is very difficult to become successful in life playing defence. Sure, you need to play some defence in life and be careful, but without playing offence, it is hard to get ahead.

Secondly, they despised the whole concept of sales.

That is pretty ironic because I came to be considered the top sales trainer around. But in my family, the word “salesman” was synonymous with the words “slime” and “bucket.”

I think we tend to end up either modelling ourselves on parents or going the opposite way. I went the opposite way. I always had a hunger to get ahead.

From the age of eight, I had paper rounds and I was knocking on doors trying to extend my paper route.

At the age of 10, I was shovelling driveways after snowstorms to make money.

I was doing really well with shovelling driveways, but then it did not snow for a few years so I could not make any money. That is when I decided to become a magician. I went out and I bought a little book on magic and then put an ad in the local newspaper. Soon the phone started ringing off the hook for children’s parties and I panicked. I ran to my dad and said, “Dad, I did not think anyone would call.” He said, “All right, let’s go.”

He took me to the magic store. My parents always supported my ventures even though they were not like that. They were amazing. And so I became a magician, ‘The Amazing Belfort’, with the top hat.

I hit it big for the first time at the age of 16. I went out to the local beach, called Joans Beach, which is huge. On a sunny Saturday or Sunday afternoon you might find a million people swarming the beach, packed blanket-to-blanket. I was on the beach and I noticed they were all moaning because the kiosk was half a mile away. I said, “Hmm, maybe if I went out tomorrow morning and got some ice cream and chips and Milky Ways and Snickers, I could sell them blanket-to-blanket and make a ton of money. I will charge a buck a piece.”

Next morning I woke up, found a little ice cream distributor, and bought all my stuff. The average cost was a dime (10 cents) an item and I sold it all within an hour at a dollar each. I made US$125 in an hour when I was 16. That was back in 1978 when the minimum wage was US$1.35 an hour. The next day, what did I do? I went back with four coolers instead and sold all of them and made US$500.

It became a defining characteristic of how I viewed myself. I knew I was going to have money, and I ended up taking that money and putting myself through college. I ended up taking one misstep on the road to entrepreneurial success, however, and that was

spending one day in dental school, believe it or not.

It all came back to the apple sauce hypnosis. When I was 21 years old and graduating from college, if you had asked me what I wanted to be in life I would have said rich. But I equated money and doing it the right way with being a doctor. I decided I did not want to be a doctor because it was another eight to nine years of university. Dentistry, however, was only four years. I would still be Dr Belfort, my mum would be happy, I would be rich, and everything would be perfect.

So I actually applied to study dentistry and got in.

But that is when things started to go awry. The first day of dental school, we had the dean walk in and say, “Welcome to the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery.

You should be very proud to be here. You are going to be a pillar of the community.” It looked pretty good so far. Then he added, “But let me say this: the golden age of dentistry is over because if you are here to make a lot of money you are probably in the wrong place.” I got up and left and I never returned.

I could not bear to tell my mum for a few months so I hid in Maryland until my money ran out. Then I sat down with my parents and broke the news, “Mum, Dad, I am going to be a salesman.” Then I told them it was worse than that, “I am going to be selling meat and fish.” I answered an ad and was selling meat and seafood door-to-door.

I had a knack for selling. I broke the company record on the first day and the work started to flow. After a few weeks, I decided to open my own company. I soon found I had a knack for training salesman. Before I knew it, I had 26 trucks on the road and I was making a lot of money. But I was making all the mistakes a young entrepreneur makes. I was over-expanding and I was under-capitalised. To make a long story short: I went bankrupt. Soon I was heading to Wall Street to find myself a job.

It was not easy to get hired on Wall Street because it was the bull market of 1986. Plus my resume was not looking that good. I was a dental school drop-out who had just declared bankruptcy. So I went into L F Rothschild – back then a blue chip company – and said, “ I will work harder than anybody. You do not understand what I am capable of.

I can sell like no one else, just give me a shot.” The guy looked at me and said, “Either you are going to be the biggest broker in Wall Street history or you are going to end up in jail.” The guy was a genius. He was right on both counts.

So he hired me and for six months I worked as a trainee, working hard for US$80 a week. It was costing me a US$100 to commute so I was going backwards.

I was barely making ends meet. Finally, my first day

“I always had a hunger to get ahead.”

JORDAN BELFORT

W HO ’ S W HO O F FS I

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as a broker came. It was 19 October, 1987 – Black Monday. On my first day I watched in shock and awe as the market went down 508 points, and the firm I was with, that had been in business for 112 years, shut its doors. My first day as a stockbroker! From there, everything shut down on Wall Street. They were talking about the next Great Depression.

I took a job in a very small, nondescript penny stock firm out in Long Island that was hiring anybody from Wall Street. It was there that everything happened. I discovered two niches in the market. The first niche was selling $5 stocks to the wealthiest one per cent of Americans. No one had done it before. People were selling all the big New York Stock Exchange stocks to the rich people.

All the US$5 stocks and below were being sold to average Mums and Pops with little or no net worth.

For some reason no-one had thought about going to the rich people and selling them the more speculative stocks. So I tried that. In the beginning it did not work but I made a couple of shifts in the marketing and ended up cracking the code. The first time I cracked it, I sold a businessman US$120,000 worth of a US$6 stock. Before that, the firm’s biggest trade was US$4,000. It was a monumental shift and I knew it.

I started my own firm. One day I looked into my boardroom and discovered a problem: I had 12 guys working for me and let us just say the average IQ was Forrest Gump on three hits of acid. This was not the deep end of the intellectual gene pool. They were average people, they were not smart, they were not closers.

They were not trained in the ways of Wall Street.

The received wisdom back then was that you could not train average people to sell to the most sophisticated investors in the world. But I believed I could train anybody, so I tried to train my 12 guys to sell to the richest Americans. It did not work.

Finally, after about a month of trying and failing, they asked me to give them one of my marathon training sessions. I agreed, saying I would do one three-hour training session, answering objections, all the stuff they had probably heard about selling. I asked them, “All right guys, what is so hard? What is making this so impossible?” They told me there were so many objections that they were hanging up. I asked them how many and they said there were thousands. So I said, “Thousands. Let’s write all of them down.”

At the end of the day there were 12 objections, not thousands. I had one guy, Danny, who was my junior partner from the book. Suddenly a thought occurred to me, and I looked at these guys and said, “Don’t you get it? Every sale is the same.” I drew a straight line on

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the board to show that every sale is closed before it is ever opened. You have probably read the book, The Art of War by Sun Tzu. There is a famous quote by Sun Tzu that is in the movie Wall Street. It says, “Every battle is won before it is ever fought.” It is about strategic preparation, knowing every possible eventuality before you engage in a battle in military terms and working out how to counter each eventuality and how to achieve victory. This was the philosophy I had. It did not matter what the product was, even if it was an idea, a concept, a vision for the future; the idea was that there is only a certain number of things that have to line up in every sale.

At the highest level, sales is about creating certainty in another human being, both logical certainty and emotional certainty. My guys were young and they were not smart. They did not have any belief that they could be successful. They were getting battered around by rich people. So I taught them about controlling the conversation in the first few seconds – the idea that you only have three or four seconds until someone judges you and spits you out.

You have three or four seconds for the person to think when they either see you in person or they hear you on the phone that you are number one, sharp as a tack. That you are enthusiastic as hell, that you are an expert in your field. If you cannot get that across to people very quickly, they tune out. It was about showing them how to use their tonality and body language.

A system unfolded called ‘The Straight Line’ and each one of my Forrest Gump guys became multimillionaires. Soon people started lining up for jobs and before I knew it I had 1,000 people in my office, all under the age of 22, all of them with IQs just hovering above 90 on a good day, and they were all making millions.

I was 25 years old at the time. I was making US$50 million a year and I went wild. My first big hit was US$650,000 – I went out and bought a white Ferrari Testarossa. Why? Because I saw Don Johnson drive it on Miami Vice. Next I took a private jet and went to the West Coast. I checked into the Regent Beverly Wilshire Presidential Suite of all places. Why? Because Richard Gere had done so in Pretty Woman. This was my mentality. I saw movies and thought that was the way rich people lived and how they acted and what their values were. But there was one person that really influenced me more than anybody else and that was Wall Street’s Gordon Gekko.

He said those magic words that ended up destroying me. They were, “Greed is good.” Greed cuts through, greed clarifies. I am sure you already know this, but

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greed is not good. Greed is destructive. It does not cut through anything. It does not clarify anything. It destroys everything in its path. Ambition is good. It is ambition that cuts through, ambition that clarifies.

But I, and a lot of Wall Street, got this wrong. My value system was really, really flawed, and that was the essence of my downfall.

The reason why HCL Technologies is so successful and has a high retention rate with the blue chip customers is because of its ‘Employee First’ philosophy.

It is about giving value first, and knowing that everything else will be taken care of afterwards.

Now when I go around the world I want to give as much value as I can. I do not focus on how much money I make, because it is easy to monetise value.

When you have something that is amazing, it is easy to make money with it.

Back in the day, when it was about greed and making as much as you could as fast as you could, I paid the price. Ninety-eight per cent of my business was legitimate but two per cent destroyed everything.

I was trading maliciously and doing a little bit of manipulation and lost it all. I went to jail. Who was my bunk mate? Tommy Chong from the comedy duo Cheech and Chong. When we were swapping stories he said, “Jordan, you have got to write a book.

I thought you were making this stuff up but my wife Googled you and it is all there.

So I wrote a book when I got out of jail and sure enough there was a bidding war between actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt. I chose Leo and director Martin Scorsese and the rest is history. What is interesting is that when people started reading the story the Straight Line system was being used by a lot of companies in Wall Street.

Then I started receiving offers to speak, and it was amazing. We have built a business around training companies on customer service, influence, negotiation, persuasion, ethics and integrity. Success without ethics and integrity is not success at all. That was the mistake I made. Particularly in a situation of influence, you need to always make sure it is rounded with integrity – influencing people to do things they should be doing, not just to make yourself a dollar.

TOM THOMAS, HCL TECHNOLOGIES: Jordan, if it were possible, to what point in your life would you rewind – stop, delete and restart?

JORDAN BELFORT: There are things I would certainly change. I am a believer that you cannot be ethical 95 per cent of the time and then let it slide five per cent of the time. When I first discovered the system, it was

beautiful, it was amazing. Everyone was making tons of money and the firm was a 100 per cent legitimate.

But I decided to engage in a transaction that allowed me to make US$500,000 in cash. I knew it was wrong but the other guy said, “Everyone is doing it.” I rationalised it and said, “No one will know, I will take the money, and then I will just do things as usual.”

But once you take the first step over the ethical line, your line of morality moves a little bit, so the next time you cross over, you cross over a little bit further, and the next time further still. Before you know it, through these tiny, almost imperceptible steps, you end up doing things you thought you would never do, associating with people you never thought you would associate with, and it all seems okay.

So I would have never taken that first step. I would have made a bit less money but I still would have made US$30 million a year and not broken any laws.

I would certainly have never taken that first step over the line.

I also would have completely eliminated the drug aspect. The drugs destroyed me. They cost me a couple of marriages. I should look like Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones! The human liver is an amazing thing.

Looking at things globally, I would have had a very different value system if I went back in time. I would have placed ‘giving value’ first versus ‘trying to make money’ first. My number one value was making money and when that is your number one value, you end up doing a lot of things that are questionable because it is all about the dollar.

I do not try to hide my past. I believe we are not the mistakes of our past, we are the resources and capabilities we glean from our past. In other words, you could make 50 mistakes or one hundred mistakes – each one makes you wiser. As long as you take the lessons from your mistakes and do not live in your mistakes, you become stronger.

You become more resilient and you learn from them so I believe that we are not our mistakes, we are the resources that we get from our mistakes. We create experiences for ourselves based on our language. So I could say, “I have been to jail, no one will ever speak to me, I am a terrible person,” and that would be a very disempowering way for me to go through life.

Whereas I am saying, “I have been to jail, I have made mistakes, but I will use this as a positive to go out and spread a message to make sure that I focus on ethics.”

“At the highest level, sales is about creating certainty in another human being…”

JORDAN BELFORT

MELANIE EVANS, WESTPAC: I am really interested in your views on what the financial system, particularly bankers and investment specialists, have WHO ’ S W HO O F FS I

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learned from the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and if you have any views on the role greed played in that.

Did we have our value set wrong?

JORDAN BELFORT: I think brokers should be compensated only on profits. The system of commissions on the buy and the sell is dangerous.

If the person has the highest ethics they will resist temptation but sometimes that gets out of control.

From a cultural perspective, I think that there was this post-Gordon Gecko mentality that greed was good. It was not as if everybody on Wall Street was like that. The problem with Wall Street was that only five per cent were like that but that percentage could destroy everything. A perfect example is the insurance company, AIG. When AIG had to be bailed out by the US government, it was not because all of AIG was bad.

It was one division in upstate New York that created those credit default swaps and managed to destroy everything. So you do not want to paint all bankers, or all of Wall Street, with a negative brush. I think it was a very small group who were really greedy. That is enough to poison the system though because of leverage – it means everything gets magnified. That is another aspect.

In terms of the role the regulators played, I think there is a problem in the United States in particular.

There is a revolving door between Wall Street and the regulators. A classic example is Robert Rubin. He was a Treasury Secretary in the 1990s. He was the guy specifically responsible for relaxing the rules on how much leverage banks could take on.

Then he worked at Citigroup, becoming the head of the company, and promoting investments that make use of that loophole. Rubin makes himself US$500 million and blows up Citigroup to the point where they are almost bankrupt and walks away with the money. Do I think he is an evil guy? No. But the point is that this incestuous Wall Street-Washington relationship is problematic.

MATT PATERSON: Your first book is titled The Wolf of Wall Street, your second is called Catching the Wolf of Wall Street. What will the title of your book be when you have lived a full life?

JORDAN BELFORT: Good question. I feel like I have lived like seven lives already! I guess it would be The Redemption of The Wolf or The Wolf of Wall Street Redeemed. By the way, if there is anything I want to be remembered for in my life, it would be what happened after I went to jail. It is not that I want to bury the past,

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not at all. It is part of my story. The movie was delayed for five years, and I was upset.

I thought that I needed this movie, that so much business would come from it. It turned out to be the best thing that ever could possibly happen. It changed the ending of the movie. Originally, the movie ended in jail. Now it ends with me in my new life. It ends with me on stage giving a seminar teaching sales and doing charity work. The delay meant I created a new chapter of my own story based on five years of working really, really hard and keeping my eye on the ball in terms of where I wanted to go. It is this second act.

I respect my partner who got in trouble with me. He has a very successful company in the medical field.

But he was so embarrassed about his past he tried to hide it and I do not think that is right. I think that people will forgive you as long as you come clean. I think what people hate more than anything is if you try to minimise what you did wrong.

I did not make money from any of this. I gave up all of the profits from the books and the movie to make sure the investors got the money back that was lost. The book is in 75 countries, so together with the movie I think the investors will probably end up getting extra. I did not have to do that because my probation has ended. The most the government could have withheld was 10 per cent of the book profits from the movie.

There is one last thing I want to note. Look what happens in Brazil after a soccer match when the wrong team loses and a couple of drops of alcohol are involved. One guy says something and a million people end up rioting. That is the mob mentality. It does not make sense. What happened at my company was the mob mentality. We had 1,500 people under the age of 23, under the influence of narcotics, making millions of dollars a year. That was a mob situation. It is not like individuals ever act that way.

ANGELO RENTZEPIS, AMP: In this changing world of legislation, we all use terminology such as productivity, increased revenues. But at the end of the day, it all comes back to sales. How do we make that term sexy again?

JORDAN BELFORT: I think that is a very profound observation. My parents had this unbelievably negative view of selling and they never had any money.

Everybody is selling. I always say either you are selling in life or you are failing. As a parent, you are selling to your kids – to make their beds, to do their homework.

You sell to them the value of education. We are always trying to influence them. Selling is not just about

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a product, it is about an idea. It is about a vision for the future. I think there is this clichéd idea of what a salesperson is. There is an image of the hard-charging, fast-talking person who is going to sell you whatever they want to sell you whether you need it or not. They will try to overcharge you. The problem is you always will have people like that – rogue owners of businesses that are just looking to make a dollar.

I think the internet has changed things for the better. I think it has made people smarter. As an ethical persuader, I believe that an educated customer is your best customer. The more your customer knows about your product and the competition, the better it is. You have to be prepared to explain all the reasons why your product makes the most sense.

I think that the internet will end, or has already ended, the days of people going into a stereo shop and being sold something at three times its value. People know value when they see it. I think it comes back to the idea that at the heart of any company must be the concept of giving value.

I have never gone into a sales force where I could not dramatically improve its closing rate. That is easy for me to do because most salespeople are not trained.

They do not know what they are doing, they are just flying blind. People say scripts are evil. I do not think people really understand what scripts are. When you are a salesperson you are not reading from a script.

It is an idea in your head, knowing what to say, having certain language patterns. People say you are going to sound wooden if you have a script. I disagree.

Every movie you have seen, every TV show that you ever enjoyed that moved you emotionally, that brought you to tears, every book you have ever read that made you feel a certain way, was painstakingly scripted out.

We respond because what a script represents is the best effort to evoke a certain feeling in a person. I give the example of the movie Braveheart. Remember the scene where Mel Gibson gets on the horse, all painted up, and gives the great rousing speech to all those people? Just imagine if the [director] had said to him, “Mel, here is what we are going to do. We have 1,000 people there who are going to be all jacked up and wild. We want you to ride in on the horse, all painted up, and say some really good stuff to them.”

And Mel said, “Cool.” You think he winged it?

No. Every word was carefully scripted so Mel said the perfect thing to move you emotionally and to make sense logically. He was selling the people on going into battle and losing their lives. It was a sell job. Much of the poor reputation salespeople have is because they do not know what to say so they say stupid things. They lie, they exaggerate, because they

are trying to close a sale. But the reason they cannot close is because they have not moved the person enough, logically or emotionally.

I think that by training salespeople you make them far more elegant, you take away the high pressure, and you really allow them to empower the customer to make a good decision. There are always going to the bad ones in the bunch, but I think the internet means people are getting smarter and therefore it is going to be a little bit less prevalent.

STEPHEN DUNNE, MACQUARIE BANK: Being in California you are in the heartland of entrepreneurs, Venture Capitalists (VCs) and start-ups. On the East Coast, in banking and financial services, we have seen an increase in startups and an outflow of people from banking into tech. What is your view on the impact to financial services, especially on the east coast, and banking in general?

