Ronak D, Author At Everest Group

Technology Synergy Drives M&A Spike in the Banking and Financial Services Industry | Blog

January 20, 2021

Technology used to be an enabling strategic pillar for banks and financial services (BFS) organizations. Now, it is the core of these firms’ value creation playbooks. Indeed, BFS firms are building digital capability platforms using modern technologies to create what we have named SUPER — or Secure, Ubiquitous, Personalized, Easy, and Responsive — banking experiences and optimized operations.

This move to digital would require BFS firms to invest disproportionately in building these industry platforms at speed and scale. M&As (merger and acquisitions) are helping BFS firms trigger this transformation agenda by siphoning off cost synergies from mergers and investing in technology rationalization, modernization, and innovation.

Bloomberg estimated that more than US$500 billion worth of BFS M&A deals happened in 2020. That magnitude is the second highest since the 2008 financial crisis and only lags 2019 by a razor-thin margin due to the pandemic induced slowdown. Our recent analysis found that eight out of ten of the largest M&As in the BFS industry in 2020 mentioned technology synergy as one of the key drivers for the transaction.

Traditionally, acquisitions served as an opportunity to enter new product lines and/or geographies, gain new capabilities, and achieve cost savings and operational efficiencies via technology modernization and streamlining processes and systems. The recent acquisitions in the BFS space have focused additionally on technology synergy and the ability to weaponize the combined technology estate. Technology synergy is achieved in these M&A transactions by:

Acquiring digital capabilities and solutions
Achieving scale that makes economic sense to invest in building industry platforms using cloud, APIs, and data & analytics technologies
Acquiring digital skills
Combining discrete technology components of merged entities to create industry platforms.

As mentioned in the image below, leaders at BFS firms undergoing such M&As stress the importance of digital as a lever for these strategic acquisitions. For instance, in the merger of First Citizens BancShares, Inc. and CIT Group, Ellen R. Alemany – Chairwoman and CEO of CIT, who will assume the role of Vice Chairwoman of the combined entity – highlighted how well-positioned the two firms will be to leverage their product portfolio and technology across the franchises, and make additional investments in technology to enhance the customer experience.

Expansion of the IT estate to build digital capability platforms has created a paradigm shift in business cases for M&As. The platform-based economy not only enables new businesses and systems but also facilitates rapid integration across merged entities.

A notable example is S&P Global’s bid to buy IHS Markit in December 2020, which serves as an example of a technology-driven merger in the financial information and credit rating space. It has created an opportunity for the two firms with unique and harmonizing assets to create a formidable data and technology offering. IHS is the industry frontrunner in leveraging platforms for underwriting corporate stock and bonds and trade processing. The combined entity will become a data powerhouse for complex financial products, and this will directly funnel exponential growth for S&Ps credit rating service, which comprises 40-50 percent of its revenue.

Skill acquisition is gradually gaining popularity across multiple deals. Aspects like digital identity and security are addressed in Moody’s purchase of Regulatory DataCorp (RDC), a provider of KYC/AML data services, and Mastercard’s acquisition of RiskRecon for cybersecurity services. In the platforms/technology space, Charles Schwab acquired the technology and intellectual property of a fintech, Motif. And customer experience took centerstage in Goldman Sachs’ acquisition of United Capital, with a focus on scaling up its UI/UX products. Talent acquisition is another factor that is gaining ground across some of these mergers.

In November 2020, PNC Financial Services acquired the US Operations of the Spanish lender BBVA. And most recently, Huntington Bancshares acquired TCF Financial. The banks are not only increasing their asset size and market reach but also gearing up to save costs by optimizing their IT estate and branch networks. These cost savings are being funneled to build better digital experiences as more customers are opting for online and mobile services for their banking needs.

Similarly, significant deal activity is expected in the asset management space. For example, Macquarie Group is set to buy Waddell & Reed for US$1.7 billion. This traction in asset management is driven not just by pressure on fees and revenue but also by increased costs attributed to technology and digital spending. Asset management firms with deep pockets are already betting heavily on the success of platform- and data-based niche firms. For instance, BlackRock recently purchased minority stakes in the platform-based alternative wealth management firm iCapital Network and the robo-advisor Envestnet.

Our analysis suggests that the M&A trend will pick up for regional and community banks in a bid to gain scale. This is critical to compete with larger players as customer intimacy and relationships move from physical to digital. They will be better equipped to build new capabilities in robotics, AI/ML, and advanced analytics as banking increasingly digitizes. The combined entities will also have a larger pool of resources wherein better skill-to-talent match can be achieved.

BFS M&As will be a boost to the consulting and IT services industry

M&A’s will entail increased spending in post-merger integration and consulting expenditures in the short term. BFS firms will need partners that can create a modernization roadmap for the combined entity. The merged entities can gain significant cost synergies by rationalizing their vendor portfolio and IT estate, as several applications and platforms will become redundant. Hence, a modernization roadmap will enable value creation in the long run.

