As the adoption of Open Banking continues to increase, it has become crucial for banks to leverage this opportunity to strengthen their customer relations.
‘Open Banking 360: Reshaping the Future of Banking’ has been the interesting chosen topic of discussion in the September edition of the Fintalks webinar, organized by the Bahrain Fintech Bay. Moderated by Ali Aahan (Senior Business Analyst at Bahrain Fintech Bay) and with guest speakers Ali Ghuloom (Head of Digitization and Project Management at the National Bank of Bahrain) and our very own Claudio Cungi, Strands’ Head of Product; they discussed how Open Banking will shape the future of the banking industry and how banks can revolutionize their services and offerings.
Watch here the full talk:
In the discussion, Claudio shared his thoughts on the key actors in the latest wave of Open Banking, including incumbent Fintechs, new entrants, current banks and customers, and how they are all influencing the latest trend of digital banking. He identified the opportunity for banks to innovate their service model beyond the typical banking as we know it of the last decade.
He also mentioned how this is an international trend, with banks all over the world updating their services to provide for the more modern user, and as a result, building greater confidence and loyalty. New technological frameworks allow Fintechs to connect to third parties, as well as entering the market and to meet customer demands.
“Open Banking can be driven by regulation or market needs, and this is something that banks have to take advantage of in order to innovate”. Claudio Cungi, Head of Product
During the webinar, Claudio also talked about two benefits to banks of this new technology, saying that it has sped up the innovation process as well as shaking up the industry to provide more competition, meaning new options to customers in the long run. “This is significant now that the modern day user has higher demands and expectations which need to be met”, Claudio mentioned.
On the other hand, Ali shared his thoughts on how Open Banking can mean understanding more high quality financial data about the bank’s customer, allowing them to consensually share relevant information to external parties. This provides the opportunity to collaborate with Fintechs and extend banking services to meet customer needs more efficiently. This can result in profiting from customer acquisition and cross-selling and upskilling through a third party.