JORDAN BELFORT: You have to remember that postGFC a lot of the rules changed. Compensation rules changed. A lot of the investment banks went away and created niches for the sort of boutique style of bank, that were almost venture investment banks. So there is certainly an entrepreneurial edge to the air on Wall Street now. The shakeup has created opportunity.

That is very different to what has happened out in California with the VCs. The old way of thinking was that unless you had an office in Silicon Valley, you could not get the funding. That is changing a little bit. There are other hubs now in the United States.

It is starting to decentralise and certainly there is capital flowing more freely now. You also have crowdsourcing websites now such as Kickstarter and other micro-entrepreneur sites.

If anything the GFC has made Wall Street more entrepreneurial. There are a lot of these little boutique start-ups now. In the 1990s, it used to be all about starting your own hedge fund. Now it is all about being the boutique investment bank.

In the US, we had the Glass-Steagall Act, which meant that banks could not own brokerage firms.

[Congress] repealed it [in 1999] but now it is back.

So there has been a lot of shake-ups. There has been some more entrepreneurship on Wall Street to fill some of those gaps.

Investment banking is a low-hanging fruit just now.

All the big firms are gone, so people are running in to fill the niche, and I think that is a great niche right now. I think you will see a lot of these small start-ups becoming medium-sized companies – say 200 to 300 firms over the next three to five years.

“If anything the GFC has made Wall Street more entrepreneurial.”

JORDAN BELFORT

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An Agile Approach to Business Transformation

Top row (from left to right): Anthony Guadagno, Distribution Manager, QBE Insurance; Phil White, Head of Strategy and Distribution, QBE Insurance; Craig Hopper, General Manager, Consumer/Retailer Solutions, GE Capital; Murray Howe, EM – Group Digital Strategy & Innovation, Suncorp; Anthony Aboud, Chief Operating Officer, ME Bank; Steven Ahn, Head of Business Transformation & Change Management, ING Direct; Weston Chisholm, Account Executive, Financial Services & Telecommunications, Pegasystems; Nigel Dobson, General Manager, Group Payments Management – Group Technology, Services & Operations, ANZ; Marcus Judge, Chief Operating Officer, CBA. Bottom row (from left to right): Ian Muir, Head of Customer Experience, Westpac; Paul Dontschuk, Head of Business Solutions, GE Capital; Liz Smith, Head of Commercial Marketing & Media, IAG; Anne Bennett, GM Wealth Online & Digital Servicing, MLC; Kate Kerr, Head of Marketing, Communications & Client Experience, MetLife; Aneta Beocanin, Head of Technology, AMP; Lea Wright, Head of Consumer CRM AFS Strategic Marketing, Westpac; Luke McCormack, Vice President – Asia Pacific, Pegasystems.

The executives featured in this roundtable editorial held the above positions at the time of publication.

LUKE MCCORMACK, PEGASYSTEMS: Welcome everyone. This lunch is an opportunity to discuss some of the things your organisations are doing to drive customer centricity. I would like to introduce Anthony Aboud, Chief Operating Officer of Members Equity Bank. Anthony has been good enough to agree to share the transformation program that ME Bank is undertaking.

ANTHONY ABOUD, ME BANK: ME Bank is owned by the Industry Super Funds – Hesta, CBus, AustralianSuper and Host Plus own about 75 per cent of equity. Our home loans offer additional benefits to members of Industry Super Funds, unions and employer associations.

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I joined three years ago, after 15 years with GE Capital in various roles. On the day that I joined, I knew that the CEO wanted to move the bank to a valuesbased organisation, and we wanted to be a digital bank.

Results indicated we had a good level of customer service with high customer satisfaction and strong Net Promoter Score (NPS). We had investment approved to complete a technology transformation, so I knew there was commitment. Our burning platform for change was that our current systems would not allow us to deliver disruptive growth in customer numbers.

I started to get the business to focus on customer effort. How much effort was the customer putting into dealing with us? Reducing customer effort and increasing the reliance on strong partnerships became

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a key focus for me as the COO. The partnership with Pega illustrates how bringing those two things together can deliver some great results. The CIO and I work very closely together with the other executives, and the focus is on customers, on growth, on returns, and challenging us not to build a traditional bank. When you start from a low base, when you make your debut into the marketplace, what do you want to do? What does ME Bank need to do to disrupt? The longer-term view is that we want a customer-integrated view around super and banking. We want a customer-led view so that our customers can deal with us in any channel and get a similar experience. That is what we want to come out at the end of our technology transformation, and obviously, we want to disrupt and innovate.

It is about five key things: • Customers – placing the customer at the centre of our thinking.

• Simple and efficient operation – this includes lean methodologies.

• Growth and retention – engaging and retaining customers as well as offering additional sources.

• Terrific workplace – making it a great place for our employees.

• Reputation – minimising risk and delivering against our commitments.

We are replacing our core banking platform, so we will not have core legacy systems. We will replace old systems with the T24 Banking Platform and deploy an integration layer. We have minimised customisation and put a lot of emphasis on the new core system when developing the new workflow. Pega helped us build our origination platforms, so our staff and customers are inputting in the Pega environment, which helps with workflow and making the process seamless.

We had an exciting milestone recently, where we released our first product with the Pega technology.

Essentially, a customer can now join ME Bank within four minutes, and open up a transaction account. It delivers straight-through processing – approximately 60 per cent of customers go straight through, which includes being identified through Green ID, Internet banking established and BSB and account number issued. Once the card is received they can self-activate.

No matter how they apply – internet, workplace banker, contact centre, mobile banker or kiosk – they will all have the same experience. Any time they choose to depart from that application, they will get a code and they will be able to re-access the application at anytime, anywhere. If they decide they do not want to do that themselves, they can call the contact centre.

The contact centre will use that code and they will see exactly the path and the information the customer has

supplied and what is currently in the system and where they are.

Prior to this change, we were only getting about a 30 per cent throughput rate. If someone applied online, they would start an application and about 30 per cent of them were actually going through and completing and submitting the application. Since we launched with the new system, that has gone up to 45 per cent.

The information that we have, and that we can capture in the system through our queues, we are using to increase the throughput rate through proactive communication with potential customers. Of the customers that are going through and submitting them, 60 per cent are going through and being identified as well as getting their account and their BSB number on the spot.

However, until the new core banking platform is delivered in the new year, existing customers do form part of the 40 per cent drop-off as Pega, through our integration layer, is still dealing with legacy systems. Those new-to-bank customers that do not go straight through are due to ID. In these cases, over 90 per cent are at least 53 per cent [validated] towards the 100-point check at the time of submitting the application. In March we will launch the next milestone, and that will put our other deposit products up on the origination platform, which is Pega. We also switch on T24 at that time. Data migration is a key focus to hit that deadline.

The most exciting part for me is that we will move our personal loan and mortgage origination onto the Pega system by July next year. It is a very aggressive timeframe and we have been very strict on scope creep throughout the project. This is where Pega has assisted.

We have tried to do something similar previously with another supplier and it has been a case of ‘when you fail you have to fail fast and move on.’ Pega allows us to be more agile.

After our transformation is delivered, that is a new starting point for us as a business. It is not the end of our journey. It just will give us the agility to do what we need to do in the new system.

“We want a customerled view so that our customers can deal with us in any channel and get a similar experience.”

ANTHONY ABOUD, ME BANK

LUKE MCCORMACK, PEGASYSTEMS: There are obviously different methods of engaging with customers to understand what they need, and want. At Pega we work with many customers that have adopted NPS as a method of assessing themselves in the eye of the customer. One of the speakers this morning at FST Media’s Technology & Innovation – the Future of Banking conference talked about the fact that they are moving beyond NPS to attain more qualitative information around customer feedback. I am interested in the WHO ’ S W HO O F FS I

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approach that different organisations take because I think it has gone far beyond simple surveys. What are some of the thinking that different organisations have around assessing or understanding their customer based on their feedback?

PAUL DONTSCHUK, GE CAPITAL: Earlier in the year we implemented a customer experience lab. I look after application development, support and testing at GE, and my challenge was integrating the feedback that we get out of that customer experience lab quickly within our development cycle. I have been looking at using Agile to do that. We have had a number of early successes. For example, prototyping an app on the iPhone, being able to bring people into the experience lab, utilising technology such as eye tracking software, and getting immediate feedback and making changes.

We took the next iteration into the retail environment where we expect the customer to use it, then observed behaviours as input for further development. This method integrated with Agile has dramatically reduced cycle time while tightly integrating customer feedback.

“Integrating the compliance and the legal sign-offs and the other interests of stakeholders have certainly been a big challenge for us.”

PAUL DONTSCHUK, GE CAPITAL

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LUKE MCCORMACK, PEGASYSTEMS: Paul, what has the reaction been as you integrated customer feedback from your experience labs, and adopted Agile as an approach to deliver outcomes? How have you balanced potential changes to scope? What have the experiences been? What are the results?

2015. I know that when I extend to a bigger audience there are going to be challenges making sure all those stakeholders are lined up.

LUKE MCCORMACK, PEGASYSTEMS: At Suncorp it is clear that Agile delivery and becoming an Agile organisation is very important, and you are a lot further down the track in your maturity. I am interested in how you have dealt with the challenge that Paul just outlined about stakeholder engagement and that empowerment, that trust, in an Agile delivery environment.

MURRAY HOWE, SUNCORP: Compliance is always going to be a challenge because [legal departments] like to see things in situ before they can pass comment on it. I work in a digital strategy and innovation space, so Agile is quite good for me in that sense. You start by bringing in the willing coalition at the beginning of the initiative. For those stakeholders, their expectations are not, “I will see you in three months’ time with a developed scope, and I will sign it off in six months’ time.” Our experience with Agile is that we will commit to a higher number of more frequent, but shorter meetings, with an understanding that we will iterate as we go. From a documentation perspective it has been awesome, because there is not a lot of documentation – which can serve as a drag on creativity and flexibility.

STEVEN AHN, ING DIRECT: For most organisations that

PAUL DONTSCHUK, GE CAPITAL: Probably one of the

is sacrilege. How did you transition around the cultural change and trust required?

biggest challenges – and as I look at implementing Agile in the organisation, one of my key data points – is the 30 to 40 signatures we traditionally require on requirements documents. So that has been one of the big challenges. How do you use, very quickly, the data that we are getting out of the user experience lab, put that in a format that those previously 30 to 40 people are going to feel comfortable with, then allow changes in a production environment. In addition, we are a regulated entity so we have to get stuff right.

Integrating the compliance and the legal sign-offs and the other interests of stakeholders have certainly been a big challenge for us.

We have seen adoption rates go up by a few percentage points through the changes that we have been able to run through the lab and Agile. We have also seen costs come down and likewise, our timeframes to implement. I would like to think of it as delivering value as opposed to delivering product.

We have done it in quite a controlled manner, so my goal over 2014 is to get about 20 per cent of our projects using Agile methodologies, and about 50 per cent in

MURRAY HOWE, SUNCORP: There are two adages that have always worked well for me: ‘A rolling stone gathers no moss’ and ‘If you keep the bar low enough then it is pretty hard to fail.’ Both of those have worked in this environment. In our technology space you have a person with a strong vision that says, “That is going to happen, get on the bus or get off,” and that is what happened – a decision was made. The decision was backed up through persistence and a strong, very heavy ongoing investment in transformation. It has been approximately six years where Agile has been a persistent investment – everything is driven through that paradigm, so in our technology culture that is not even questioned.

We are now moving towards a distributed Agile model, so we can work that way with partners in different countries, with the same philosophy, on a daily basis. We have 60-inch TVs mounted in certain rooms and the teams work with each other in the same time zone as if they are in the same room. Taking these cumulative small steps, before you know it you

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look backwards to say, “Well this is just what we do.”

We have made a couple of mistakes in the innovation space around launching a new brand or a new product into a new customer segment, and we have done that the traditional way. I just do not see how you do that anymore.

LUKE MCCORMACK, PEGASYSTEMS: We have covered a couple of sources of inspiration for Agile delivery to provide validation and make sure you are heading down the right direction. One source, as Paul mentioned, is the use of customer experience labs. Kate, I want to ask you about harvesting internal IP – the gold dust that exists within your organisation. You have people out fighting the good fight all day every day – facing customers all the time. They know what it means to have those moments of truth with customers every day. How do you at MetLife harvest that information?

KATE KERR, METLIFE: Harvesting the internal IP is about leveraging the extra 10, 20 per cent who do not usually speak out and provide feedback.

That may be a cultural issue, and is something that the younger part of our workforce understands as they engage in a much more collaborative way.

We identified that there can be blocks. Traditional decision-making has been taken up to the top of the organisation and filtered down.

We implemented two forms of feedback. One is a collaborative global platform for sharing best practice.

It looks similar to Facebook, but people can develop their own communities – anyone in MetLife can look up by subject and see ideas posted by associates in other countries. Another was our Voice of the Customer program. Through the feedback we received from our NPS programs, we identified trends and the need to find solutions.

The traditional way of coming up with ideas was sitting around the table with a certain select group of people, but always the same people. We were not tapping into our full talent pool. So we introduced a social innovation platform called ‘Spigot’. It enables you to do short-burst campaigns, whereby the whole community can join in and be involved in contributing with ideas to address a customer issue. You can say what size community you want – we involved all our Australian business, but did bring some people in from the UK to address some issues around claims.

You define what the campaign objective is and give everybody in your community the login.

Once logged in, they read what the statement or issue is and then they log their ideas. Then, the community vote on those and add to the ideas. Starting with one

little nugget, you have this whole inspirational solution building across the whole organisation. It takes five minutes per day of logging, in a little longer for the champions who go in and help rate and prioritise the ideas. Out of the last campaign on claims, we had something like 130 ideas. Some of the ideas overlapped, so we combined those, but we have come up with five really good ideas. Some are quick wins, some medium-term and other ones are longer-term, where it involves IT development or cross-functional impact. The level of engagement and satisfaction from the employees is just huge.

LEA WRIGHT, WESTPAC: We have something a little bit similar called ‘Mr Easy’ to fast track quick win IT programs. It is about how to make change – but the right change at the right point in time for the customer.

It is fantastic because it engages the frontline, provides a forum for suggestions, it taps the moments of truth that are out there, and it also builds the engagement.

KATE KERR, METLIFE: The employees really feel empowered and connected to the customer, and have a voice within the organisation. They feel they can influence customer experience, whereas before, with the old suggestion boxes, the ideas usually got lost. You dampen enthusiasm because if it does not go anywhere, people are not going to bother again.

ANTHONY GUADAGNO, QBE INSURANCE: Kate, did you involve your customers in that feedback as well?

KATE KERR, METLIFE: That particular one was internal, but some of our customers are really interested in using it. particularly, in the superannuation space around member engagement. Member engagement is a real challenge, as most of you are aware.

“Through the feedback we received from our NPS programs we identified trends and the need to find solutions.”

KATE KERR, METLIFE

ANTHONY GUADAGNO, QBE INSURANCE: We have recently introduced customer surveys in a B2B environment. It would be interesting feedback that we could consider in our process in order to strive for improved procedures and benchmarks.

ANTHONY ABOUD, ME BANK: We have a component that we call ‘Ask’. Data analytics is a new focus for us and we use what data we have to validate what customers are telling us by observing their interactions.

For example, I could have a customer who says, “I only want to deal with you on the telephone,” but I can see through data and observation that they constantly try and deal with us in an online channel. In this case the observation is not exactly what they are saying is W HO ’ S W HO O F FS I

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“In my experience you often have to draw out the best ideas, whether through workshops or from a mixture of different forums.”

PHIL WHITE, QBE INSURANCE

ANNE BENNETT, MLC: You mentioned member engagement before. I am interested in what you are starting to think about in that space.

LIZ SMITH, IAG: We did a similar thing to you, Kate, and

KATE KERR, METLIFE: Member engagement is one

put it on our Yammer platform. It was initially launched as, “When you have downtime please feel free to log in and log your challenges,” and we found that culturally that word was really not acceptable. Singapore and a lot of the markets were not prepared to admit to having downtime, so we had to reposition. We had to get the CEO and the rest of the executives to support it actively and we repositioned it as, “It is important for everybody to have the time for personal development outside and we needed that expertise.” It was quite interesting that it backfired quite badly initially just because we used the wrong phrase.

of the big challenges out there, particularly for superannuation funds, because they have been through a significant year this year in terms of regulatory change. What they ask themselves is, “What can we actually differentiate ourselves on,” and the thing that they realise is technology and service. Whereas before it was maybe 20 per cent of a conversation with a superannuation fund and our partners, it is probably up to 50 or 60 per cent of the conversation now. Pricing and product are still very important because they have to be competitive, but the other value-adds of service and technology are coming into discussions a lot more because of the need to retain members.

KATE KERR, METLIFE: Did your executives actually get involved?

LIZ SMITH, IAG: Absolutely.

KATE KERR, METLIFE: That was my biggest challenge. It was that change of behaviour for them as well as, “You are also an employee, you also have ideas,” and need to be seen as part of that community.

PHIL WHITE, QBE INSURANCE: You talked about when you are doing workshops it has always been the same people. How much do you understand the segment that actually responds to these different platforms that you have put into place?

KATE KERR, METLIFE: Their names are visible, and their departments, so we can see that we have a crosssection of people we would never traditionally have been able to reach out to. We also face the challenge of reaching our associates who work from home. You have to understand what the community is that you want to reach.

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PHIL WHITE, QBE INSURANCE: In my experience you

important to them. Therefore, when we act we need to understand how we are failing the customer in their preferred channel and forcing them into another.

Our program is called ‘Act Now’ – it is about identifying 30-, 60- or 90-day initiatives. We recently had our whole contact centre do an Act Now initiative.

We get a black belt from our Operational Excellence team to facilitate it, with business leaders as the champions. The people that are in the frontline with customers understand the pain points that we have got from Ask, and they observe and then provide suggested improvements through innovative thinking and collaboration. Any initiative identified that is large or long-term and will take longer than 90 days goes into our regular change agenda.

often have to draw out the best ideas, whether through workshops or from a mixture of different forums.

Social chats are a perfect medium for some parts of the employee segment.

KATE KERR, METLIFE: It is not a single point of gathering ideas. These are just short campaigns. We still do workshops. You have to say what you are trying to achieve and use the different forums to match it, so we still do that.

ANNE BENNETT, MLC: I would say the same about member retention. In the last six months we have trialled online advice tools for our corporate super members, and found they have been quite successful.