Of course, the merged entities must also make rapid changes in their working models, delivery strategies, and sourcing decisions to thrive in the new normal. Investments in some specific technologies/tools will ensure growth and continuity of operations. Digital acquisition is thus becoming a table stake as firms determine the right valuation even before they formulate the integration strategy.

Large BFS firms are looking at targets that help them create a digital service model for the future. We are already seeing increased M&A activity among regional banks, asset management firms, and brokerage houses. As we inch closer – hopefully – to the end of the pandemic, BFS firms will be eyeing M&A opportunities that deliver technology synergy and associated business transformation benefits. Picking the right segment, target, and timing of these initiatives will be crucial.

Discover even more insights in the BFS industry in our recent research and reports:

Or if you would like to understand more about the impact of the increased M&A activity in the BFS industry, please reach out to us at [email protected] and [email protected].

Uncleared Margin Rules (UMR) as a Catalyst for Change – from Spreadsheets to Digital Compliance Driven by Data and Cloud | Blog

December 22, 2020

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, leaders of the G20 summit laid out the Uncleared Margin Rules (UMR) as part of the financial regulatory reform agenda. The goal of these rules was increasing transparency and reducing the credit risk posed by major participants in the Over the Counter (OTC) derivatives market. UMR introduced fully bilateral Initial Margin (IM) rules based on theoretical loss, to protect one party against the other party’s default.

The UMR have been rolled out in phases since 2016, and approximately 60 of the largest firms (by assets under management) currently comply with IM rules. Before the onset of COVID-19, 200+ firms were expected to come under the rules’ purview by September 1, 2020, but regulators pushed the timelines to help pandemic-impacted firms focus their resources on managing risks associated with market volatility.

An estimated 1,100 counterparties are expected to come under the combined purview of Phase 5 and Phase 6, which will be rolled out in September 2021 and September 2022, respectively. It is thus inevitable that the significant increase in Newly In-Scope Counterparties (NISCs) will create overwhelming demand on market resources across participants and service providers. To address this demand rush, significant operational and technology-led solutions must be implemented, and most firms plan to engage with external partners to reduce the burden of the additional contractual agreements that must be put in place.

The new rules involve the following major changes across operational processes and legal agreements:

Both swap dealers and funds will be required to exchange IM with one another
IM must now rest with third-party custodians

If not done in a timely manner, NISCs will not be able to trade in non-centrally cleared derivatives, limiting their options for both taking on and hedging risks, potentially impacting liquidity in the derivatives markets.

Time for change – fighting the legacy

Firms have historically relied on spreadsheets and siloed legacy technology systems to assess their collateral needs, access valuations, and communicate them to counterparties – a cumbersome method that makes the task of UMR compliance all the more difficult.

Though the rules only apply to new transactions, they may, in fact, create multiple workflows for monitoring both new and legacy transactions. Beyond operational updates, firms will need to negotiate and enter into new legal agreements and modify existing ones. In some cases, they may need to alter their trading strategies and operations to mitigate or steer clear of the rules by using portfolio compression or by simply reducing their use of uncleared products.

Thus, to avoid getting caught in a regulatory bottleneck, firms must act now to:

Determine whether the rules apply to them by calculating the Aggregate Average Notional Amount (AANA) of non-cleared derivatives
Identify their IM requirements
Set up a data infrastructure for enhanced transparency and analysis
Choose service providers in the areas of custody, monitoring, and legal services
Create a modern architecture and digital roadmap for UMR or adopt technologies from third-party technology vendors that can be integrated easily into a wide range of asset classes that require IM calculations

Engineering and system integration complexity is bound to increase with legacy systems (which need to be modernized) and the operational changes needed to meet the regulatory guidelines. Thus, firms need to choose the right set of technology vendors and system integration and consulting partners to support them on their compliance journeys. In fact, even firms that do not cross the US$50 million IM threshold will need systems to monitor their IM thresholds regularly, thereby creating a market for cost-effective technology solutions.

Several technology vendors are increasingly building a strong data and cloud technology infrastructure and value-added digital technologies, such as cognitive technologies and interactive visualization, to help optimize costs and better comply with the rapidly changing regulatory landscape. For example, Finastra and CloudMargin have partnered to deliver an integrated collateral and margin management solution to enterprises of all sizes through a SaaS model, facilitating end-to-end straight-through processing of derivatives transactions and all associated collateral management workflows, from trade booking through settlement.

RegTechs providing a helping hand

AcadiaSoft is leading the way in the regulatory technology market with its UMR Collateral Suite and extensive partnerships with technology and data vendors, such as Bloomberg, Cassini Systems, Capco, Calypso Technology, HazelTree, IHS Markit, Murex, and TriOptima, to support organizations in their UMR compliance journeys. AcadiaSoft and TriOptima have partnered for a Phase 5 soft launch aimed at avoiding a compliance crunch near the deadline. More than 30 firms falling under IM Phase 5 have successfully joined the initiative, while another 25 are scheduled to join before the end of 2020.