KATE KERR, METLIFE: They have such a challenge with their data as well. It is well known that the regulators are very much focusing on the need to get the data accurate. That is a challenge in itself in terms of knowing the customer, so there is a lot of work going on and a tremendous amount of opportunity as well.

LUKE MCCORMACK, PEGASYSTEMS: Ian, I wanted to ask you a question in relation to compliance pressures. There has been a recurring theme about customer ease of consumption and matching the needs and wants of customers, but there is an almost immovable object of regulation and compliance that organisations need to contend with. I would be interested in your thoughts about that, especially based on some of the content that you shared at the conference yesterday.

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IAN MUIR, WESTPAC: One of the key things is involving and engaging legal and compliance throughout the process. I understand that they often want to see it in context, but if they have been provided with a lot of the background and they have had some input along the way, that makes it a lot easier. A lot of compliance approaches have been from the view that, ‘We have to do this, and why do we have to comply?’ We have found it better to ask, ‘How do we turn this into an opportunity to provide better customer service?’ If you take that viewpoint upfront, it is amazing how much something that is an imposed compliance regulation can turn into a business opportunity.

LUKE MCCORMACK, PEGASYSTEMS: So could regulators do a better job of selling change that they would like to see, and present them in a much more ‘business development’ friendly context? I think that is a bit of an obvious question.

IAN MUIR, WESTPAC: Yes, it is almost a rhetorical one because quite often the regulators have that intention.

It can be challenging to retain the intention, but they certainly want everyone to understand both the principles and the intent.

LUKE MCCORMACK, PEGASYSTEMS: We are lucky to have a very diverse set of organisations here today with very different definitions of customer. Nigel – as far as regulation is concerned (with FATCA, KYC and customer due diligence) – how do you see organisations turning that into opportunity? There is no question that, with the capture of a lot more information, there should be a higher level of intimacy. I am not sure that always transpires, but I am interested in your thoughts.

NIGEL DOBSON, ANZ: Sometimes regulation and technology almost seem to be in collusion. Technology can create innovation in financial services, which can cause problems down the line, such as overly sophisticated products being sold to the wrong consumers, which then creates a problem to which there is a regulatory response. Often, that regulatory response involves financial institutions being more transparent, which inevitably involves delivering better information via improved or upgraded systems.

Information is gold, but there are emerging boundaries. There are the rules you need to comply with. There is the information you need as an organisation to fulfil these compliance obligations.

There is the information you would like to have, and you would like clients to give to you. I think, without exception, the organisations represented

here have the trust of their clients and [clients] trust us with that information. I see this as a series of stepping stones, where right now we are investing in managing our own data for our own purposes to lower our costs, giving us better visibility, with an ultimate goal to deliver better analytics to our clients and better information to them. Eventually there will be this boundary – ‘do not be creepy’. As soon as banks or insurance companies are felt by their clients to be spying on them or snooping, we have lost trust.

LUKE MCCORMACK, PEGASYSTEMS: How often do you think that happens? How often do you think people take the persona of a customer?

NIGEL DOBSON, ANZ: I do it all the time. We look at the likes of Google and Apple as leading in technology and I often reference my own experience interacting with them. As I come to work on the train, I think about the way I want to interact with my personal magazines, newspapers, things that interest me, and I want to be able to sit down at my desk and not have a radically different experience. Whatever you feel good about with your own personal technology experience should be what leads your corporate needs and those of your customers.

MURRAY HOWE, SUNCORP: There is a lot of reflection in terms of what is a customer going to be worried about. On one hand I receive links to articles on something that has made the papers, and then I receive a report on the number of people who have visited our group privacy page – and in the last three years it has been seven! So when thinking about how to reword some of our cookie policies and privacy policies, do we really understand what the customer sentiment is? I would have thought if it were really that important I would have had more than seven people looking at it.

“We look at the likes of Google and Apple as leading in technology and I often reference my own experience interacting with them.”

NIGEL DOBSON, ANZ

LEA WRIGHT, WESTPAC: If you are searching for home loans, and you get something that has information about home loans, then it is about being contextual.

You are thinking, “That is what I need to know at that point in time.” But if it were something else that had an obvious link to you, then it would be inappropriate. It is all about context and relevance and the immediacy of the information.

KATE KERR, METLIFE: Is it about maturity as well?

People are wowed at the moment with what we can do with technology, but we actually have not seen it being used against people. If you look at Facebook, they say they can use your data in any way that they want – that is what you are signing up to with a lot of these sites.

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LEA WRIGHT, WESTPAC: It is happening, so custom audiences with Facebook now are being explored in the States, and also here. LinkedIn is doing the same.

KATE KERR, METLIFE: I do not believe it has been exposed yet. When it does, the hits on accessing the privacy statements will go up as people start to realise how their data is being used, and what they are.

LEA WRIGHT, WESTPAC: We are finding that younger people tend to be have a different view on privacy. It is a level of maturity because their life experiences have been limited to a degree. As you go down the life cycle, privacy becomes a bigger issue.

NIGEL DOBSON, ANZ: I agree. Even the younger generation, which has a low threshold for privacy, I think their threshold moves with their growing maturity and the fact that they have a greater body of private information that ultimately follows them.

“The question is how to stay relevant and be progressive.”

IAN MUIR, WESTPAC

LUKE MCCORMACK, PEGASYSTEMS: I have the opportunity to work with a number of customers across multiple verticals. Obviously, this lunch is focused on financial services, but a lot of the customers I talk to see financial services as a leader, an innovator. So the question I want to pose is – what industries do you and your organisations look to for innovation around customer engagement?

LEA WRIGHT, WESTPAC: Telcos and retail are the ones that are at similar levels on the journey. No matter how many other institutions you meet and talk to, everyone is at different stages of the development. Everyone has a different piece of the pie. Someone has started the journey from digital, someone has started from outbound, or call centres, and is pulling it all together.

CRAIG HOPPER, GE CAPITAL: In the UK, the lines between financial services and retail are gone. If you look at the management of some of the larger Australian retailers, they have come from the UK, so I think you are going to see the borders between a number of industries that you know today blurring and disappearing. If you look at digital payment for example – telco and financial services – that is going, going, gone.

Telcos and retail are great examples because they have millions of interactions with their customer base on a daily or weekly basis. They have just as many big brains thinking about this stuff, and they have more data than we do, and they probably have better analytics that we do.

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MURRAY HOWE, SUNCORP: Looking at it from an insurance perspective, the Coles example is a good one. The other is one that I have been following for about three years is called ‘Climate Corp.’ We first saw it in 2010 and they did an A series investment of ten or so million. These guys came out of Google, so there are adjacencies to insurance based on data. Then we watched them go B series of 100 million, and they just got bought by Monsanto for a billion, in four years. They have just taken a completely different perspective of data symmetry to the insurance game. I do not know what Monsanto is going to do with them, but that is quite worrying, really, for an incumbent.

PAUL DONTSCHUK, GE CAPITAL: To give the example you have just talked about and Pinterest. I do not know if people know Pinterest but the amount of data that has been gathered by that site that is important to that customer is significant. If you talk about context, things suddenly become relevant for a site like that so I think it is right to be looking at other, or similar, industries for symmetries. I actually think we want to be watching over the shoulder for these new entrants to the market because they have incredible reach, incredible access to data, which actually is all very relevant to us. The other one that I have not heard anyone talk about at the conference is different payment methods like Bitcoin.

I am sure everyone must be saying, “Is that going to be just a fly-by-night or is something going to come out of that,” because it really fundamentally changes the model that we operate under today.

LEA WRIGHT, WESTPAC: The question is, who owns the mobile wallet? Where does financial services actually sit, going forward, and who owns the customer relationship and what does that look like? And how much of the customer data do they own? The cost of entry into financial services is lower now – you do not actually need bricks and mortar anymore.

IAN MUIR, WESTPAC: Reacting to the possibility that Pinterest, or any other internet-based business with a large customer base, might set up financial services and be a bank, is the wrong question. Being paranoid around that might be okay, but if as a financial services provider, you are not being relevant to your customers and not moving with the times. There are going to be threats to the customer relationship, with actions and reactions to those relationships. The question is how to stay relevant and be progressive.

MARCUS JUDGE, CBA: One of the challenges to many financial services organisations is that they use the idea

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that they sort of go from soup to nuts in the process of creating a product, delivering it to the customer and then supporting it after the customer has got it. The point was well made about the customer relationship and who is there with the customer. The rise of digital and online is the big driver here – it has enabled people to set up businesses and get in contact with people quite easily. It is not that hard, if you have a catchy online proposition of any kind, to get that going and suddenly find yourself in contact with an awful lot of people. The distinction here is between distribution and products.

These issues are very prevalent in distribution. Are they as material in the product side of our business? I am not sure that they are quite the same.

LUKE MCCORMACK, PEGASYSTEMS: What role does process play in achieving customer centricity?

LEA WRIGHT, WESTPAC: One of the things we do is go through our top complaints. We categorise them and we see what can we do to address them operationally, then what can we do with the customer experience. You need to have improvement on the process, but sometimes there comes a point where you cannot improve them.

What you can do is have a great customer conversation and interaction. If you listen to the verbatims from your customers, a lot of the times the complaint is not necessarily about the problem or the issue. It is about the way they were treated.

KATE KERR, METLIFE: We do complaint-listening in the organisation very regularly and 80 per cent of feedback is not about the products and the price, it is the way people are treated. When people feel mistreated, and then go on social media, it can blow out of all proportion. In terms of how the process is driven, it is about how you map that and understand those customer touch points through the process. The employee should have the tools to understand the customer and be able to concentrate on the relationship, the value and the context of the conversation.

ANTHONY ABOUD, ME BANK: I always think of the staff in the front line – they deal with very complex situations. When the process breaks, they have to deal with the customers. Process is more than just a hygiene factor – where you can get it right, you also continue to make it simple and efficient.

KATE KERR, METLIFE: I remember being in a lot of trouble early on in my career when I was running a call centre, and I told the staff to forget about call duration

and just serve the customer. Statistics deteriorated, but then complaints came down and gradually productivity improved as the employees learned to meet the customer needs. Trust your employees to be able to deal with the customer, and how to deal with that customer effectively.

LEA WRIGHT, WESTPAC: We have a huge inbound leads program, and last year we ramped up from almost zero to two out of every five inbound calls having a conversation against them. What we have done is run the post-call survey matrix with NPS against that as much as other calls and we actually see ten points NPS uplift on those conversations for an accepted conversation, and another eight points if it is declined.

Even if it is a conversation that did not actually go anywhere you are actually seeing NPS uplift.

ANTHONY ABOUD, ME BANK: Some people call me crazy when I talk about effort as a separate customer metric, and there are studies around re-use and loyalty.

You will get better re-spend with a customer and loyalty if you reduce their effort.

PHIL WHITE, QBE INSURANCE: I am intrigued with you saying you would like to automate and lower effort.

There are some contrary schools of thought around wanting to have customer interactions – the transaction might be simple, but it does not give the opportunity to start building a relationship with the customer. To build a relationship with the customer you have to spend time with them. How do you balance those?

ANTHONY ABOUD, ME BANK: You are not automating everything, those processes that are not valued by your customer. It is about first contact resolution rather than first call resolution.

“The rise of digital and online is the big driver here – it has enabled people to set up businesses and get in contact with people quite easily.”

MARCUS JUDGE, CBA

PHIL WHITE, QBE INSURANCE: Do you consciously find ways to have an interaction with a customer – a personal interaction?

ANTHONY ABOUD, ME BANK: Yes, absolutely. A good example is our workplace strategy , how can you interact with a customer in their channel of choice, and not everything can be automated. Even though we say we want to be a digital bank, we understand there are interactions that need to be face-to-face.

LUKE MCCORMACK, PEGASYSTEMS: In the spirit of customer centricity – I would like to thank Anthony for sharing his transformation experience and also for everyone’s contribution today. It has been a great discussion and thank you for your time.

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Jade software

Datawatch

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• Connect to virtually any data source, including real-time streaming feeds, message buses, output of Complex Event Processing (CEP) engines, Odata sources, flat files, relational databases, and proprietary data formats.

• Monitor data from real-time market feeds, trading systems and other sources using an intuitive and interactive web-based interface that allows in-depth analysis of fast changing risk information.

• Monitor relative workloads, performance of traders compared to goals, day impacts, execution risk, accumulated and averaged values, ordered values versus executed values, and other criteria that will help better manage people and operations.

• Understand data at a glance through visual analytics tools that are optimised for handling time-critical data.

We have offices in New Zealand, Australia, USA, UK, and the United Arab Emirates.

Jade software Level 12, 409 st Kilda road Melbourne Vic 3004 Australia contact: Justin Mercer Phone: 1800 734 760 (Australia) email: contactjadeaus@jadeworld.com twitter: @jadesoftware website: www.jadeworld.com

Datawatch Analytics (singapore) Pte Ltd 60B Pagoda street singapore 059219 Phone: +65 6513 3398 email: sales_apac@datawatch.com website: www.datawatch.com w ho ’ s w ho o f fs i

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ANALytics

APPLicAtioN AND Process iNtegrAtioN

sitecore

LANsA

Sitecore is a global leader in customer experience management software that lets marketers own the experience of every customer or prospect that engages with their brand. The company delivers highly relevant content and personalised digital experiences that delight audiences, build loyalty and drive revenue.

Sitecore’s experience platform is deeply connected, delivering a single connected experience across both online and offline channels, empowering brands to easily engage in seamless conversations with their audiences when and where they want, in real-time.

The platform is easy to use, combining best-in-class web content management with marketing automation, email marketing, social media, e-commerce, optimisation, and analytics into a single, unified platform.

Sitecore captures every minute interaction – and intention – that customers and prospects have with a brand, both on a website and across other digital channels. As the platform is deeply connected, marketers get this intelligence immediately, and can easily act on it in real-time, within the same session.

More than 3,500 of the world’s leading brands including HSBC, American Express, AustralianSuper, Carnival Cruise Lines, easyJet, and Heineken trust Sitecore to help them deliver the meaningful interactions that win customers for life.

LANSA provides software tools for application development, integration and modernisation. It is one of Australia’s most successful software exporters, supporting thousands of companies around the world. Our toolset is the technology foundation for a wide range of business solutions from more than 300 partners.

Through our partner, Fidelity Information Services, and its LANSA-based commercial loans solution ‘ACBS’, 23 of the top 50 banks in the world are LANSA customers.

In Australia, customers include AMP, which uses LANSA for its superannuation system.

sitecore Level 4, 50 Pitt street sydney Nsw Australia Phone: +61 2 8014 8857 email: sales-au@sitecore.net twitter: @sitecoreanz website: www.sitecore.net 154

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the need to integrate Many organisations are struggling to integrate applications, especially when different technologies, vendors and skills are involved. Integration with cloud platforms and 3rd-parties can also be challenging. LANSA offers a practical and affordable solution to help organisations streamline procedures, reduce human effort and minimise errors.

• Code-free data mapping and process definition.

• Transportation – move data and documents between source and target, using internet, file transfer, email or messaging.

• Transformation – mapping data between many different formats.

• Process orchestration – sequential and conditional execution.

• Administration – auditing, error-handling/recovery and more.

• Visual and code-free development environment for business analysts with ‘LANSA Composer’.

• Ultimate flexibility with ‘LANSA Integrator’, which includes wizard-based development for web services.

LANsA Pty Ltd Level 8, 122 Arthur street North sydney, Nsw 2060 Australia contact: Peter Tyrrell Phone: +61 2 8907 0200 email: peter.tyrrell@lansa.com.au twitter: @LANSA website: www.lansa.com/products/application-integration.htm

w h o’ s w ho Di r ec to ry

Banking technology

Banking technology

avaloq

hcl technologies limited

The Avaloq group is an international leader in integrated and comprehensive solutions for wealth management, universal and retail banks. It has a reputation for the highest standards in engineering excellence, and is passionate about innovation, invests more in research and development (R&D) than any other provider for the financial industry.

The company’s meticulous and uncompromising attention to detail has enabled it to achieve a unique 100 per cent success rate in its implementation of banking solutions around the world.

The entire ‘Avaloq Banking Suite’ is consistently designed throughout and delivers unique business benefits to its users as well as strong technical performance. Avaloq is the only independent provider for the financial industry to both develop and operate its own software.

Avaloq offers business process and IT outsourcing solutions from business process outsourcing centres in Switzerland and Germany.

The company employs more than 1,400 highly-qualified banking and IT specialists and has a global customer base of more than 100 financial institutions in over 20 countries worldwide including Tier-1 banks located in the most demanding financial centres. Headquartered in Switzerland, Avaloq has branches in Berlin, Frankfurt, Geneva, Hong Kong, Leipzig, London, Luxembourg, Paris, Singapore, Sydney and Zurich. It has development centres in Zurich and Edinburgh as well as a development support centre in Manila.

As a $5 billion global company, HCL Technologies brings IT and engineering services expertise under one roof to solve complex business problems for its clients. Leveraging an extensive global offshore infrastructure and a network of offices across 31 countries, HCL provides holistic, multi-service delivery in such industries as financial services, manufacturing, consumer services, public services and healthcare.

A micro-vertical strategy, built on strong domain expertise, ensures that no matter how complex a company’s business problem, we can offer a solution that is sustainable and innovation-driven. Whatever the area – enterprise application services, IT infrastructure management, custom application services, engineering and R&D services, business services or enterprise transformation services – the collective wisdom of HCL’s 88,332 ideapreneurs can turn technology into a distinctive competitive advantage for our customers.

avaloq asia Pacific one Phillip street #06-01 singapore 048692 contact: Gery Dachlan email: gery.dachlan@avaloq.com avaloq australia 5 lime street sydney 2000 nsw australia contact: Iain Dunstan email: iain.dunstan@avaloq.com website: www.avaloq.com

hcl technologies limited 8 shenton way, # 33-03 aXa tower singapore 068811 Phone: +65 6273 8288 email: gautam.bhasin@hcl.com twitter: @hcltech website: www.hcltech.com w ho ’ s w ho o f fs i

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BANkiNg techNoLogy

Big DAtA

hitachi eBworx

iBM Australia

Hitachi eBworx is a leading international consulting and technology solutions firm delivering innovative and high-performance solutions to banks in the region. It has an enviable 100 per cent delivery track record in multiple countries.

Hitachi eBworx is recognised as a regional brand and is a two-time ‘Best of Financial Applications’ winner at the Asia Pacific ICT Alliance (APICTA) awards. Its customer base boasts some of the largest Tier-1 banks in the region including the super-regional banks of Asia Pacific.