IT service providers can tap into such opportunities by collaborating with technology vendors to help create a packaged solution, providing the much-needed implementation and deployment support layered with domain advisory capabilities. A notable case in point is the launch of Wipro’s Standard Initial Margin Method (SIMM) in a box solution in collaboration with Quaternion Risk Management.

Embracing the change

New workflows and requirements are set to be introduced as organizations embark on the journey to become UMR compliant. Rather than considering UMR as an additional regulatory burden, firms should leverage this opportunity to reevaluate and reimagine their existing workstreams and use UMR as a catalyst for change to holistically automate and streamline their collateral management.

If you’d like to share your observations or questions on the fast-evolving technology and services landscape for UMR compliance solutions, please reach out to [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected].

BigTechs in BFSI: The Pragmatics of Co-existence for Market Expansion | Blog

August 19, 2020

Google recently announced that it is teaming with eight US banks to offer checking accounts powered by its Google Pay product and built on top of the banks’ existing infrastructures. Google is not the only BigTech firm that is pushing its play in the Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) industry. Facebook recently launched a new unit called Facebook Financial that consolidates all its payment products under David Marcus, the former President of PayPal. In a call with investors in July 2020, Tesla announced that it is planning to launch a major insurance company.

Eyeing the prizes

The transformation of the BFSI industry is powered by the ability to create innovative products and experiences using digital capability platforms and data. The BigTech firms see this as a massive opportunity to use their digital platforms and data processing infrastructures to gain a significant share of this transformational opportunity in the BFSI industry.

Additionally, the emergence of a globally connected ecosystem and ambient technology have led end customers to demand seamless experiences to manage their lifestyles and finances. Realizing yet another opportunity, BigTechs such as Amazon, Ant Financial, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft entered the BFSI industry to offer complementary financial services to support the BFSI firms’ core businesses. They gradually started providing technical capabilities to enable BFSI firms to enhance their operations, products, and experiences, eventually offering competing products and services. In fact, today, BigTech firms are at the epicenter of accelerating a shift in both demand and supply ecosystems, blurring traditional industry boundaries.

In our recently released report, BigTechs in BFSI Industry: The Theory of Co-existence for Market Expansion, we analyzed BigTech firms’ investments in the BFSI industry to dissect their strategic bets and provide recommendations for BFSI firms.

Building technological capabilities to compete

Traditional BFSI players are understandably concerned about BigTechs’ increasing sphere of influence, but their complex relationship with BigTechs makes it difficult for them to devise a focused strategy – to compete or collaborate – with their new peers. While some BFSI firms are expecting regulatory scrutiny and industry watchdogs to keep BigTechs away from their turf, others are developing technologies in-house and in collaboration with enterprise technology firms such as SAP, Salesforce, and Oracle to shore up their capabilities. For example, the top five banks in the US recently increased their technology budgets by more than 10 percent, with a large proportion focused on building proprietary technologies and platforms, as well as R&D, to better compete with BigTechs and FinTechs. In 2019, Bank of America alone filed 418 technology patents.

Our viewpoint

We believe BFSI firms should find a fine balance of working with BigTechs as fellow ecosystem players to leverage synergies and create a win-win for all stakeholders. Here’s why.

A look at BigTechs’ scale of technology investments and R&D reveals that they heavily outperform BFSI firms in their technology capabilities. In 2019, AWS obtained 2,400 US patents and IBM obtained 9,262. These numbers indicate that their technology and research prowess position them as strong allies of BFSI firms. BigTechs have further strengthened their foothold in the industry through open banking and asset and data monetization models. FinTechs are already disrupting BFSI incumbents, with BigTechs powering many of them with technology and funding.

Thus, partnerships with BigTechs and other players in the ecosystem can help BFSI firms strengthen their role as orchestrators of customer lifestyle experiences. Armed with large technology investments and R&D budgets and a wide range of technology and IT infrastructure offerings, BigTechs have a lot to offer to traditional players. Cloud computing services such as Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure can help – and are helping – BFSI firms improve their operational efficiencies and reduce costs. For instance, financial institutions in China are leveraging Ant Financial’s ZOLOZ platform for biometric authentication of customers.

Add to this BigTechs’ data and analytics capabilities, and the value they bring to the table increases manifold. BigTechs are not only helping incumbents manage and analyze their own data, but also offering aggregated data from various sources to support BFSI firms and deliver value to their customers.

And that’s not all. BigTechs enjoy a loyal customer base, and BFSI firms can tap into this vast pool. In fact, customers want to see their favorite banks and BigTechs come together to make their lives easier –the launches of Apple Card and Amazon Visa Credit Card are testimony to this fact.