Hitachi eBworx provides the following solutions: • Credit management solutions: o ‘Digital Credit Management System’ is an automated credit origination and processing management solution. o ‘Digital Collection & Recovery System’ is an effective management of collection and debt recovery.

• Touchpoint solutions: o ‘Digital Retail Internet Banking’ is the next generation of online and lifestyle banking services. o ‘Digital Transaction Banker’ is a global cash management and trade finance solution enabling a multi-country, multi-language, multi-currency and multi-device banking experience for your corporate customers. o ‘Digital Mobile Banker’ provides banking anytime, anywhere, anyhow lifestyle banking on your mobile device.

• ‘Digitalboard’ – sell more via tablet with multi-channel delivery leveraging an existing legacy system.

• Trade finance solutions – ‘TradeSpring’ is a beyond borders trade processing solution.

Everyday, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data – so much that 90 per cent of data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone.

This data comes from everywhere: sensors used to gather climate information, posts to social media sites, digital pictures and videos posted online, transaction records of online purchases and mobile phone GPS signals, to name a few. This data is big data.

hitachi eBworx Level 3A Block B, No. 10 Jalan Bersatu 13/4, 46200, Petaling Jaya selangor Malaysia Phone: +603 7956 9822 email: contact@hitachi-ebworx.com website: www.hitachi-ebworx.com 156

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Big data spans three dimensions: Variety, Velocity and Volume.

• Variety: Big data extends beyond structured data, including unstructured data of all varieties: text, audio, video, click streams, log files and more.

• Velocity: Often time-sensitive, big data must be used as it is streaming in to the enterprise to maximise its value to the business.

• Volume: Big data comes in one size: large. Enterprises are awash with data, easily amassing terabytes and even petabytes of information.

Big data is more than a challenge; it is an opportunity to find insight in new and emerging types of data, to make your business more agile and to answer questions that, in the past, were beyond reach. Until now, there was no practical way to harvest this opportunity.

Today, IBM’s platform for big data opens the door to a world of possibilities, giving organisations a solution that is designed specifically with the needs of the enterprise in mind.

iBM Australia Pty Ltd 601 Pacific highway st Leonards Nsw 2065 Australia Phone: 1800 557 343 website: www.ibm.com/software/au/analytics/

w h o’ s w ho Di r ec to ry

Big Data

BusiNess iNteLLigeNce

tiBco software

Qlik

Backed by decades of innovation in infrastructure technology and a customer base of leading global banks, TIBCO offers a unique, event-driven approach to growing revenue and solving the operational challenges of 21st century financial services organisations. TIBCO has deep experience working with financial services businesses.

TIBCO's record in capital markets is demonstrated by more than two decades of leadership in innovative, high-performance infrastructure technology that enables capital markets players to compete in a world where success is measured in milliseconds.

TIBCO can assist your organisation with massive volumes of events and data flowing across your operations through: • A customer-oriented, event-driven architecture that aligns your operations to customers and customer opportunities.

• Innovative event-processing technologies that leverage in-memory computing to capture and correlate millions of events, allowing you to identify opportunities and risks in real-time.

• A standard way to perform integration and create new services, resulting in significantly greater agility and reducing the time and resources needed to add new applications, capabilities and partners.

• Operational efficiency gains and significant cost savings resulting from automation and workforce optimisation.

Qlik (NASDAQ: QLIK) simplifies how people explore their data to help them make better decisions. With its Qlik Business Discovery platform people quickly bring data sources together to create dynamic visual applications that can be navigated and searched intuitively. Qlik uses Natural Analytics™ to reflect the way human curiosity searches and processes information, while delivering the enterprise manageability, governance and service offerings organisations require. Qlik and its global partner network support approximately 31,000 customers in over 100 countries.

• Empower business users: Qlik’s associative experience provides answers as fast as you can think of questions. It lets you interact with data without limitations to generate insight in ways you never imagined.

• Enable IT pros to deliver self-service BI: Qlik lets IT deliver a complete self-service BI experience – all while assuring strict data security, quality and governance.

• Make life easier for BI pros/developers: Qlik makes it easy for business analysts and BI developers to create cutting-edge BI apps that users can enhance and extend as business needs change.

• Tame big data with Qlik: – Consolidate relevant data from multiple sources – Choose the method most relevant for your IT infrastructure – Leverage existing investments – Access big data without complex data modelling or programming – Explore associations between big data and traditional data – Visualise big data with engaging graphics – Access and analyse from mobile devices – Enable social decision-making through real-time collaboration

tiBco software Level 11, 100 Pacific highway North sydney 2060 Nsw australia Phone: +61 2 9458 2100 twitter: @tibco website: www.tibco.com singapore 9 raffles Place #20-20 republic Plaza ii singapore 048619 Phone: +65 6836 3880 hong Kong room 3301, the Lee gardens, 33 hysan avenue causeway Bay hong Kong Phone: +852 2264 0835

Qlik singapore office 9 temasek Boulevard suntec tower two #17-02 singapore 038989 Phone: +65 6690 7000 email: infoapac@qlikview.com twitter: @QlikViewSENA community: community.qlikview.com website: www.qlikview.com w ho ’ s w ho o f fs i

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business intelligence

business Process MAnAgeMent

Verint systems

Appian

Verint® (NASDAQ: VRNT) is a global leader in Actionable Intelligence® solutions. Its portfolio of Enterprise Intelligence Solutions™ and Security Intelligence Solutions™ helps organisations Make Big Data Actionable™ through the ability to capture, analyse and act on large volumes of rich, complex and often underused information sources – such as voice, video and unstructured text. With Verint solutions and value-added services, organisations of all sizes can make more timely and effective decisions. Today, more than 10,000 organisations in 150 countries, including more than 80 per cent of the Fortune 100, count on Verint solutions to improve enterprise performance and make the world a safer place. Headquartered in New York, Verint has offices worldwide and an extensive global partner network.

In the enterprise intelligence market, Verint solutions help organisations use the voice of their customers to drive operational excellence, increase customer satisfaction and loyalty and optimise enterprise performance. Verint Enterprise Workforce Optimisation Solutions, including our fifth generation Impact 360® Workforce Optimisation™ suite, enable organisations to capture, analyse, and act on customer, business, and market intelligence. Verint Voice of the Customer Solutions unite customer feedback on expectations, preferences and experiences across communication channels, enabling organisations to drive business strategies and corporate performance.

Our solutions help contact centres, customer sales and service operations and financial compliance environments address a wide range of goals, including workforce performance, process adherence, product/service enhancements, business process improvements, revenue generation, cost reduction, liability management, financial regulatory compliance and a world-class customer experience.

The financial crisis taught us the financial services industry should expect continually evolving and changing regulation. More regulatory changes are on the way. Financial services organisations’ IT systems must be designed to easily adapt to needs that cannot be predicted.

Investing in anything that cannot rapidly change is guaranteed to deliver a poor customer experience, a shortened use life, and leads to the organisation falling behind its competition.

The traditional approaches to software and IT system development have proven ineffective in helping financial services organisations make progress against the tide of increased regulation. The only way to achieve compliance with unknown additional regulation and safeguard customer experience is with applications built on a flexible modern platform. Appian’s modern work platform has been used by financial services organisations around the globe to create highly-flexible applications that help keep their customer experience as a source of differentiation and strength.

Verint systems level 5, 76 berry street north sydney nsw 2060 Australia Phone: +61 2 8907 0300 email: marketing.apac@verint.com twitter: @Verint website: www.verint.com 158

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About Appian As a market leader in modern business process management (BPM) software, Appian delivers a work platform that unites users with all their data, processes, and collaboration in one environment, on any mobile device, through a simple social interface. Appian’s BPM Suite seamlessly integrates work automation with native mobile and social capabilities. Appian is available on-premise and in the cloud, with complete portability.

Appian level 33, 264 george street sydney nsw 2000 Australia contact: Karen Astley Phone: +61 2 9258 1928 email: info.apac@appian.com twitter: @appian website: www.appian.com

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BusiNess Process MANAgeMeNt

BusiNess Process MANAgeMeNt

opentext

Pegasystems

smart process applications

engage your customers. empower your business

Whether your business focus is to process claims faster, enable consistent communication across a range of marketing channels or have a 360 degree view of your customers, the end goal is the ability to deliver faster and better service.

Progressive organisations such as QSuper and AIA represent some of the growing number of financial services organisations leveraging the ‘OpenText Smart Process Suite’ in delivering better service and compelling customer experience.

Implementing the ‘Smart Process Suite’ in the cloud gives your business a faster and more cost-effective way to get the solution out the door. Utilising out-of-the-box business modules you can rapidly get up to speed with delivering personalised experience to your customers.

Financial services organisations require software to transform their businesses through lowering costs, improving the quality of their customer interactions, and meeting the requirements of increased regulation. Pegasystems’ ‘Build for Change’ platform delivers business agility and empowers leading organisations to rapidly close execution gaps and seize new opportunities. Pegasystems’ products allow organisations to reinvent their business processes and digitise them from end-to-end across all customer channels, providing an enterprise platform with preconfigured industry best practices. Pegasystems’ cloud and on-premise solutions provide a dynamic, intelligent business layer that complements existing technology, renewing and extending the use of core systems.

With Pegasystems, you gain a faster and proven solution for successfully addressing key goals of every organisation: • Drive revenue growth. Pegasystems intelligently optimises every customer interaction so that customer needs are aligned with business objectives, enabling increased and profitable growth.

• Enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty. Pegasystems predicts and anticipates customer interests and dynamically addresses each situation to engage and delight customers with personalised interactions across all channels.

• Improve operational efficiency. Designed for today's global businesses, Pegasystems combines real-time insight with end-to-end business process automation and the ability to intelligently adjust and adapt processes to foster rapid, continuous improvement.

opentext Level 6, 80 Pacific highway North sydney Nsw 2060 Australia

Pegasystems Level 7, 1 Market street sydney Nsw 2000 Australia

contact: Andrew Antal Phone: +61 2 9026 3440 email: enquiries-anz@opentext.com website: www.opentext.com/bpm

Phone: +61 2 9581 7000 email: apac.marketing@pega.com twitter: @pega website: www.pega.com who ’ s w ho o f fs i

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BusiNess Process MANAGeMeNt

BusiNess Process MANAGeMeNt

readsoft

Konica Minolta

ReadSoft is a leading global provider of applications for automating business processes.

ReadSoft's software solutions and services, offered in the cloud and on-premise, help organisations of all sizes automate key business processes to improve customer satisfaction, supplier relations, business agility, and their bottom lines. From mailroom automation, customer on-boarding, claim and mortgage application to fund order processing and the integration of existing back-end systems, ReadSoft’s Financial Services solutions optimise end-to-end business processes.

ReadSoft’s Multi-channel Process Automation solution provides a centralised entry point for all incoming documents, whether they arrive on paper or in electronic form. It enables inbound information to be captured, classified, indexed and routed to the appropriate department or personnel – reducing or eliminating onerous manual processes while enhancing and integrating with existing workflow and approval cycles.

ReadSoft’s Financial Services solutions have helped financial services companies worldwide to automate business processes and improve service levels while decreasing operating expenses.

Since its inception in 1991, ReadSoft has expanded globally with operations in 17 countries on six continents and a network of 350+ global partners.

Konica Minolta Business Solutions Australia Ltd is a market leading provider of integrated printer hardware, software solutions and managed services with the power to transform the business environment. As a technology innovator, Konica Minolta invests continually in research and development in order to deliver inspiring products and give shape to ideas.

Globally recognised for its award winning products, Konica Minolta works closely with businesses to deliver a range of multifunctional digital imaging solutions that serve as a central resource for document scanning, printing, copying, faxing and electronic archiving and distribution. ‘Optimised Print Services’ (OPS) combine consultancy with hardware and software implementation and operation, to help customers further improve efficiency, cut costs, strengthen security and reduce their impact on the environment.

Headquartered in Sydney, Konica Minolta delivers expert professional services with experienced and responsive client support, in addition to the world-class service provided through its extensive network of direct sales offices and authorised dealers.

For more information about ReadSoft, please visit www.readsoft.com.au

suite i, Ground Floor, 107 Mount street, North sydney, Nsw 2060, Australia contact: Jean-Philippe Nicou, Regional Marketing Director Phone: +61 2 9929-0676 email: info-au@readsoft.com twitter: @ReadSoft website: www.readsoft.com 160

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Konica Minolta 4 Drake Avenue Macquarie Park Nsw 2113 Australia Phone: 1800 789 389 (Australia) twitter: @KonicaMinoltaAu website: www.konicaminolta.com.au

w h o’ s w ho Di r ec to ry

clouD

clouD

sAP

Vce

As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device, SAP empowers people and organisations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. Applications and services from SAP enable more than 253,500 customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. SAP is evolving its portfolio to a cloud business model that offers simplified solutions on-demand, making innovation more accessible to customers and helping them solve a wider array of business problems. All solutions are powered by SAP HANA, the company´s in-memory platform for real-time analytics and high performance that is easy to use.

VCE seeks to eliminate challenges that consume today’s data centre resources, simplifying the cost and complexity of IT while helping IT drive innovation that is strategic to the business. The customer experience is what defines VCE – from customised factory build and delivery to pre-packaged professional services, product upgrades and seamless support.

VCE ‘Vblock Systems’ deliver faster time-to-market, the performance and availability customers need, and insight that drive heightened business agility – all at lower cost and with lower risk to the business. A recent study from IDC documented that with ‘Vblock Systems,’ customers experienced a deployment five times faster than other systems, at half the price, and with 96 per cent less downtime.

VCE is the leader in converged infrastructure systems. Formed in 2009 by Cisco and EMC with investments from VMware and Intel, VCE accelerates the adoption of converged infrastructure and cloud-based computing models through its ‘Vblock Systems,’ which are composed of Cisco compute and network technologies, EMC storage and data protection, and VMware virtualisation and virtualisation management, with end-to-end vendor accountability and a single service and support infrastructure. ‘Vblock Systems’ dramatically reduce the cost of IT and increase business agility while improving time to market.

For the second year in a row, VCE has been named by Garter as the market share leader in integrated infrastructure systems – demonstrating technology leadership from VCE and signaling the industry trend toward convergence.

sAP for Financial services The financial services industry at SAP, which includes banking and insurance, is growing rapidly, with more than 17,000 customers across 140 countries, making it a valuable asset for collaboration and coinnovation. ‘SAP for Financial Services’ offers end-to-end solutions for financial services firms that cut across all market categories. The entire product portfolio contributes to a simplified user experience across channels, leveraging the latest innovations in mobile devices, the cloud, and in-memory technology. A major element of the company’s approach is to understand and address the specific needs of the industry in order to help financial institutions around the world become more customer-centric, reduce cost and complexity and more easily manage regulatory and risk compliance.

For more information, visit www.sap.com

sAP Asia Pte ltd 30 Pasir Panjang road #03-32 Mapletree Business city singapore 117440 Phone: + 65 6664 6868 email: info.asia@sap.com website: www.sap.com

Vce technologies Pty ltd level 29, chifley tower 2 chifley square sydney Nsw 2000 Australia email: moreinfo@vce.com website: www.vce.com who ’ s w ho o f fs i

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cLouD

coNsuLtiNg & systeMs iNtegrAtioN

salesforce.com

cloud sherpas

Salesforce.com is the enterprise cloud computing leader. Our social and mobile cloud technologies − including our flagship sales and CRM applications − help companies connect with customers, partners, and employees in entirely new ways. Our core cloud solutions include:

Cloud Sherpas is a global cloud advisory and technology services company serving Fortune 500 clients and thousands of other businesses around the world. Our experts provide unrivalled cloud strategy, implementation and integration capabilities, having successfully worked with clients across Australia, New Zealand and Asia Pacific.

Cloud Sherpas has more than 14 years of focus on business CRM and salesforce.com consulting with extensive experience in financial services. We understand that it is often difficult for organisations in the financial services industry to keep up with the constantlyevolving global landscape of the marketplace, as many businesses are burdened with decades-old legacy technology and ever-changing regulatory requirements.

Our customers are able to gain a competitive advantage and achieve higher performance by utilising Cloud Sherpas industry frameworks for the financial services industry. We have worked with many of the largest financial services organisations around the world to transform their business with Salesforce.com.

With a track record of more than 5,000 successful cloud implementations, Cloud Sherpas has helped businesses become more connected and collaborative, better manage their customer relationships, and streamline their IT processes. Cloud Sherpas is a Platinum salesforce.com partner, the three-time Google Enterprise Partner of the Year for Google Apps and a ServiceNow Preferred Partner, making the firm one of the world’s leading cloud services brokerages.

sales cloud Sales Cloud, built on the Salesforce1 Platform, provides field sales a better way to sell, and in a mobile world. Inside sales is fed nothing less than the best leads and Sales Managers have clarity of the pipeline and which deals will close. This is a world where a lead and contact information is always fresh and complete, and everyone performs like an ‘A’ player.

service cloud Service cloud fosters customer loyalty and improves customer satisfaction by 37% as it allows service agents to resolve issues on the first call. Like Sales Cloud, it is build on the Salesforce1 Platform so you can deliver fast customer service from anywhere.

exacttarget Marketing cloud The ExactTarget Marketing Cloud, built on the Salesforce1 Platform, allows marketers to create 1:1 campaigns like never before. So you can combine traditional digital channels like email, mobile, social, and the web with any conceivable product to turn consumers into customers.

salesforce1 Platform Say hello to one, all-encompassing, completely open, Customer Platform. New APIs and tools make building apps faster to connect with customers, employees, partners and the next generation of devices and apps.

salesforce.com Level 12, 201 sussex street sydney 2000 Australia Phone: 1800 667 638 (AU), 0800 450 064 (NZ) website: www.salesforce.com/au 162

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cloud sherpas Level 5, 151 castlereagh street sydney Nsw 2000, Australia Phone: 13000 CLOUD (AU), +61 2 8094 1206 (International) twitter: @cloudsherpas website: www.cloudsherpas.com.au

w h o’ s w ho Di r ec to ry

consulting & systems integration

consulting & systems integration

cognizant

c smart international

Cognizant is a global leader in business and technology services, helping our clients bring the future of work to life. We work with over a third of the Fortune 500 companies and leading-edge companies across multiple industries, helping them build stronger businesses, remain competitive, and drive innovation. With over 50 delivery centres and more than 171,000 employees across five continents, Cognizant is a member of the NASDAQ-100, the S&P 500, the Forbes Global 2000, and the Fortune 500, and is ranked among the top performing and fastest growing companies in the world.

From cross-channel optimisation to managing risk and regulatory compliance, banks and insurance companies choose Cognizant to help them work better and work differently. Whether it is driving innovation or delivering new efficiencies and cost reduction, Cognizant is redefining the way companies benefit from global services. And, what makes Cognizant unique is our ability to help clients meet these conflicting challenges simultaneously. We help them enhance productivity by ensuring that vital business functions work faster, cheaper and better while applying our ability to conceptualise, architect and implement new and expanded capabilities that transform legacy models to take their business to the next level.

Cognizant’s consulting and solutions offerings for financial services organisations include: • Asset and wealth management • Consumer lending • Cards and payment • Governance, risk and compliance • Investment banking and brokerage • Retail and wholesale banking • Security services

C Smart International is a leading provider of quality financial service solutions encompassing cards and payments, core banking, online banking, and transaction switching. Our clients include a global array of financial institutions, processors and software suppliers within the financial services industry. Founded in 1997 as Card Smart Consulting, Card Smart quickly achieved the vision of becoming the premier card payment consulting firm in Australia and expanded its services internationally. C Smart has been instrumental in implementing projects and systems for major financial institutions worldwide.

C Smart has a number of products on offer including: • ‘IVT,’ an interest simulator and verification tool.

• ‘Axon,’ our knowledge and administration tool.

• ‘Finalstep,’ the next generation of online banking.

As an international service provider, C Smart provices a comprehensive range of services across the following core competencies: • Strategy and consulting • Project management • Testing services • Business and product development • Technical development • New technologies • Conversion and integration • System architecture and infrastructure • Compliance, certification and regulatory • Training and documentation • Graduate talent management program • Business process development and improvement • Business-as-usual services

cognizant technology solutions asia Pacific 80 anson road #27-02/03 Fuji Xerox towers singapore 079907

c smart international suite 1001, 22 market street sydney nsw 2000 australia

Phone: + 65 6324 6672 twitter: @Cognizant website: www.cognizant.com

contact: Sharnie Brown Phone: +61 2 8244 0004 ext 105 email: information@csmartinternational.com website: www.csmartinternational.com who ’ s w ho o f fs i

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consuLting & systems integration

consuLting & systems integration

Dimension Data

s & i systems

Founded in 1983, Dimension Data is an ICT services and solutions provider with global revenue of over US$6 billion in 2013. Dimension Data uses its technology expertise, global service delivery capability, and entrepreneurial spirit to accelerate the business ambitions of its clients. Dimension Data is a member of the NTT Group.

Dimension Data operates in more than 60 offices across 13 countries across Asia Pacific. We help clients plan, build, support, manage, improve and innovate their ICT infrastructures. We combine an expertise in networking, security, data centre solutions, Microsoft solutions and converged communications and contact centre technologies, with advanced skills in consulting, integration, training and managed services.

Dimension Data’s passion is to find ways to use ICT to make our clients’ businesses work better. We turn your ambitions into achievements.

We will position you to respond to today’s challenges, with targeted, pertinent services and IT solutions. We ensure your business is supported by a robust networking platform and help you optimise the performance and availability of the unified communications and collaboration tools that run on it including desktop and contact centre technologies. We can also assist to put in place a next generation data centre, support your move to cloud computing, and ensure that all elements of your infrastructure are secure.

These capabilities are underpinned by a full lifecycle of IT services encompassing consulting, professional, support, managed, procurement and supply chain and IT outsourcing services. The result is a stable yet agile technology estate – one that sets you up to embrace business change with confidence.

S & I is an IT consulting, business solutions and services company that helps organisations leverage technology to drive operational and strategic business success. Built on 16 years’ experience with more than 100 employees in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, S & I partners with leading technology vendors to serve more than 500 unique enterprise clients across industries and regions, including leading financial services organisations. We keep mission-critical applications available and optimise IT infrastructure resources to achieve real-time information access, while meeting security and governance requirements.

S & I offers:

it infrastructure consulting • Infrastructure solutions planning, design and implementation • Server and storage optimisation, consolidation and virtualisation • Systems and network integration and high availability solutions

enterprise solutions • Customer relationship and wealth management solutions • Information integration and business/predictive analytics • Social listening and sentiment analysis solution • Real estate management solution • Appliance – big data, database, data warehouse, flash storage

managed services • Operations management, maintenance and support services • Disaster recovery and business continuity services • IT outsourcing and data centre hosting • Security compliance and enterprise risk management • Database/middleware services and cloud computing services

Dimension Data (singapore) Pte. Ltd 6 temasek Boulevard, #26-01 to 05 suntec city tower Four, s038986 singapore

s & i systems 6 serangoon north avenue 5 #03-16 singapore 554910

Phone: +65 6517 2000 email: info.sg@dimensiondata.com website: www.dimensiondata.com

Phone: +65 6826 3600 email: marketing@si-asia.com website: www.si-asia.com

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w h o’ s w ho Di r ec to ry

coNtAct ceNtre

core systeMs

Nuance

epictenet

Nuance focuses solely on reinventing the relationship between people and technology. Our innovations in voice, Natural Language Understanding (NLU), reasoning and systems integration come together to create more human technology.

As a core banking software implementation specialist, Epictenet brings in a vendor-agnostic approach, helping identify the right solution for your organisation and delivering success through every phase of a project from initiation to implementation.

Core banking transformation programs are expensive, involve many stakeholders and run for a long period of time. These programs, if not managed well, lead into scope-creep, budget overruns and delays making the entire journey frustrating, and do not deliver the business benefits originally envisaged.

Epictenet brings many years of global experience, across different core banking platforms, helping our clients in avoiding common pitfalls and to be in control from the start – from statement of work, estimates, contract negotiation to delivery plan which aims to start realising the business benefits quickly while reducing cost and risk.

With an eagle-eye view and experience, we provide you the skills, direction and conviction in the entire implementation life cycle. We install, configure, build, train, test, migrate data and support.

Our robust implementation methodology takes you through a collaborative journey giving you the feeling of having fully participated in the success and effectively manages stakeholders while keeping the project relevant and investment justified.

We stand for: excellence, passion, integrity, customer-centricity and transparency.

Our approach is agile and seamless. Our innovation quest is relentless and our model is cost-effective.

reducing the customer effort Nuance is best known for rapidly advancing voice-recognition technology and has more experience deploying natural language interactions than any other organisation worldwide. It has more than 120 natural language deployments globally across 18 different languages while automating over 11 billion customer service interactions yearly.

Demands from today’s agile, mobile consumer We are entering the next phase of a new world where greater use of analytics enables us to understand and make better use of data, where devices are becoming voice-enabled, driving simplicity and reduced effort for our customers.

Bringing virtual assistants to life – introducing Nina Virtual Assistants (VAs) in the web environment are increasingly replacing mundane FAQ-based search engines. Research highlights the readiness and willingness of today’s customers to interact with web VAs. Nuance's ‘Nina’ delivers intelligent, conversational customer service – how, when and where customers want it. Nina monitors every customer interaction and tunes accordingly, ensuring your virtual assistant stays relevant and effective. Nina is used by Jetstar, CocaCola, Kaspersky, Windstream and dozens of other companies to deliver personalised, effortless customer service.

Nuance communications Australia Level 11, 124 walker street North sydney Nsw 2060 contact: Heath Wilson Phone: +61 2 9434 2300 email: enquiries.au@nuance.com website: australia.nuance.com

epictenet Level 36, 1 Macquarie Place sydney Nsw 2000 Australia contact: Ritesh Srivastava Phone: +61 415 373 500 email: ritesh@epictenet.com twitter: @epictenet website: www.epictenet.com w ho ’ s w ho o f fs i

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customer engagement

customer engagement

Liferay

thunderhead.com

enterprise. open source. For Life.

Thunderhead.com provides a range of powerful Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions from its ‘ONE Engagement Hub.’ The ‘ONE Engagement Hub’ ties together customer insight, context and journey behaviour and uses these to inform interactions with customers and partners across all touchpoints.

We make it easy for customer-facing teams to design and deploy great customer journeys based on rich insight and through valuedriven interactions that lead to long-term engagement. The result is that businesses have more power to drive revenue, brand strength and differentiation by going beyond isolated interactions to create the rich customer relationships that great businesses are built on.

Thunderhead.com serves its global customer base from offices located in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

Today’s Financial Services organisations are faced with many challenges – such as multiple legacy platforms with poor user interfaces, presenting data from these platforms to customers, partners and a mobile workforce. They also need to incorporate collaboration and social networking into previously static web sites, and support the different demands of generation Y users through their online and mobile presence.

Liferay enables FSI organisations to develop rich, modern web and mobile applications to support customer (B2C) and partner (B2B) interactions – self-service, sales or support. These transactional applications enable customers and partners to interact with core business functions – opening accounts, trading stocks, quoting, making claims and so on.

Liferay Portal is an open source platform for customer engagement built upon a decade of continuous development with a mature open source community. Liferay Portal Enterprise Edition integrates easily with existing systems, with the performance and resilience of Java applications providing the flexibility to adapt quickly to changing business needs.

Liferay provides built in capabilities such as web content management (WCM/CMS), document management, workflow and wikis as well as social collaboration features including message boards, chat and gamification.

Liferay Inc. was founded for a purpose greater than revenue and profit growth. Each quarter we donate to worthy causes decided upon by our own employees. This desire to impact the world community is the heart of our company, and ultimately the reason why we exist.

Liferay Level 21, tower 2 Darling Park 201 sussex street sydney nsw 2000 australia contact: Hilary Beeby Phone: +61 2 9006 1221 email: sales-au@liferay.com website: www.liferay.com 166

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For more infomration visit www.thunderhead.com

thunderhead.com Level 8, 99 york street sydney 2000 nsw australia thunderhead Pte. Ltd 80 raffles Place Level 36, uoB Plaza 1 singapore 048624 contact: Petra Markova Phone 1: +61 2 9299 4560 Phone 2: + 65 6248 4850 email: marketing_apac@thunderhead.com twitter: @ThunderheadONE website: www.thunderhead.com

w h o’ s w ho Di r ec to ry

custoMer exPerieNce

custoMer exPerieNce

iBM Australia

KANA, a Verint company

It all starts with the customer. In business, this has always been true.

Now a new breed of customer is dictating a new set of terms in the dynamic between buyers and sellers.

Customers approach a sale empowered by technology and transparency, with more extensive information from more sources than ever before. They expect to engage with companies when and how they want – in person, online and on the go – and they want these methods to tie together seamlessly.

IBM Smarter Commerce is a unique approach that increases the value companies generate for their customers, partners and shareholders in a rapidly changing digital world.

For financial services, this means managing a web of channels and interaction points – traditional Internet, mobile, physical, social and more – to profitably exchange services and account based information.

It also means engaging buyers as their expectations change – whether consumers, citizens or business customers – for relevant, personalised and consistent interactions.

Catalysts like social media, real-time access to information and the growth of mobile devices are redefining what customers expect.

IBM’s Smarter Commerce solutions provide: • Seamless selling • Order management • Supply chain management • Decision optimisation • Cross-channel campaign management • Marketing resource management • Digital marketing optimisation • Web analytics

KANA, A Verint company, is a leading provider of cloud and onpremise customer service solutions.

KANA helps global organisations including many Fortune 500 companies as well as mid-market financial services organisations optimise their engagements with consistent and contextual customer journeys across agent, web, social, mobile, and branch experiences.

Using KANA solutions, organisations can reduce operational costs, increase resolution rates and increase wallet share.

iBM Australia Pty Ltd 601 Pacific highway st Leonards Nsw 2065 Australia Phone: 1800 557 343 website: www.ibm.com/smartercommerce/au

Learn more at www.kana.com

KANA, a Verint company Level 28, 1 Market street sydney 2000 Nsw Australia contact: Adam Railton Phone: +61 2 9275 8300 email: arailton@kana.com twitter: @KANASoftware website: www.kana.com w ho ’ s w ho o f fs i

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customer exPerieNce

customer exPerieNce

Nuance

sitecore

Nuance focuses solely on reinventing the relationship between people and technology. Our innovations in voice, Natural Language Understanding (NLU), reasoning and systems integration come together to create more human technology.

Sitecore is a global leader in customer experience management software that lets marketers own the experience of every customer or prospect that engages with their brand. The company delivers highly relevant content and personalised digital experiences that delight audiences, build loyalty and drive revenue.

Sitecore’s experience platform is deeply connected, delivering a single connected experience across both online and offline channels, empowering brands to easily engage in seamless conversations with their audiences when and where they want, in real-time.

The platform is easy to use, combining best-in-class web content management with marketing automation, email marketing, social media, e-commerce, optimisation, and analytics into a single, unified platform.

Sitecore captures every minute interaction – and intention – that customers and prospects have with a brand, both on a website and across other digital channels. As the platform is deeply connected, marketers get this intelligence immediately, and can easily act on it in real-time, within the same session.

More than 3,500 of the world’s leading brands including HSBC, American Express, AustralianSuper, Carnival Cruise Lines, easyJet, and Heineken trust Sitecore to help them deliver the meaningful interactions that win customers for life.

reducing the customer effort Nuance is best known for rapidly advancing voice-recognition technology and has more experience deploying natural language interactions than any other organisation worldwide. It has more than 120 natural language deployments globally across 18 different languages while automating over 11 billion customer service interactions yearly.

Demands from today’s agile, mobile consumer We are entering the next phase of a new world where greater use of analytics enables us to understand and make better use of data, where devices are becoming voice-enabled, driving simplicity and reduced effort for our customers.

Bringing virtual assistants to life – introducing Nina Virtual Assistants (VAs) in the web environment are increasingly replacing mundane FAQ-based search engines. Research highlights the readiness and willingness of today’s customers to interact with web VAs. Nuance's ‘Nina’ delivers intelligent, conversational customer service – how, when and where customers want it. Nina monitors every customer interaction and tunes accordingly, ensuring your virtual assistant stays relevant and effective. Nina is used by Jetstar, CocaCola, Kaspersky, Windstream and dozens of other companies to deliver personalised, effortless customer service.

Nuance communications Australia Level 11, 124 walker street North sydney Nsw 2060

sitecore Level 4, 50 Pitt street sydney Nsw Australia

contact: Heath Wilson Phone: +61 2 9434 2300 email: enquiries.au@nuance.com website: australia.nuance.com

Phone: +61 2 8014 8857 email: sales-au@sitecore.net twitter: @sitecoreanz website: www.sitecore.net

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w h o’ s w ho Di r ec to ry

customer experience management

customer interaction management

thunderhead.com

nice

Thunderhead.com provides a range of powerful Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions from its ‘ONE Engagement Hub.’ The ‘ONE Engagement Hub’ ties together customer insight, context and journey behaviour and uses these to inform interactions with customers and partners across all touchpoints.

We make it easy for customer-facing teams to design and deploy great customer journeys based on rich insight and through valuedriven interactions that lead to long-term engagement. The result is that businesses have more power to drive revenue, brand strength and differentiation by going beyond isolated interactions to create the rich customer relationships that great businesses are built on.

Thunderhead.com serves its global customer base from offices located in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

NICE Systems is the worldwide leading provider of software solutions that enable organisations to take the next best action in order to improve customer experience and business results, ensure compliance, fight financial crime, and safeguard people and assets.

NICE’s solutions empower organisations to capture, analyse, and apply, in real-time, insights from both structured and unstructured big data. This data comes from multiple sources, including phone calls, mobile apps, emails, chat, social media, video and transactions.

NICE solutions are used by more than 25,000 organisations iacross 150 countries, including over 80 of the Fortune 100 companies.

For more infomration visit www.thunderhead.com.

thunderhead.com Level 8, 99 york street sydney 2000 nsw australia thunderhead pte. Ltd 80 raffles place Level 36, uoB plaza 1 singapore 048624 contact: Petra Markova phone 1: +61 2 9299 4560 phone 2: + 65 6248 4850 email: marketing_apac@thunderhead.com twitter: @ThunderheadONE website: www.thunderhead.com

nice 71 robinson road singapore 068895 contact: Eyal Kirshner phone: + 65 6222 5123 email: APACMarketing2@nice.com website:www.nice.com w ho ’ s w ho o f fs i

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Data centre solutions

Data centre solutions

neXtDc limited

Digital realty

As a leading Data-Centre-as-a-Service (DCaaS) provider, NEXTDC is revolutionising cloud computing in Australia.

An ASX300 company and the only independent data centre operator with strategic footprint in all major growth markets in Australia, NEXTDC offers a range of highly flexible, resilient and secure colocation services to financial services, corporate, government and IT services companies.

Digital Realty focuses on delivering customer-driven data centre solutions by providing secure, reliable and cost-effective facilities that meet each customer's unique data centre needs.

Digital Realty's customers include domestic and international companies across multiple industry verticals ranging from financial services, cloud and information technology services, to manufacturing, energy, health care and consumer products.

Digital Realty's 131 properties – including 12 properties held as investments in unconsolidated joint ventures – comprised approximately 24.5 million square feet as of December 31, 2013.

This includes approximately 1.8 million square feet under active development and 1.3 million square feet held for future development.

Digital Realty's portfolio is located in 33 markets throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

why we’re different National footprint: Our growing portfolio of data centres are centrally located in five capital cities with access to significant power, telecommunications and public infrastructure.

Ecosystem – 100 per cent carrier and vendor neutrality gives our customers the freedom to connect to their choice of carriers and service providers.

Simplicity – One national contract, SLA and pricing gives our customers the ability to easily grow and manage their service nationwide.

Rack analytics – Our data centre management tool ONEDC® provides a single web-based portal for our customers to manage their data centre services nationally.

Robust market environment – The ongoing growth in internet usage driven by the adoption of cloud and mobile computing technologies is a major driver for our business, as is the increasing intensity of strategic investor interest.

Additional information about Digital Realty is included in the Company Overview, which is available on the Investors page of Digital Realty's website at http://www.digitalrealty.asia.

The full 2013 Annual Report and all market releases are available from the investor section of our website: nextdc.com/our-company/ investor-centre

neXtDc limited head office: level 4, 88 creek street Brisbane QlD 4000 australia Phone: +61 7 3177 4777 email: sales@nextdc.com website: www.nextdc.com 170

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Digital realty 10 collyer Quay #42-06 ocean Financial centre singapore Phone: +65 6505 3900 email: contact.apac@digitalrealty.com twitter: @digitalrealty website: www.digitalrealty.asia

w h o’ s w ho Di r ec to ry

Data Loss Prevention

DocuMent ManageMent systeMs

evault

Konica Minolta Business solutions asia

EVault provides optimised solutions for cloud-connected data protection.