Partnerships can also help banks reach out to the underbanked and underinsured populations. A case in point is Goldman Sachs offering credit to Amazon sellers. Facebook, with its widespread reach, can also act as a liaison between customers in remote areas and financial institutions that do not have brick-and-mortar branches in such areas. Addressing the issue of financial inclusion will not only help BFSI firms and BigTechs increase their market size, but also benefit the lives of those who still do not have access to credit and insurance.

It’s actually an equal partnership

When striking a bargain with BigTechs, BFSI firms must remember that they are equally powerful in the partnership. Traditional BFSI firms command customers’ trust and are better equipped to manage risk and compliance requirements. In contrast, BigTechs are struggling to make a name for themselves in the financial space and are eager to partner with BFSI firms to leverage the trust they enjoy, their access to vast capital reserves, and to bypass some of the regulatory compliance issues.

This situation makes the alliance between BFSI firms and BigTechs an accord between equals, a relationship that is mutually beneficial and sustainable. BFSI firms should confidently partner, co-innovate, and co-exist with BigTechs not only to carve a bigger share for themselves but also to share the benefits with their customers.

If you’d like to learn more about the role of BigTechs in the BFSI industry, please read our recently released report BigTechs in BFSI or reach out to me directly at [email protected].

From Compliance to Competitive Differentiation: The Open Banking Journey | Blog

July 2, 2020

A sustained low-interest rate environment is compelling banks to diversify their revenue mix and reduce their dependency on interest-based products. In this scenario, banks’ scaled adoption of open banking – or offering data and services to third parties and customers via Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) – provides them with a unique opportunity to expedite the development of innovative products and services in collaboration with other financial institutions.

The open banking concept emerged in 2015 through a regulatory push for consumer autonomy and transparency, with banks in the UK and other European countries mandated to comply with the standards set by the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) and the European Commission, respectively. However, as our second Open Banking PEAK Matrix^® Assessment 2020 (which analyzed 110+ production-grade open banking use cases) reveals, open banking has fast evolved from a compliance-mandated initiative to a growth strategy focused on experience and product differentiation.

In our first open banking assessment carried out in 2018, we found that more than 40% of banks viewed open banking largely as a compliance mandate. In 2019, however, their priorities seemed to have shifted, with more than 35% of banks focused on driving business value and growing revenues from their open banking initiatives. The use cases have also evolved in line with this shift – from payment processing to complex processes such as cash management, financial wellness, credit scoring, and insurance.

The exhibit below highlights the key differences between a compliance-led open banking initiative and one driven by competitive differentiation.

The next step in the open banking journey – moving from compliance to competitive differentiation

Currently, several leading banks are creating differentiated experiences using open banking to build the next-generation banking model. For instance, Bank of America is building a financial services-compliant cloud that will allow the bank and its partners to host all their services and data on the cloud platform, which will enable Bank of America’s customers and third parties to build applications that leverage these services and data to create differentiated experiences and manage end-to-end business operations. Another notable example is DBS, which has established travel, car, and property marketplaces by building robust ecosystems in collaboration with external partners. For example, the company’s payments-enabled travel marketplace brings flight booking, accommodation, and travel insurance partners onto the same platform, ensuring minimal customer churn from its banking platform. As the marketplace offers new customers as well as a payment processing functionality to its partners, DBS can earn commission revenue from these partners.

As banks move to a business value-driven approach to open banking, they need to identify the avenues to monetize their open banking investments and unlock a new model to create and deliver differentiated experiences to their customers. A cloud-enabled platform can greatly assist in this regard, as it provides seamless access to banking APIs and services from a broad range of partners to build and deploy new products in a marketplace model.

Open banking IT service providers can help banks build the capabilities they desire. To do so, they are investing in business advisory assets to help financial services firms plug the gaps in their business change management initiatives. They are also investing in FinTech partnerships, talent and solutions across the API management life cycle, data and analytics, use case libraries, and virtual sandboxes to maximize the value from open banking.

Leading IT service providers, such as Accenture, HCL Technologies, NTT Data, TCS, and Wipro, have created open banking Centers of Excellence (CoEs) to drive a coordinated effort to help BFS firms eliminate any gaps in communication and realize the objectives of product development and open banking technology. They are also investing in cloud offerings to facilitate their BFS clients’ cloud transformation journeys.

If you’d like to more about open banking and its evolution, please read our recently published report Open Banking IT Services PEAK Matrix® Assessment 2020: Moving Beyond Compliance to a Platform-based Operating Model of Ecosystem Orchestration and Value Creation – Services. We’d also love to hear about how you are advancing on your open banking journey. Do share your views with us at [email protected] and [email protected].

Network Resource Planners (NRPs) and the Transformation of the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Landscape | Blog

July 1, 2020

Nearly five decades after the release of the first version of SAP’s enterprise application, SAP R1, the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) landscape is nearing an inflection point. Over these 50 years, traditional industry boundaries have blurred, and competitors have started working together. Soon, enterprise applications too will transcend functional, organizational, and industry boundaries to support truly connected ecosystems. In the long term, enterprise resource planners will have to develop capabilities to manage decentralized identities, trust, and transaction processing to serve enterprises effectively.

Blockchain, which has been gaining traction steadily over the years, could be the next big thing in the ERP landscape. As enterprises limber up for cooperative ecosystems, participation is rising in inter-industry blockchain networks. These managed business networks, including We Trade, Marco Polo, and TradeLens, are proving to be viable alternatives to certain ERP functionalities. Enterprise application heavyweights such as Oracle and SAP have also begun to push new managed blockchain platforms and are actively assisting enterprises in setting up blockchain networks. We consider such blockchain-based Network Resource Planners (NRPs) – which are comprehensive inter-industry networks catering to a wide range of use cases – to be the natural progression of ERP solutions.

Understanding NRPs

An NRP is a blockchain-based software system that helps manage data and processes across multiple stakeholders in a business network. In an NRP, the blockchain is the foundational infrastructure, and it acts as a platform for enterprises to deliver a more cohesive experience to customers. Present-day NRPs can perform certain narrow ERP functions, such as inventory tracking, financial settlements, and reconciliations. In these use-cases, NRPs can simplify and accelerate such functions by leveraging blockchain’s technological advantages and the ecosystem’s strengths.

Let’s take a look at the benefits of an NRP in detail.

An NRP helps stakeholders by:

Building a foundation of trust: The underlying blockchain network creates a single source of truth for all network participants and avoids the need for data duplication across the transacting stakeholders. Blockchain also helps optimize and automate processes that would otherwise be bogged down by the limitations of ERP. With all stakeholders being on a single network, the need for specialized interfaces among the stakeholders’ enterprise applications is eliminated
Acting as the backbone of the ecosystem-thinking movement: The presence of multiple competing stakeholders often undermines the creation of a cooperative ecosystem. An NRP mitigates this challenge by leveraging blockchain to distribute trust among stakeholders. Governance structures can be codified into the technology, putting to ease many enterprise business concerns. This could make NRPs the backbone of the impending ecosystem-thinking movement, assisted by the ongoing convergence of Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Unifying stakeholder experiences: Traditional enterprise applications create bottlenecks and eventually impact stakeholder experience. A cooperative network helps standardize processes that establish a baseline experience that is consistent across the network

Business challenges and how to navigate them

Although NRPs are fast gaining traction and offer multiple benefits, an ecosystem model still poses several challenges, such as:

Establishing cohesion among competitors in a collaborative environment to ensure consensus and fairness
Ensuring appropriate governance, monetization, and optimization of Return on Investment (RoI)
Addressing any network lock-in risk, which may deter participants from fully committing to the network; managing this concern through standardization rules will be key to creating viable networks
Managing the change ushered in by blockchain adoption, which may be incompatible with existing processes and limited understanding of technology

To successfully address these challenges and leverage NRP, enterprises should undertake a structured adoption journey, comprising four phases:

Selecting the foundational approach and identifying key stakeholders: A network can be built through either a technology- or business-first mindset. The right approach depends on the primary contributing industry, proposed network use case, and prevalent market conditions. In either case, it is also important to simultaneously identify the target stakeholders for the network
Building the minimum viable ecosystem: The next phase involves demonstrating the viability of such a network through a pilot. The pilot also helps identify possible problems early on and creates the foundational data to build a business case for a full-fledged network
Defining the governance structure and incentive model: Defining and codifying the intended governance structure and incentive model help lend credibility to the network. Establishing such rules helps build trust among potential participants and attract new ones
Activating the network effect: Encouraging stakeholders from other industries will help build an ecosystem of primary, secondary, and value-add participants that further enhances the network effect

In conclusion, NRPs seem well-positioned to replace certain ERP functions, and such blockchain-based networks, alongside IoT and AI, can become the foundation of future innovations.

If you wish to learn more about the blockchain landscape, network resource planners, and how enterprises can adopt them, read our recently released report. We’d also love to hear your views on blockchain and NRPs. Please share your perspectives and any questions with us at [email protected] and [email protected].

Is COVID-19 Accelerating Responsible Investing in the Financial Services Sector? | Blog

May 15, 2020

Climate risk discussions and regulations had been gaining great momentum in the past six months as there had been increasing pushes from regulatory bodies and central banks to start stress testing climate risk scenarios. While the discussions have been somewhat back-burnered due to the pandemic, they will begin again in earnest during the post COVID-19 recovery period. And they will jump to the top of financial institutions’ (FIs) risk management agendas, instead of continuing to be considered a CSR activity.