Konica Minolta Business Solutions, a leading company in advanced document management technologies and solutions for the desktop to the print shop, brings together unparalleled advances in security, print quality and network integration via its award-winning line of bizhub® multi-function products (MFPs); bizhub PRESS® and bizhub PRO® production print systems; magicolor® color printers; and pagepro® monochrome printers.

Konica Minolta also offers software solutions and optimised print services to reduce document output cost, improve productivity and optimise office environments, backed by impeccable service and support teams. Konica Minolta adopts a proactive effort in reducing global environmental impact through its green product lifecycle. In line with its core message “Giving Shape to Ideas,” Konica Minolta endeavours to respond to its customers’ needs across the world with relentless creativity, innovation and advance technology.

server backup and recovery EVault’s server backup and recovery services securely, reliably, and efficiently protect data enterprise-wide. Get scalable, WANoptimised, multi-site and multi-platform performance with no hardware investment required.

enterprise desktop and laptop protection EVault end-point protection gives IT complete control over how, when, and where PC and laptop data is backed up – no matter how much data you have to protect, or where your employees are located.

Long-term archiving Now you can retrieve archived email, file folders, and Microsoft SharePoint data in one fast, easy search. Reduce your costs by gaining storage efficiencies and simplify your IT governance and compliance through effective policy management.

Disaster recovery as a service Our cloud disaster recovery experts plan, test, and manage your entire recovery process, and give you secure, unlimited access to your systems in our cloud within four, 24 or 48 hours.

evault, a seagate company Level 5, 7000 ang Mo Kio avenue 5 singpore 569877 Phone: +65 800 852 3977 email: apacteam@evault.com website: www.evault.com

Konica Minolta Business solutions asia 30 Pasir Panjang road #06-32 Mapletree Business city singapore 117440 Phone: +65 6361 2800 website: www.konicaminolta.asia/business w ho ’ s w ho o f fs i

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electronic DAtA protection

enterprise ApplicAtions

Datumstruct

crossware Mail signature

We are the leading data centre IT infrastructure solutions and valueadded distributor in Asia-Pacific since 1999. We are headquartered in Singapore, with offices in Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Myanmar, China, Hong Kong and Middle East. Our solutions include:

More than 500,000 people around the world use ‘Crossware Mail Signature’ to extend their email platform to automatically include professional email signatures and disclaimers on every email leaving their company, including those sent from mobiles. Your organisation has worked hard to develop its brand.

Every logo, banner and business card says who you are and what you stand for. Yet you have little control over what employees do with their own email signature leading to inconsistent branding, unprofessional emails and forgotten disclaimers.

‘Crossware Mail Signature’ removes the need to configure signatures on individual workstations, and requires no design changes to your directory or mail template. You can centrally manage the design of your signature block for your entire organisation from one location.

Data Centre Infrastructure Management: Data centre design and build consultation; Data centre infrastructure management and tools Remote Secured Management (via WAN, 3/4G): Intelligent/ micro/container data centre; Out-of-band management; IP-based environmental sensors Maximised Network Intelligence Tools: 100 per cent network transparencies and analysis tools Workplace Safety: Data centre environment’s heavy equipment lifter Data Tape and Media Management: Media Degausses, destroyer, shredder (HDD/Tape/SSD Flash media); Media storage (rack/cabinets/ mobile case); Computerised media tracking solutions Secured Matrix Switching: Secure and high performance KVM matrix switches Professional Audio/Video Connectivity Tools: Audio/Video connectivity accessories (Extender, scalars and converters, distribution amplifiers) Critical Facilities Solution: Control centre design and build (Console system, video wall, ergonomic mounting and mobility solutions and other accessories) Regional Professional Services: Solution demo/POC/Consultation; Project deployment; System integration; Onsite maintenance

Marketing Get the maximum out of your branding budget by ensuring every email conveys your organisation’s professional brand image and is also reflected in advertising.

it Management Control all email signatures from one configuration database.

Crossware Mail Signature may just sit on your workspace, yet it has power over every single device in your organisation.

legal Append an email disclaimer to all emails leaving your company. You can choose whether these disclaimers are added to internal or external emails, or borth. You can also configure several different disclaimers to be automatically applied to emails from individual departments.

crossware 125 the strand parnell Auckland new Zealand Datumstruct (s) pte ltd email: sales@datumstruct.com phone: (65) 6749 0206 website: www.datumstruct.com 172

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phone: +64 9 303 2222 email: team@crossware.co.nz twitter: @teamcrossware website: www.crossware.co.nz

w h o’ s w ho Di r ec to ry

enterprise ApplicAtions

enterprise Architecture

outsystems

Avnet technology solutions

OutSystems makes it exceedingly easy for IT organisations to build, deploy and manage enterprise-class web and mobile applications, helping IT deliver innovative business solutions fast.

Avnet Technology Solutions collaborates with its customers and suppliers to create and deliver services, software and hardware solutions that address the business needs of its end-users locally and across the world. It serves customers and suppliers in North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East and Africa among other regions.

Avnet is a value-added global solutions distributor for F5 Networks and IBM, providing technology risk management and security.

OutSystems is the only Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution to combine: • High-productivity application development and change management • Cloud, on-premises or hybrid development and deployment • Standard, extensible Java and .NET code generation • Automated DevOps: one-click deploy, integrity checking, self-healing, staging, and rollback Hundreds of companies in 24 countries across 22 industries use the ‘OutSystems Platform’ to rapidly deliver custom, mission-critical applications while improving IT productivity and reducing their change request backlog. OutSystems customers deliver innovative applications that easily integrate existing systems and data to support new business initiatives and replace legacy applications.

F5 networks F5 Networks has aligned its solutions to adhere to the Monetary Authority of Singapore's Technology Risk Management Guidelines by ensuring business continuity, security, risk and vulnerabilities management. F5 is the market leader in ‘Gartner Quadrant’ for ‘Application Delivery Controllers.’

F5 has developed the following reference architectures: • Application optimisation • DDoS protection • Intelligent Domain Name Services (DNS) scale • Security mobility

iBM IBM addresses critical business needs in a competitive landscape that favours the fastest and smartest financial services firms to emerge as market leader by: • creating a superior customer experience to boost business; • innovating payments and transaction services affordably; • building flexible and agile core banking to maximise profit; and • optimising risk management to improve decision making and reduce compliance costs.

outsystems penthouse level suntec tower three 8 temasek Boulevard singapore 038988 phone: +65 6829 2211 email: innovation@outsystems.com website: www.outsystems.com

Avnet technology solutions (singapore) pte ltd 50 Kallang Avenue #09-02 singapore 339505 phone: +65 6603 3888 email: avnet.sg@avnet.com twitter: @AvnetTSSpore website: www.atssin.com.sg who ’ s w ho o f fs i

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eNterPrise iNformAtioN mANAgemeNt

eNterPrise iNformAtioN mANAgemeNt

clearPoint

opentext

ClearPoint are masters of information management services for the funds management sector in Australia, New Zealand and Asia/Pacific. ClearPoint consults on, designs and builds central information management systems that provide a ‘single source’ of trusted, certified data.

Trust and integrity are at the heart of what we do. You can trust that our solutions do everything they promise and more besides. It starts when we learn how you currently manage your information.

We translate your business needs into a strategy to reshape how you manage data; a strategy that adapts with the times or as your needs change. We design it, build it and run it.

Our clients include the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, SuperChoice (Australia), the NZ Accident Compensation Commission, Tyndall Investment Management and the Australian Future Fund.

We work closely with their Chief Operations Officers and Heads of Operations.

We’ve changed their business game with solutions that show them off as innovators in their field. They like working with us, because they discover that trust in ClearPoint is well-placed. We’ve transformed how their information management is handled.

ClearPoint approaches projects without making assumptions. There’s a sizzle to our services that sets us apart. We’ll turn things on their head if that’s what is needed. Our way of working leads to exceptional results; results that will change your business game.

smart process applications

clearPoint Limited Level 3 clearPoint house, 7 fanshawe street Auckland 1010 New Zealand contact: Phil Pietersen, Managing Director Phone: +64 9 3734626 email: contact@clearpoint.co.nz twitter: @clearpointnz website: www.clearpoint.co.nz 174

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Whether your business focus is to process claims faster, enable consistent communication across a range of marketing channels or have a 360 degree view of your customers, the end goal is the ability to deliver faster and better service.

Progressive organisations such as QSuper and AIA represent some of the growing number of financial services organisations leveraging the ‘OpenText Smart Process Suite’ in delivering better service and compelling customer experience.

Implementing the ‘Smart Process Suite’ in the cloud gives your business a faster and more cost-effective way to get the solution out the door. Utilising out-of-the-box business modules you can rapidly get up to speed with delivering personalised experience to your customers.

opentext Level 6, 80 Pacific highway North sydney Nsw 2060 Australia contact: Andrew Antal Phone: +61 2 9026 3440 email: enquiries-anz@opentext.com website: www.opentext.com/bpm

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eveNt ProcessiNG

FiNANciAL APPLicAtioN PLAtForm

tiBco software

emerio

Backed by decades of innovation in infrastructure technology and a customer base of leading global banks, TIBCO offers a unique, event-driven approach to growing revenue and solving the operational challenges of 21st century financial services organisations. TIBCO has deep experience working with financial services businesses.

TIBCO's record in capital markets is demonstrated by more than two decades of leadership in innovative, high-performance infrastructure technology that enables capital markets players to compete in a world where success is measured in milliseconds.

TIBCO can assist your organisation with massive volumes of events and data flowing across your operations through: • A customer-oriented, event-driven architecture that aligns your operations to customers and customer opportunities.

• Innovative event-processing technologies that leverage in-memory computing to capture and correlate millions of events, allowing you to identify opportunities and risks in real-time.

• A standard way to perform integration and create new services, resulting in significantly greater agility and reducing the time and resources needed to add new applications, capabilities and partners.

• Operational efficiency gains and significant cost savings resulting from automation and workforce optimisation.

Emerio, an NTT Communications company, is your IT services and solutions partner. Singapore-based Emerio, founded in 1997, started as an IT applications development and maintenance services organisation. Currently Emerio has more than 1,600 employees across 11 countries with delivery centres in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Philippines, and Thailand. Emerio became a part of the NTT Group (ranked 32nd on the Fortune Global 500 list in 2013) in June 2010.

The combination of NTT's world-class capabilities in fields such as networks and data centre services along with Emerio's industry knowledge, process expertise and skilled resources makes it a compelling option for organisations looking towards reliability, cost effectiveness and a real IT partnership.

Emerio Indonesia, a subsidiary of Emerio, was established in 2005 and currently has more than 325 employees primarily servicing the financial services organisations, telecommunications, manufacturing and distribution, mining, and media sectors.

Services delivered out of the Indonesia delivery centre include professional services, software customisation services, managed services, system integration services and enterprise business solutions.

One of our flagship products ‘Regla,’ an automation compliance product that provides banks a platform to meet the challenges of changing landscape for their regulatory compliance needs, was built by the Emerio Indonesia team. Emerio's ‘customer first’ policy and successful delivery record has earned it an excellent customer retention track record with over 85 per cent of business from existing customers.

tiBco software Level 11, 100 Pacific highway North sydney 2060 Nsw Australia Phone: +61 2 9458 2100 twitter: @tibco website: www.tibco.com singapore 9 raffles Place #20-20 republic Plaza ii singapore 048619 Phone: +65 6836 3880

emerio Globesoft 50 Ubi crescent, emerio house # 01-05 singapore 408568

hong Kong room 3301, the Lee Gardens, 33 hysan Avenue causeway Bay hong Kong Phone: +852 2264 0835

contact: Deep Singhania Phone: +65 6349 2999 email: marketing@emeriocorp.com website: www.emeriocorp.com w ho ’ s w ho o f fs i

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geogrAPhic iNForMAtioN systeM (gis)

iDeNtity AND Access MANAgeMeNt

esri Australia

Varonis systems

Esri Australia is the nation’s leading geographic information system (GIS) and location intelligence specialist. For more than three decades, Esri Australia has partnered with thousands of government and commercial enterprises to deliver quality GIS solutions that have transformed the way organisations address opportunities and challenges. GIS employs the science of geography to map and analyse information. Esri Australia uses the world’s most advanced GIS technology to expose patterns and relationships within data, providing an analytical vantage point that no other tool can.

Worldwide, financial services organisations use GIS technology to understand the geography of their business data. Using the universal language of maps, GIS technology translates data into powerful visual representations, enabling decision-makers to uncover hidden truths that may previously have gone unnoticed.

Beyond the visualisation of data, GIS technology brings together disparate data sources from across organisation or departmental silos to create a single – and powerful – point of truth.

Whether evaluating risk, quantifying customer value or managing distribution networks, GIS technology empowers businesses to get more out of existing data – leading to quicker decision-making, new insights and new ways of thinking.

Varonis provides an innovative software platform that allows enterprises to map, analyse, manage and migrate unstructured data.

Varonis specialises in human-generated data, a type of unstructured data that includes an enterprise's spreadsheets, word processing documents, presentations, audio files, video files, emails, text messages and any other data created by employees. This data often contains an enterprise's financial information, product plans, strategic initiatives, intellectual property and numerous other forms of vital information. IT and business personnel deploy Varonis software for a variety of use cases, including data governance, data security, archiving, file synchronisation, enhanced mobile data accessibility and information collaboration.

Varonis has more than 2,400 customers, spanning leading firms in the financial services, public, healthcare, energy & utilities, industrial, technology, consumer and retail, education and media and entertainment sectors.

For queries, please visit http://hub.varonis.com/contact-us

Discover how Esri Australia’s GIS technology solutions can deliver results for your business. Call 1800 447 111 today to speak to one of our financial specialists.

esri Australia Level 3, 111 elizabeth street Brisbane QLD 4000 Phone: 1800 447 111 email: connect@esriaustralia.com.au twitter: @esriaustralia website: www.esriaustralia.com.au 176

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Varonis systems, inc 1250 Broadway, 31st Floor New york Ny 10001 UsA Phone: +1 877 292 8767 (New York HQ) or + 61 2 9238 1999 (Australia) or +65 6348 6202 (Singapore) email: sales@varonis.com twitter: @varonis website: www.varonis.com

w h o’ s w ho Di r ec to ry

iNfocommuNicAtioNs techNoLogy

iNfocommuNicAtioNs techNoLogy

ixia

Ncs

Ixia works with its financial customers to provide world-class solutions. We excel at helping institutions create an always-on user experience through fast, secure delivery of dynamic connected technologies and services.

Through actionable insights that accelerate, monitor, and secure application and service delivery, Ixia’s customers benefit from faster time-to-market, optimised application performance, and higher-quality deployments.

To mitigate risk stemming from communications systems, Ixia works with the world's largest financial organisations to model, stress, and verify network initiatives and investments at each critical juncture. From the trading floor and data centre to international brokers and foreign exchanges, our solutions enable evaluation and optimisation of technology investments before, during, and after you deploy.

Ixia’s solutions cover a broad spectrum of networking devices and technologies. If it moves data from one point to another on a network, Ixia has a solution: • Network test – Ixia’s test solutions test, assess, and validate the scale, compliance, and performance of networks, network devices, network applications, and network services.

• Network security – Ixia security solutions assess network security performance and resiliency by testing and validating network and security devices with real-world application traffic and attacks.

• Network mobility – Ixia’s wireless test solutions measure critical elements of network performance under realistic conditions and extreme scale to take the guess-work out of network quality.

• Network visibility – Ixia’s Visibility Architecture provides end-to-end visibility and security by giving their IT tools access to data from any point in the network.

NCS is a leading infocommunications technology (ICT) service provider and together with SingTel, under Group Enterprise, we have a presence in 22 countries located throughout Asia Pacific, Europe and the USA. NCS delivers end-to-end ICT and communications engineering solutions to help governments and enterprises realise business value through the innovative use of technology. Our unique delivery capabilities range across consulting, development, systems integration, outsourcing, infrastructure management and solutions and portal management. We also provide mobility, social networking, business analytics and cloud computing services.

Headquartered in Singapore, NCS has more than 8,000 staff serving governments and large global commercial enterprises. We provide solutions across a spread of industries including the public sector, defence and homeland security, education, transportation and logistics, airport and aviation, healthcare and life sciences, financial services, manufacturing, telecommunications and utilities.

ixia Pte Ltd 21 serangoon North Ave 5 #04-01 Ban teck han Building singapore 554864 contact: Naveen Bhat Phone: +65 6332.0125 email: www.ixiacom.com/contact_us twitter: @IXIAcom website: www.ixiacom.com

For more information on NCS, visit w www.ncs.com.sg

Ncs Pte Ltd 5 Ang mo Kio street 62, Ncs hub singapore 569141 Phone: +65 6556 8000 email: reachus@ncs.com.sg website: www.ncs.com.sg who ’ s w ho o f fs i

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iNfocoMMuNicAtioNs techNoLogy

iNfocoMMuNicAtioNs techNoLogy

Panduit

Vocus communications

Panduit has developed the industry’s most comprehensive Data Centre Infrastructure Management (DCIM) solution with a portfolio of Panduit ‘SmartZone’ solutions that deliver comprehensive energy and physical infrastructure efficiency in data centres, building facilities, and remote enterprise sites through intelligent products, systems and services.

By leveraging our pioneering ‘6 Zone’ infrastructure methodology for assessment, plan/design, integration, and operation, our ‘SmartZone’ solutions provide a holistic view of connectivity, energy, and environmental parameters in the data centre and extended enterprise.

The key pillars of Panduit’s intelligent data centre solution include: • DCIM software and intelligent hardware – Panduit’s ‘SmartZone’ infrastructure management suite platform provides an end-to-end physical-to-logical view of your data centre and extended enterprise.

Centralise collection and representation asset attributes to ensure your physical infrastructure supports mission-critical applications.

• Data centre advisory services – best-practice methodologies for data centre consolidation, virtualisation and automation.

• Energy efficient cabinets – use modular components that address power, cooling, space and cable management challenges, enabling a 25 per cent reduction in energy consumption, speed to deploy and optimised space utilisation.

• Pre-configured physical infrastructure with modular design helps meet the demands of consolidation, virtualisation and implementing cloud architecture and may reduce deployment times up to 65 per cent.

• High-Speed Data Transport (HSDT) copper and fibre cabling systems – Panduit’s HSDT Solutions are both protocol and media agnostic, delivering maximum flexibility during planning, designing, commissioning and operation of the data centre.