Why COVID-19 will accelerate ESG reporting

Given the erosion in investment value across asset classes over the last couple of months, investors are looking to get better returns, and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) funds have performed better. Indeed, a Morningstar analysis of 206 responsible investing funds found that 70% of these equity funds outperformed their peers in Q1 2020. As the social component of ESG brings to focus companies’ relationships with their employees and customers, the governance aspect will also gain attention. Dedicated risk committees and boards of directors will set the tone for firms’ communication and branding strategies.

Another driving force will be the rising influence of millennial investors. As they move toward more socially responsible investing, firms that achieve high ESG scores will be the preferred choice for these investors. FIs won’t want to miss out on this growing segment and will look to align their portfolios accordingly to be an attractive investment opportunity. This change will spur the ESG reporting initiatives at these institutions and lead to evolution of the industry ecosystem as well.

Evolution of the industry ecosystem

FIs have ramped up hiring as they build their sustainability teams and task forces. Credit rating agencies and data firms like Moody’s and S&P have started to acquire climate risk analytics firms to enhance their coverage of ESG data reporting. Stock exchanges around the world are launching multiple ESG indices to measure listed companies’ commitment to ESG. Asset management firms are gradually incorporating ESG factors into their investment strategies while announcing divestment from industries that are considered problematic from an ESG reporting perspective. We are also seeing an uptick in the demand for sustainability consultants at financial services firms, with more than 15% year-on-year growth as demonstrated by job postings for sustainability roles in the financial services industry.

Current challenges for financial institutions

No clear framework has yet been institutionalized for FIs to start reporting their climate disclosures. Only broad frameworks exist that can serve as a baseline for them to start initiating stress tests and checking their exposures. Further, they face two major problems with consolidating and analyzing the right data sets. One is identifying the right data sources and the kind of data needed for analysis. The other is defining the methodology they should use to analyze these data sets. FIs’ existing analysis models and scenarios have been built with a timeline of five to 10 years. But incorporating climate risk into them requires scenario planning that looks 15 to 25 years into the future and into past data records as well.

So, what are the implications for FIs as climate talks and green investing discussions gain momentum?

Uptick in demand for data science teams and AI/machine learning themes FIs will need to set up extensive data warehouses and data lakes to analyze large and complex data sets to make efficient decisions. AI and machine learning themes will help in identifying correlations and anomalies in the comprehensive company data. There will be a rise in demand for AI programs and NLP algorithms that can help in assessing these data points.

Talent conundrum for executing sustainability initiatives In addition to the technology talent needed to tap into the data sets, there will be demand for sustainability consultants, ESG portfolio managers, and analysts who can act on the data insights. FIs will need to tap young talent from premier institutions and grow in-house talent to scale the talent landscape for sustainability initiatives.

Incorporate ESG data from partners into risk management FIs will have to embed ESG analysis into various facets of risk management like credit risk calculations and use it to identify and quantify the impact of emerging risks. The need for comprehensive climate risk data is fueling the emergence of ESG ratings data by start-ups and credit ratings firms like S&P. Partnering with one of these vendors will provide access to these scores that FIs can incorporate in the broader analysis.

Investments in communication and branding initiatives Given the rise of millennial investors who prefer to align their investments with their values, FIs will need to substantially invest in building a socially responsible brand to bring forth the right narrative. Thus, FIs will need to review their portfolios to align with ESG values and bring in the right industry leaders to drive the sustainability agenda.

Increased interest in service providers’ carbon footprints Increasing pressure on FIs for responsible and green investing will soon start to impact their sourcing decisions. Outsourcing and vendor management teams should start to assess their vendor portfolios on sustainability considerations like green procurement policy, waste management, carbon management, etc.

Everest Group’s take

Purpose-built platforms that are digital and cloud-ready for FIs to cost effectively scale their ESG strategies are currently in their nascent stages. There’s an urgent need to fill this gap.

There’s no single source of truth for the ESG data and the methodology to analyze it. FIs are unsure which data scores to utilize in their analysis and are increasingly setting up in-house ESG platforms to analyze ESG data and manage the end-to-end product value chain. This is a greenfield opportunity for vendors to gain first-mover advantage in this dynamic scenario and onboard FIs onto their platforms.

The current health crisis has only reinforced the need for sustainable investing, and governments have mobilized efforts to stress test their financial services sectors. As supply chains across the world are disrupted, investors are looking for safe havens in the form of companies that can weather such crises. FIs need to act fast to capture market share from the new generation of investors and tap into returns from ESG funds or risk being disintermediated in the long run.

What’s your take? What technology and data analytics challenges have you faced in your ESG journey? Please write to us at [email protected] or [email protected] to share your experiences, questions, and comments.