Vocus Communications is a leading supplier of telecommunications, data centre and high bandwidth connectivity solutions in Australia and New Zealand. Founded in 2008, the company owns and operates a global telecommunications network connecting Australia and New Zealand to the global Internet backbone in the USA and utilises its domestic network to provide telecommunications services to ISP and telecommunications markets. Vocus also provides data centre storage and dark fibre solutions.

Vocus provides a range of services to meet the Connectivity and Data Centre hosting requirements for its customers demanding the highest performing infrastructure. With data centres located in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, Vocus provides geographical redundancy and dedicated links between the all sites.

On top of this, Vocus also provides a number of Fibre and Ethernet based connectivity services designed to meet the requirements of the most demanding companies. Coupled with its wholesale DSL services, Vocus can provide connectivity throughout Australia over multiple mediums.

Vocus also provides IP transit between Australia, New Zealand and the US as well as up into South East Asia via multi-gigabit links.

Vocus is run by a team of highly skilled technicians who pride themselves on extensive experience designing and building carrier networks. The executive team and board of directors have a broad range of skills, with over 70 years combined experience in owning, operating and advising in the telecommunications and business sectors.

Panduit 60 tuas Ave 11 singapore 639106 Phone: +65 6305 7575 email: contactap@panduit.com twitter: @panduitap website: www.panduit.com 178

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Vocus communications Vocus house Level 1, 189 Miller street North sydney Nsw 2060 Australia Phone (Australia): 1300 88 99 88 Phone (international): +61 2 8999 8999 email: info@vocus.com.au twitter: @VocusComm website: www.vocus.com.au

w h o’ s w ho Di r ec to ry

iNformAtioN mANAgemeNt

iNsurANce softwAre

Kofax

eis group

Kofax solutions power capture driven processes across enterprises, industries and horizontal applications for banking, insurance, government, health care, and more.

When information enters an organisation, Kofax’s Capture Enabled BPM platform automatically captures, extracts, validates and classifies it through a touchless process; then makes it available to the right people, processes or devices at the right time, in the right format.

As a Microsoft Global ISV Partner and Gold Certified Partner, the Kofax Capture Enabled BPM platform is tightly integrated with SharePoint, Office 365 and Dynamics CRM. It also leverages the Windows Azure platform to provide Cloud-based services.

EIS Group is a global provider of core systems for general insurance, warranty, and group and voluntary benefits insurance. We bring fresh thinking and the newest core technology to the tasks of delivering products insurance customers want, when and where they want them, and driving growth, operational efficiency and cost reduction. In this way, we are preparing companies to compete and thrive. We are on a mission to help insurers create agile, customer-centric and innovative organisations. We help by addressing the main obstacle – the problem of core system replacement. We do this by providing leadingedge core system capabilities that enable insurers to go beyond the limitations of legacy environments while managing new system implementation risk and cost.

We are changing the game by delivering to insurers a single core system platform that handles multiple lines of business. This lowers the cost to own by reducing the number of systems needed and the time it takes to implement new products.

comprehensive core system solutions ‘EIS Suite’ component solutions – ‘PolicyCore,’ ‘BillingCore,’ ‘ClaimCore’ and ‘CustomerCore’ – provide broad end-to-end and integrated capabilities, including: product development, rating, underwriting, policy administration, claims, billing, distribution and customer management, customer and agent self-service, document management, and reporting and analytics.

Solution implementations and upgrades are rapid and the solutions are scalable. Component solutions are available independently or as a suite and can be deployed on premise or in the cloud as software-as-aservice. EIS Group (formerly Exigen Insurance Solutions) has provided core system software to insurers globally since 2003.

Kofax Norwich house Level 7, 6 o'connell street sydney Nsw 2000 Australia Phone: +61 (0) 2 8916 0200 email: mailbox.au@kofax.com website: www.kofax.com

eis group 283-287 sir Donald Bradman Drive Brooklyn Park sA 5032 Australia contact: Philippe Lafrenière, SVP & General Manager, Asia Pacific Phone: +64 027 712 4007 or +1 415 402 2622 email: PLafreniere@exigeninsurance.com website: www.eisgroup.com who ’ s w ho o f fs i

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iNsurANce softwAre

it systeMs MANAGeMeNt

sapiens international corporation

Ncs

Sapiens International Corporation (NASDAQ and TASE: SPNS) is a leading global provider of software solutions for the insurance industry, with an emerging focus on the broader financial services sector.

We offer core, end-to-end solutions for the general insurance, property and casualty, life, pension and annuities markets, and business decision management software globally. We have a track record of over 30 years in delivering superior software solutions to more than 130 financial services organisations.

Our team of more than 900 professionals operates through our fully-owned subsidiaries in North America, the United Kingdom, EMEA and Asia Pacific.

NCS is a leading infocommunications technology (ICT) service provider and together with SingTel, under Group Enterprise, we have a presence in 22 countries located throughout Asia Pacific, Europe and the USA. NCS delivers end-to-end ICT and communications engineering solutions to help governments and enterprises realise business value through the innovative use of technology. Our unique delivery capabilities range across consulting, development, systems integration, outsourcing, infrastructure management and solutions and portal management. We also provide mobility, social networking, business analytics and cloud computing services.

Headquartered in Singapore, NCS has more than 8,000 staff serving governments and large global commercial enterprises. We provide solutions across a spread of industries including the public sector, defence and homeland security, education, transportation and logistics, airport and aviation, healthcare and life sciences, financial services, manufacturing, telecommunications and utilities.

For more information on NCS, visit w www.ncs.com.sg

sapiens international corporation Level 7, 111 elizabeth street sydney Nsw 2000 Australia contact: Wayne Te Paa Phone: +61 3 9395 6721 email: wayne.tepaa@sapiens.com twitter: @sapiensins website: www.sapiens.com 180

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Ncs Pte Ltd 5 Ang Mo Kio street 62, Ncs hub singapore 569141 Phone: +65 6556 8000 email: reachus@ncs.com.sg website: www.ncs.com.sg

w h o’ s w ho Di r ec to ry

ManageD clouD

ManageD DocuMent services

tas Managed services

ricoh

TAS is a leading provider of solutions to the financial services and general insurance sectors. Since its inception in 1989, when the company was setup purely to support a group of leading Credit Unions, TAS has evolved to provide hosting and management of core banking solutions for more than 50 ADI (authorised deposit institution) customers. TAS has a strong understanding and appreciation of the Australian financial services landscape, including the compliance and regulation placed upon this industry. TAS is focused on ensuring its services remain secure, compliant and aligned to the industry’s current and future requirements.

If you are looking for a managed services partner, or are considering your ICT options, TAS can assist in the following areas: • Private Cloud – For more than 24 years TAS has operated a highly secure and resilient private cloud utilising high performance infrastructure at two Australian data centres.

• Managed Services – TAS has extensive experience in hosting and managing a large range of business applications such as core banking systems, mobile/internet portals, financial systems and desktop services.

• Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning – TAS understands the requirements of the financial services industry and provides a range of disaster recovery and business continuity solutions to meet the financial services industry's specific needs.

• ICT Consulting – TAS has extensive capability including ICT strategy, infrastructure architecture and technical design and implementation.

With today’s competitive business climate, the focus is firmly on keeping costs down and productivity high. Tracking and using information is crucial, but managing to do so cost-effectively is challenging. Ricoh’s unique ‘Managed Document Services’ offering has helped a number of financial services organisations to manage information more efficiently, while lowering their expenditure.

Ricoh offers organisations a printing and document management solution that lowers their operating costs, helps meet sustainability goals, reduces waste, simplifies business process, and maximises document security.

Helping organisations to print and manage documents for less is our priority – less waste, less cost, less complexity and less CO2. As an industry leader providing cutting-edge products and services, Ricoh has the experienced staff and innovative equipment to help all types of businesses. Ricoh’s extensive range includes multifunctional devices, laser printers, software solutions, workflow and business automation solutions, production printing devices, managed document services, IT Services and specialised financing.

Ricoh’s pioneering efforts in the office automation and imaging industry have been officially recognised globally, with awards including eight consecutive years on the ‘Global 100’ list of the Most Sustainable Corporations. Ricoh is a brand trusted by some of Australia’s largest corporations and government departments, and is relied on in thousands of Australia’s small and medium businesses.

Headquartered locally in Sydney with offices in other state capitals, Ricoh Australia has a strong network of sales, service and support centres throughout the country.

TAS has the experience and capability to help reduce cost, increase revenue and improve speed to market.

tas Managed services (transaction solutions limited) Po Box 6764, silverwater sydney, nsw 1811 contact: Jim Williscroft, Sales Manager Phone: +61 2 9647 4600 email: info@tasol.com.au website: www.tasol.com.au

ricoh australia Pty ltd 8 rodborough road Frenchs Forest nsw 2086 australia Phone: 1800 181 002 (Australia) website: www.ricoh.com.au who ’ s w ho o f fs i

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MANAgeD it services

MANAgeD services

ricoh

hcL technologies

The growing reliance on technology for real-time, on-demand banking, access to information and communication places increasing requirements on financial institutions to ensure their IT environment can handle ever-increasing traffic, data volumes, and computation and security requirements.

Ricoh IT Services delivers best-of-class IT services and solutions to the banking and finance sector, including design, implementation, management and support for corporate networks, systems and data centres through to desktop environments and end-user support.

A customer-focused culture and high level expertise has made Ricoh IT Services a trusted partner of major Australian organisations, including Bankwest and Capital Finance.

Ricoh IT Services’ monitoring and management service provides the IT department with complete visibility, reliable monitoring and alerting, and access to senior expertise to action any issue. The proactive service means IT is always one step ahead of issues, tackling and resolving them before the business experiences any impact.

As an experienced provider of monitoring and management services for banking and finance, Ricoh IT Services understands the importance of maintaining uptime and security of networks, systems and voice environment. Developing an in-depth understanding of clients’ IT environment, Ricoh’s senior engineers bring the experience and skills required to design and implement changes that ensure support the organisation’s objectives.

HCL Technologies is a leading global IT services company focusing on 'transformational outsourcing,' underlined by innovation and value creation. HCL takes pride in its philosophy of 'Employees first, customers second', which empowers its 91,000 transformers to create real value for the customers through an integrated portfolio of services.

Our clients from Fortune 500 corporations and financial services organisations partner with us to discover innovative ways to adapt to shifting regulation, achieve simplification of IT and operations, improve customer experience, and gain access to new products and markets.

ricoh it services 8 rodborough road Frenchs Forest Nsw 2086 Australia Phone: +61 2 9006 8200 website: www.ricoh.com.au 182

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our services benefit: • Customer experience management: Balance customer experience and operational efficiency.

• Risk and compliance: Match compliance levels with regulatory and reporting requirements.

• Alternate Application Support and Maintenance (ASM): Convert cost-driven ASM services into a business-aligned, proactive, problem-solving functions for user satisfaction and lean resourcing.

• Claims management: Improve operational efficiency and effectiveness of the claims administration through analytics.

• Policy administration systems: Leverage core systems technology that provides insurers with the insight and operational agility to build resilient customer-centric strategies.

• Wealth and investment management: Boost revenue and lower costs by transforming client acquisition and servicing.

• Trade processing and back-office functions: Develop a balanced straight-through processing (STP) blueprint, integrating processes while optimising applications.

hcL technologies Level 20, 101 Miller street North sydney Nsw 2060 Australia contact: Marilyn Li, Marketing ANZ Phone: +61 2 8081 5800 email: talktohclanz@hcl.com twitter: @hcltech website: www.hcltech.com

w h o’ s w ho Di r ec to ry

MarKetiNg software

MoBiLity

Marketo

citrix

Marketing software. easy, Powerful, complete.

Citrix is a leader in mobile workspaces, providing virtualization, mobility management, networking and cloud services to enable new ways to work better. Citrix helps financial services organisations maintain competitive advantage by improving productivity and security, better supporting their remote workers and providing uninterrupted, on-demand computing from any location on any device.

Marketo provides the leading cloud-based marketing software platform for companies of all sizes to build and sustain engaging customer relationships. Spanning digital, social, mobile and offline channels, the Marketo solution includes a complete suite of applications that help organisations acquire new customers more efficiently, maximise customer loyalty and lifetime value, improve sales effectiveness, and provide analytical insight into marketing's contribution to revenue growth.

Marketo's applications are known for their breakthrough ease-of-use, and are complemented by ‘Marketing Nation,’ a thriving network of more than 200 ‘LaunchPoint’ ecosystem partners and 40,000 marketers who share and learn from each other to grow their collective marketing expertise. The result for modern marketers is unprecedented agility and superior results.

Headquartered in San Mateo, CA with offices in Europe and Australia, Marketo serves as a strategic marketing partner to more than 3,000 large enterprises and fast-growing small companies across a wide variety of industries.

For more information, visit www.marketo.com

get results with citrix solutions • Protect client data and meet compliance needs by granting flexible, multi-level access to authorised personnel and protecting corporate assets from data loss by establishing granular access security with strong authentication.

• Improve remote and branch office worker support by helping them take advantage of local opportunities, improve service to existing customers and providing the ability to work from anywhere, on any device and over any connection.

• Deliver continuous service by allowing workers to access Windows desktops and applications, web applications and client data at all times, even during an outage.

• Provide ease-of-use to bankers and agents and reduce costs by simplifying the desktop and application experience for platforms, tellers, roaming service agents and self-service kiosks.

In 2014, Citrix is celebrating 25 years of innovation, making IT simpler and people more productive. With annual revenues in 2013 of AU$2.9billion, Citrix solutions are in use at more than 330,000 organisations by over 100 million people globally.

Marketo 1/435-437 Kent street sydney Nsw 2000 Phone: 1800 352 270 (Australia) email: info@marketo.com twitter: @marketo website: au.marketo.com

citrix systems asia Pacific Pty Ltd Level 3, 1 Julius avenue North ryde Nsw 2113, australia Phone: +612 8870 0800 citrix systems asia Pacific Pty Ltd 50 collyer Quay, #07-03, oUe Bayfront, singapore Phone: +65 6725 5300 website: www.citrix.com w ho ’ s w ho o f fs i

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Mobility

Mobility

ibM Australia

Kony

IBM MobileFirst is providing companies with the essential tools to take advantage of new business opportunities being enabled by mobile.

To be successful in embracing mobile for driving revenue growth and productivity, clients must have an integrated strategy for mobile.

Kony is the fastest growing cloud-based mobile application development platform (MADP) in the industry with more than 600 live multi-channel apps, 20 million end users across 45 countries, and generating over 1 billion sessions.

Kony provides an integrated software development lifecycle (SDLC) platform to define, design, develop, test, deploy and manage multichannel applications from a single code base. With Kony, you can deliver stunning user-first experiences, get to market faster and lower your application Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Kony also offers a suite of more than 30 ready-to-run B2E and B2C apps that enable customers to quickly extend their business.

In 2013 Kony was named a “Leader” in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Mobile Application Development Platforms (MADP).

A complete Portfolio of MobileFirst solutions • IBM Worklight for developing hybrid apps across multiple devices, integrated with Rational Test Workbench for mobile, helps improve the quality and reliability of mobile apps.

• IBM AppScan provides vulnerability testing for mobile apps across multiple platforms, while IBM security solutions secure access to enterprise assets.

• IBM Endpoint Manager for mobile provides support for bring-yourown-device programs and increased security standards critical to governments and regulated environments.

• IBM Tealeaf CX Mobile solution gives the enterprise visual insight into mobile user behaviours, while IBM Coremetrics provides analytic insights into usage patterns for line-of-business owners.

A Deep set of Mobile services for clients The IBM MobileFirst portfolio includes: • Strategy and design services: Clients can tap into IBM expertise to map a mobile strategy for employees and customers, along with key experience design skills from IBM Interactive to build compelling mobile experiences.

• Development and integration services: These include network infrastructure services for mobile, mobile enterprise services for managed mobility and mobile application platform management services that address IT infrastructure challenges.

ibM Australia Pty ltd 601 Pacific highway st leonards Nsw 2065 Australia Phone: 1800 557 343 website: www.ibm.com/mobilefirst/au 184

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specialties Mobile applications, mobile web, mobile applications platform, mobile technology, rich client, mobile commerce, mobile wallet, m-banking, mobile payments, Android apps, iPhone apps, BlackBerry, Symbian, Windows Mobile.

For more information, please visit www.kony.com

Kony contact: Viren Wadhwa Phone: +91 9810077856 email: Viren.Wadhwa@kony.com twitter: @Kony linkedin: Kony, Inc. Facebook: KonyInc website: www.kony.com

w h o’ s w ho Di r ec to ry

MuLti-chANNeL coMMuNicAtioNs

MuLti-chANNeL coMMuNicAtioNs

sitecore

striata

Sitecore is a global leader in customer experience management software that lets marketers own the experience of every customer or prospect that engages with their brand. The company delivers highly relevant content and personalised digital experiences that delight audiences, build loyalty and drive revenue.

Sitecore’s experience platform is deeply connected, delivering a single connected experience across both online and offline channels, empowering brands to easily engage in seamless conversations with their audiences when and where they want, in real-time.

The platform is easy to use, combining best-in-class web content management with marketing automation, email marketing, social media, e-commerce, optimisation, and analytics into a single, unified platform.

Sitecore captures every minute interaction – and intention – that customers and prospects have with a brand, both on a website and across other digital channels. As the platform is deeply connected, marketers get this intelligence immediately, and can easily act on it in real-time, within the same session.

More than 3,500 of the world’s leading brands including HSBC, American Express, AustralianSuper, Carnival Cruise Lines, easyJet, and Heineken trust Sitecore to help them deliver the meaningful interactions that win customers for life.

Striata unlocks the power of email and mobile messaging.

Whether you need to distribute confidential customer information, send invoices, accept electronic payment, or respond electronically to customer queries, Striata has the skills, solutions and experience required to enable you to develop effective electronic relationships.

The world’s largest financial services, utility, insurance, retail and telecommunications companies achieve unrivalled results by replacing print and mail with Striata’s interactive electronic documents and transactional messages.

Striata’s enterprise platform, strategy and support services: • Drive significant paper suppression • Deliver ongoing cost savings • Accelerate payments • Enhance the customer experience • Enable regulatory compliance Striata combines superior electronic messaging capabilities with advanced email deliverability services and dedicated account specialists with the aim of maximising client revenues, improving brand awareness, optimising business efficiencies and providing you with a rapid, measurable return on investment.

In support of our products, Striata offers a full range of professional services including: project management, data conversion, email address acquisition, customer service support, training and consulting services.

A global paperless communications specialist with over a decade of experience, Striata has operations in New York, London, Johannesburg, Hong Kong, Sydney and Argentina with partners in North and Latin America, Europe and Asia Pacific.

sitecore Level 4, 50 Pitt street sydney Nsw Australia

striata Ltd Level 20 central tower, 28 Queen's road central hong Kong

Phone: +61 2 8014 8857 email: sales-au@sitecore.net twitter: @sitecoreanz website: www.sitecore.net

Phone: + 852 2159 9450 email: info@striata.com twitter: @Striata website: www.striata.com who ’ s w ho o f fs i

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outsourcing

Payments

mindtree

clear2Pay

Mindtree delivers technology services and accelerates growth for Global 1000 companies by solving complex business challenges with breakthrough technical innovations. Mindtree specialises in e-commerce, mobility, cloud enablement, digital transformation, business intelligence, data analytics, testing, infrastructure, EAI and ERP solutions. We are among the fastest growing technology firms globally with more than 200 clients and offices in 14 countries. For Mindtree, “Welcome to possible” is more than a slogan − it reflects our approach to every engagement.

We work with a veritable list of financial services customers including Silicon Valley Bank, CIT Group, AIG, American Express, and The Carlyle Group. We have significant solution delivery capability within Corporate Banking, Cards and Payments, Wealth Management, Superannuation, and Market Infrastructure segments. Financial institutions engage with Mindtree to conceptualise, design, and deliver Business-IT transformation programs. Our ability to blend consulting-led solution development with proven service delivery processes helps us meet the needs of both first time outsourcers, and organisations with mature outsourcing practices, and ensures that we get our solutions right the very first time. Our customers in Australia include two of the top four leading banks, leading superannuation administrators, and wealth management companies.

Our expertise includes: • Managing Capex/ Opex balance through hybrid infrastructure and platform based solutions • Managing non-homogenised infrastructure (physical and cloud environments) • Customer insight • Straight Through Processing

Clear2Pay offers a range of solutions that enable banks and financial institutions to deploy payment systems to process payments of any type. Clear2Pay’s payment integration technology also helps to build smart ways to get more out of existing legacy payment systems and to break down the inflexibility presented by traditional payment silos.

Clear2Pay’s payment integration technologies have been adopted by 30 per cent of the world’s top 50 banks and process payments worth trillions of dollars every day.

Testing often becomes the dominant cost over the lifetime of a payment system and Clear2Pay offers a suite of automated testing tools to help reduce operating cost and eliminate risk.

Clear2Pay’s extensive range of products and services include: • ‘Open Payment Solutions,’ which provide consolidated front, middle and back office payments processing.

• ‘Open Test Solutions,’ which provide testing and validate payments across the value chain.

• ‘Dispute and Charge Back Solutions’ ensure timely and cost efficient processing of disputed transactions.

• ‘Consulting Services’ assist with business case and strategy formulation through to delivery and technical guidance.

• ‘Alternative Payments’ support the latest generation of payment mechanisms involving mobility, context, big data and value accounts.

mindtree Limited Level 7, 155 george st, the rocks nsw 2000 australia contact: Raghu Chary, Regional Director, Business Development Phone: +61 (02) 9291 2200 email: raghu_chary@mindtree.com website: www.mindtree.com 186

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clear2Pay Level 9, 132 arthur street north sydney nsw 2060 australia Phone: +61 2 9026 0000 80 raffles Place, Level 35, singapore 048624 Phone: +65 6248 4572 email: info.apac@clear2pay.com

w h o’ s w ho Di r ec to ry

Payments

Payments

strategic Payments services

aci worldwide

Established in 2006, Strategic Payments Services (SPS) is one of Australia’s leading independent card payment processors. SPS provides a full range of omni-channel payment processing solutions and services for acquirers, issuers, merchants, corporate enterprises and payment gateways. We process in excess of 650 million transactions per annum and provide acquirer processing services to over 33,000 ATM, EFTPOS and mPOS devices in Australia and overseas.

At the forefront of innovation, SPS offers a range of value add services including mPOS, contactless payments, e-wallets, prepaid cards, service portals and secure vault services. We also support card and merchant management, authorisation, settlement, fraud and risk management along with comprehensive reporting and data analytics.

Constantly striving to exceed client expectations, we pride ourselves on our ability to understand our partners’ key objectives and business challenges and deliver a range of customised, leading-edge products, enabling them to thrive in an ever-changing payments marketplace.

The key benefits for our clients include: • Highly-robust payment processing hub with open architecture enabling payment innovations and speed to market.

• Omni-channel payment platform providing a single payment platform and integrated back-office system delivering service and operational efficiencies.

• Feature-rich service portal giving you the power to efficiently view and manage your payment operations and service your clients in real-time.

• Peace of mind with solutions that are fully PCI-DSS compliant.

• Customer support with a 24/7 helpdesk on-site in Australia.

ACI Worldwide, a Universal Payments company, powers electronic payments and banking for more than 5,000 financial services organisations, retailers, billers and processors around the world. ACI software processes $13trillion each day in payments and securities transactions for more than 250 of the leading global retailers, and 21 of the world’s 25 largest banks. Through our comprehensive suite of software products and hosted services, we deliver a broad range of solutions for payment processing including:

strategic Payments services Level 3, 67 albert ave chatswood nsw 2067 australia contact: Kelini Pin Phone: +61 2 8116 1248 email: Kelini_Pin@spsaustralia.com.au website: www.spsaustralia.com.au

• Card and merchant management • Online banking, mobile, branch and voice banking • Fraud detection • Trade finance • Electronic bill presentment and payment.

To learn more about ACI, please visit www.aciworldwide.com. You can also find us on Twitter @ACI_Worldwide.

aci worldwide Level 2 50 margaret street sydney, nsw 2000 australia contact: Clara Chwee Phone: +61 2 9512 0200 email: mbox-ap-marketing@aciworldwide.com twitter: @ACI_Worldwide website: www.aciworldwide.com w ho ’ s w ho o f fs i

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recruitMeNt for it BANkiNg & fiNANce

risk

robert walters

iBM Australia

Robert Walters IT Banking & Finance has specialist recruitment teams across Sydney and Melbourne. With a 15 year track record, we provide professional IT recruitment solutions to blue-chip corporations and SMEs across the banking (retail, business and investment), insurance, superannuation, wealth management and vendor sectors.

Managing security and risk is a priority for any organisation, but few industries face the regulatory requirements, complexity and rate of change that banks and financial services organisations must manage.

To be successful, risk, security and compliance management should be part of a broader, more holistic approach to managing operational risk and fraud, without adversely impacting business processes or customer service.

IBM is committed to the financial services industry and can assist with: • Access to one of the largest and diverse data warehouses of security information to enable increased visibility into worldwide threats.

• Developing a robust strategy to manage and monitor systems and data threats around the clock.

• Identifying and addressing a variety of internal and external threats through stringent end-to-end identity and access management.

• Automating reporting and monitoring requirements to better support regulations, such as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI) and Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX).

• Industry best practices, time-tested strategies and advanced forensic tools.

Our consultants are experts in their field and recruit within a specific geography across the Sydney and Melbourne markets whilst specialising in a chosen technical vertical. This level of specialisation allows for speed to market which is a critical factor in securing the best talent for our clients. This unique structure has led us to win numerous international awards and partner with some of the strongest and most recognisable banking and financial services companies in Australia.

We recruit both contract and permanent positions across the following technical verticals: • Project Management • Business Analysts • Infrastructure • Security • Architecture • Project Services • Development • Business Intelligence • Testing Robert Walters is one of the leading international recruitment consultancies, with a network of 53 offices spanning 24 countries.

contact: Shaun Deacon, Associate Director – Sydney Phone: + 61 2 8289 3240 email: shaun.deacon@robertwalters.com.au

iBM Australia Pty Ltd 601 Pacific highway st Leonards Nsw 2065 Australia

contact: Ben Brown, Associate Director – Melbourne Phone: +61 3 8628 2177 email: ben.brown@robertwalters.com.au website: www.robertwalters.com.au

Phone: 1800 557 343 twitter: @IBMSecurity_ANZ website: www.ibm.com/software/au/security

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w h o’ s w ho Di r ec to ry

risK AND security

secure iNforMAtioN exchANGe

condition Zebra

Konnect Net

Condition Zebra is an information security and risk management solutions provider, offering one-stop solutions including applications, services and education.

Condition Zebra’s strategies of combining key technologies with exclusive expertise aims to mitigate operational, legal and financial threats for organisations, and reduce risk to a manageable and resolvable level.

‘InfoRisk 360° Professional Training’ consists a series of highly technical training focusing on information security and risk management, providing organisations with industry guidelines from strategy to implementation.

‘ZEBRAGUARD’ is a one-stop compliance management solution that helps organisations effectively manage risk and compliance, enhance data protection, and monitors employee online and offline activities to improve productivity.

• Optimise A multifunction solution to optimise your resources and reducing risks due to human factors. It helps to ensure IT compliance, improve efficiency, prevent insider threats and data leakage.

• Crowd Testing With up to thousands of experienced penetration testers standing by for information security assessments, this is one of the most comprehensive penetration testing solutions you will ever have.

• EdgeScan A vulnerability scanning solution, specially designed to detect security weaknesses in your digital-asset-estate: websites, applications (mobile/web/cloud), software, servers and networks.

Konnect NET provides a secure information exchange platform that links organisations with their business networks, enabling them to work effectively together.

Organisations that need to work across business networks can find the process slow, inefficient, and difficult to track and manage. Konnect NET’s solutions make it easy to work collaboratively, helping to lift business performance.

Konnect NET was established in 2008 when the founders saw an opportunity for an independent provider to create a faster, more efficient way to managing interactions across communities of users involved in the insurance process. All major insurers and GP practices in New Zealand now manage insurance medical requests through Konnect NET’s platform. From this initial idea the business and service offering has continued to grow, creating a strong position in New Zealand, and a platform for expansion into Australia. This includes one of Australia’s largest general insurance organisations that is now using the platform for integration with their distribution channels.

Konnect NET’s primary customers are insurers and banks, but the model is equally relevant to other organisations that need to interface with internal or external business networks.

Asia: Level 3A-10, Block f, Phileo Damansara 1, Jalan 16/11, off Jalan Damansara 46350 Petaling Jaya, selangor Darul ehsan, Malaysia

Australia: waterfront Place, Level 19, 1 eagle street Brisbane QLD 4000 Australia

Phone: +60 3 7665 0911

Phone: +61 7 3360 0236

website: www.condition-zebra.com email: info@condition-zebra.com

For more information visit us at www.konnectnet.com.au

Konnect Net 30 Glen street, Milsons Point sydney Nsw 2061 Australia contact: Andrew Vasko, General Manager Australia Phone: +61 434 102 841 email: info@konnectnet.com.au website: www.konnectnet.com.au who ’ s w ho o f fs i

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security

security

Authentify

check Point software technologies

Authentify, Inc. is the leading provider of global telephonebased, out-of-band authentication services. These multi-factor authentication (MFA) services enable organisations that need strong security to quickly and cost-effectively add two-factor (2FA) or threefactor authentication layers to user logon, transaction verifications or critical changes such as adding a payee to an e-pay or wire account.

The company's patented technology employs a service-oriented message architecture and XML API to seamlessly integrate into existing security processes.

Out-of-band authentication employing smartphones can incorporate digital certificates and cryptography for strong authentication in mobile to mobile scenarios. Smartphones are becoming the connected device of choice for the wired employee or consumer. Using the same device for connectivity and for authentication can be vulnerable to exploit.

Authentify is pioneering the use of digital certificates and public key infrastructure (PKI) technologies to protect both the security of the communications in mobile environments as well as indicating when a device has been compromised. The combination of PKI and voice biometrics will defeat MITM, SIM card swaps/clones, call forward attacks and others.

In more than 120 countries, Authentify provides user authentication, transaction confirmation, transaction authentication services, voice biometric and other authentication functions for many of the most familiar names on the internet, including five of the world's top 10 banks, the internet's largest e-commerce site, the largest online auction and commerce site, the leading peer-to-peer (P2P) e-payment firm and many others.

Check Point Software Technologies is a worldwide leader in securing the internet, providing customers with uncompromised protection against all types of threats, reducing security complexity and lowering total cost of ownership. Check Point first pioneered the industry with ‘FireWall-1’ and its patented stateful inspection technology.

Today, Check Point continues to develop new innovations based on the ‘Software Blade Architecture,’ providing customers with flexible and simple solutions that can be fully customised to meet the exact security needs of any organisation. Check Point is the only vendor to go beyond technology and define security as a business process.

Check Point 3D Security uniquely combines policy, people and enforcement for greater protection of information assets and helps organisations implement a blueprint for security that aligns with business needs.

Customers include thousands of organisations of all sizes, including all Fortune and Global 100 companies. Check Point's award-winning ‘ZoneAlarm’ solutions protect millions of consumers from hackers, spyware and identity theft.

Authentify, inc.

8745 w. higgins road, suite 240 chicago, illinois 60631 usA

Authentify, inc. Authentify Ltd. 12/F, capitol centre, tower ii 28 Jardine's crescent causeway Bay, hong Kong

contact: John Zurawski,

contact: Robert Soden,

Vice President Phone: +1 773 243 0328 email: john.zurawski@authentify.com website: www.authentify.com

Managing Director Phone: +852 9304 6699 email: robert.soden@authentify.com website: www.authentify.com

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check Point software technologies Pte Ltd 61 robinson road #17-01 robinson centre singapore 058893 Phone: +65 6435 1318 email: info_sg@checkpoint.com twitter: @checkpointsw website: www.checkpoint.com

w h o’ s w ho Di r ec to ry

security

security

entrust

FireMon

Entrust, now part of Datacard Group, has been at the forefront of the security market for nearly two decades providing comprehensive identity-based security solutions that safeguard enterprises, governments, financial institutions, citizens and websites. More than 5,000 organisations in 85 countries across the globe leverage Entrust’s world-class security solutions, which include strong authentication, physical and logical access, public key infrastructure (PKI), cloud and mobile security, citizen eID, employee credentialing, SSL and more.

As a trusted security expert to the globe’s most elite organisations and governments, Entrust helps provide identity-based security with award-winning solutions that defend against sophisticated online and internal threats, increase corporate efficiency and comply with domestic and international regulations.

FireMon is a global leader in providing enterprises, government and managed services providers with advanced security intelligence solutions that deliver deeper visibility and tighter control over their network security infrastructure.

Financial services organisations worldwide have implemented FireMon to improve the effectiveness of existing network defence investments, proactively identify and remediate security gaps before they can be exploited and automate audit and compliance programs, including SOX, FISMA, PCI DSS, ISO 27001. In this way, scheduled audits become a routine task, not overtime task force projects. The majority of FireMon customers have documented a payback of less than 12 months on their FireMon investment.

The FireMon Security Intelligence Platform provides continuous, realtime visibility into network security infrastructure, policy effectiveness and underlying IT risk, allowing organisations to optimise existing defences, remediate exposed vulnerabilities and prevent today’s multistaged attacks.

Built on a massively scalable distributed architecture and a patented, high performance intelligence engine, the FireMon Security Intelligence Platform is a comprehensive and context-aware source of real time network security intelligence.

Unlike security analysis tools that provide information on historic conditions or events, or assess risks using static threat or vulnerability data, the FireMon Security Intelligence Platform generates predictive analytics that empower today’s IT security teams to proactively address pervasive issues of complexity and change, reducing their overall attack surface.

trust in identities Security begins when organisations know and trust the identity of those involved in a given transaction. The story of identity is about devices and applications ranging from personal mobile devices to ATMs and electrical meters.

cloud security Entrust understands the critical need of securing identities both for and in the cloud. To ensure enterprises’ safe migration to cloud services and applications, Entrust offers a single software platform that provides identity federation, strong authentication, a full range of mobile capabilities and key self-service tools. And our comprehensive digital certificate portfolio and management services help secure web-based platforms and environments that make cloud computing possible.

For more information visit www.firemon.com

entrust Level 57, MLc centre, 19 Martin Place sydney 2000 Nsw Australia

FireMon 8400 w. 110th street, suite 400 overland Park, Ks 66210, u.s.

contact: Kenneth Chan Phone: +61 2 9220 3635 email: entrustaustralia@entrust.com website: www.entrust.net

Phone: +1 913 948 9570 email: info@FireMon.com twitter: @firemon website: www.firemon.com who ’ s w ho o f fs i

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security

security

M.tech

threatMetrix

M.Tech has been providing quality IT Security, application delivery network and video communications solutions since 2002, with 33 offices creating a strong presence in 17 countries. These include Singapore, Australia, Cambodia, China (including Hong Kong), India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom and Vietnam.

Our aim is to be your trusted security solutions provider for integrated end-to-end management of the internet, systems and applications infrastructure. The vendors we work with are established industry leaders, providing solutions that cover a broad spectrum of today's security demands, from firewalls, web security, intrusion prevention and anti-spam to security analytics. We ensure our resellers receive constant support through on-site sales, marketing and technical support

ThreatMetrix is the fastest-growing provider of advanced web fraud solutions and context-based authentication. It processes more than 500 million logins, payment and wire transfers every month, protecting more than 2,500 customers and 10,000 websites across a variety of industries, including financial services, enterprise, e-commerce, payments, social networks, government, and insurance.

The ‘TrustDefender Cybercrime Protection Platform’ prevents online fraud by combining comprehensive data collection and big data analytics with the ThreatMetrix ‘Global Trust Intelligence Network.’

It is effective in protecting user accounts and enabling trusted, secure transactions. It allows real employees and customers to do business while keeping cybercriminals out. ThreatMetrix screens users in real-time without impacting the user experience.

For more information, please visit us at www.mtechpro.com

Our customers say the top five benefits of using ThreatMetrix solutions include: • Maximising revenue and protecting digital assets without frustrating customers; • One platform provides comprehensive context-based authentication, including, profiling devices and identifying threats, assessing user identity and behaviour, configuring to business rules, validating business policy and performing detailed analysis; • Accessing the largest customer authentication and fraud prevention network; • Holistic protection from malware attacks; and • Low total cost of ownership.

For more information on how to stop cybercriminals and protect your customers online, contact ThreatMetrix.

M.tech Products Pte Ltd 18 Boon Lay way #04-110 tradehub 21 singapore 609966 192

who ’s who of fs i

threatMetrix Pty Ltd suite 1303 Level 13, 799 Pacific highway chatswood 2067 Australia Phone: +61 2 8073 4215 (Australia) or +852 3669 8341 (Hong Kong) email: sales@threatmetrix.com website: www.threatmetrix.com