How COVID-19 Will Impact IT Services in the Banking and Financial Services (BFS) Industry | Blog

April 28, 2020

The BFS industry started 2020 in a cautiously optimistic mood, hoping for a rebound in global economic growth. But then the COVID-19 outbreak swept the world into a state of emergency. The current challenge is far greater for BFS firms than was the Great Recession, as they need to crack the code of how to deal swiftly with both demand- and supply-side shocks. In this scenario, banks face a dual mandate of:

Playing a central role in stabilizing the economy
Ensuring business continuity to maintain normal operations

Breaking down the impact of COVID-19 on the BFS IT services market

To illustrate the variation in pandemic impact across different BFS lines of business (LoBs), we analyzed the severity of impact and speed of recovery for each line. Our assessment of severity of impact involved modeling factors such as the COVID-19 revenue and profitability impact from both a near-term (3-6 months) and a medium-term (6-12 months) perspective. We gave more weight to the medium-term impact as the near-term uncertainty makes the modeling of impact very difficult.

And we mapped impact severity against the speed of recovery by gauging the time it will take for these LoBs to bounce back to the pre-crisis state; this is a function of the health of these business segments before the crisis, as well as expected changes in customer sentiment and buying behavior once the crisis is over.

Our analysis found that BFS LoBs cluster in four zones, each of which exhibits unique characteristics and will face a distinct set of technology and IT services implications. Taking it counterclockwise from the bottom right quadrant:

Aggressive cost take out – Lying on the bottom right, the LoBs in this zone will face the highest degree of impact; we also expect their pace of recovery to be painfully slow. To aid in their recovery, these LoBs should rethink their operating models and get back to basic principles: focus on the core business of provisioning financial services, think of delivering more value to customers, and move away from non-core elements like engineering or IT services innovation.We expect to see heightened asset-heavy deal activity in this segment, as these LoBs will need cash to invest and rejuvenate growth in select focus segments. And they’ll be looking for financial engineering support through activities such as takeover of legacy assets, shared services carve-outs, and even signing of long-term integrated technology plus operations support engagements that are centered around specific business outcomes.
Modernization –This zone at the top right comprises LoBs that we expect to rebound faster to pre-crisis growth levels. From an IT services standpoint, we expect these LoBs to focus on cost savings in the near-term by seeking price cuts on rate cards and pausing some change initiatives. However, soon enough, these segments will get back to modernization initiatives. Hybrid cloud will play a critical role, as these LoBs will place significant emphasis on digital enablement to fuel their long-term growth.
Growth – Odd as this may sound, we expect these business segments to benefit from the crisis in the near term. For example, as governments across multiple geographies have announced relief packages for small businesses that are facing unprecedented economic disruption, banks are needed to facilitate these SBA loans. Financial services firms that have proactively invested in creating a scalable infrastructure and stronger business continuity plans are better positioned to take advantage of this opportunity by generating significant fee income. Enterprises with large LoBs in this zone will also be on the lookout for inorganic expansion and take advantage of the reduced evaluations. Enhancing customer experience, driving product innovation, and improving agility to quickly respond to market demands will be the key investment themes.
Transformation – This zone comprises LoBs that will recover most slowly from this crisis. Hence, these business segments need to rethink their business models and diversify their revenue mix to sustain themselves in the long term. For instance, retail/consumer transaction banking will face profitability challenges due to reliance on interest-based income, and some of the fee-based commoditized businesses, like retail wealth management, have been under stress due to downward fee pressures. As a result, enterprises with large LoBs in this zone will look to transform themselves and invest from a long-term growth perspective.

Implications for BFS enterprises

At an industry level, we expect BFS firms to completely focus on running the business initiatives in the near term. Our research suggests that banks have put nearly 60 percent of change projects on hold. Most of these suspensions are temporary and will restart once the crisis abates; however, we believe that the prioritization and nature of these change projects will mutate due to a shift in business priorities and budgets.

As an immediate response to the current situation, designing and executing customer assistance programs should be the top priority for BFS firms. In the medium term, the firms’ focus should gradually shift to modernization of legacy systems that slowed down banks’ agility and ability to respond to this crisis. Post COVID-19, BFS firms will need to reimagine their products, pricing, and channel strategies to fulfill evolved customers’ expectations.

Our recommendation for BFS enterprises is to cautiously evaluate their exposure across each of their LoBs and carve out a holistic IT strategy that takes into account not only the near-term implications, but also their long-term business philosophy.

Please share your views on the impact of COVID-19 on the BFS industry segments with us at [email protected] and [email protected].

Will COVID-19 Ease the Relentless War for Talent? | Blog

April 21, 2020

While some people in the global services industry think that large scale unemployment and the slowdown in growth due to the COVID-19 pandemic may reduce the talent demand-supply gap, we wholeheartedly disagree. Indeed, we believe that strategic workforce planning has become even more critical for the global services industry.

Here are four reasons why organizations need to accelerate their workforce initiatives right now.

Talent shortages will become acute

A survey we conducted in early 2020 found that, even before the COVID-19 crisis, 86 percent of enterprises considered the talent shortage a key barrier to achieving business outcomes. This situation will further exacerbate. It’s true that the impending economic downturn could lead to even more unemployment and oversupply in the talent market. However, the available skills profiles may not necessarily match organizations’ current and future requirements, especially because highly skilled talent is expected to be retained even during downsizing. Increasing focus on automation and digital transformation will further widen the demand-supply gap for skills, making it difficult for organizations to source suitable skills internally or in the open market. The prevailing circumstances (e.g., the lockdown, financial distress, and health issues) may impact overall talent employability in the open market, further compounding the talent availability issue.

Rapid digital transformation is inevitable, and it will intensify the demand-supply gap

COVID-19 has accelerated digital transformation across organizations. It has not only reinforced the utility of tech-enabled platforms and advanced automation for seamless service delivery during mandatory Work-From-Home (WFH) protocols, but also enabled organizations to react to the evolving business environment and customer needs faster. The impending budget cliff and business model changes will further push organizations to prioritize digital transformation, which will have implications on the talent needed both to drive this change and to deliver services after transformation. Demand for emerging skills will spike even faster, again creating the need for reskilling, alternative talent models, and productivity enhancement. We are already seeing a spike in hiring by companies like Amazon and Google. Some firms are seeing this as an opportune time to acqui-hire – or acquire startups primarily for their talent. Leading global banks, healthcare firms, and manufacturing firms are rethinking their talent strategies.

Supposedly foolproof location and BCP strategies did not work in the face of this pandemic

COVID-19 has exposed key issues with enterprises’ and service providers’ existing locations strategy and Business Continuity Planning (BCP) approaches. Nearly three-quarters of enterprises that have offshore/nearshore GBS centers operate in only one location. Even enterprises with multiple GBS centers have a high concentration of talent in their largest center. Others have developed centers of excellence with large portions of their workforce for a specific function consolidated in a few locations. Less than 10 percent of GBS centers were truly prepared for a seamless WFH model. Companies will need to re-evaluate their redundancy matrices and location/portfolio mixes to achieve a more robust BCP. Some seemingly obvious responses to locations portfolio questions may not apply anymore.

WFH is here-to-stay

A 2017-18 survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that nearly 30 percent of the American workforce could work remotely. The extended lockdown in the near term and a high utilization, once the COVID-19 crisis has abated, will likely make WFH an integral component of the overall service delivery model. This change will have significant talent implications – motivation, employee engagement, performance metrics, reporting metrics, communication protocols, and collaboration – which organizations will need to proactively address to optimize productivity and enhance output.

COVID-19 has precipitated a fundamental shift in the way we work. There are underlying opportunities for enterprises and service providers that proactively adapt to the new normal. We believe there are four immediate steps that enterprises must take:

Review your enterprise global workforce strategy
Develop a roadmap for skills development initiatives
Review your locations portfolios and BCP strategy
Build a playbook for integrating WFH and crowdsourcing into your services delivery models

We’d love to hear your thoughts on how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting talent strategies. Please share with us at: [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected].

Banks Increasingly Tapping the Extended Ecosystem to Reverse Their Fortune | Blog

May 1, 2019

To reverse their precipitous loss of competitive advantage and market share, traditional banks are increasingly transforming themselves from financial products/services providers into customer lifestyle experience orchestrators. One of the key levers they’re pushing to bring about this innovation turnaround is expansion of their ecosystem to include academics, regulators, FinTechs, telecom firms, and technology vendors.

Everest Group’s recently-released report, Guide to Building and Managing the Banking Innovation Ecosystem – Case Study and Examples from 40 Global Banks, revealed four distinct ways in which banks are working with the ecosystem to drive their innovation strategy.

FinTechs

This is all about exploiting the symbiotic relationship between banks and FinTechs. Serving as “enablers,” FinTechs are helping banks provide more choices to customers and expand the set of services and features in their current offering. For example, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) collaborated with WaveApps to integrate invoicing, accounting and business financial insights into its online business banking platform. This enables RBC’s small business clients to seamlessly manage their full business financial services’ needs — from banking and bookkeeping to invoicing — in a single place with a single sign-on.

Taking on the “enabler” role, banks allow FinTechs to gain access to their customers, data, capital, experience, and platform. This collaboration helps FinTechs avoid the challenges they face in scaling their services independently.

Banks and FinTechs are also combining their unique strengths to solve specific business/customer issues in co-branded partnerships. As the banking industry moves towards lifestyle orchestration services, banks need to launch products that cut across industries such as travel & hospitality, manufacturing, and retail & CPG. This can be achieved by meaningful cross-industry collaborations like the one between Citi and Lazada Group, an e-Commerce site in Southeast Asia. The partnership allows Citi card holders to enjoy a discount of up to 15 percent on selected days when shopping on Lazada, while shoppers who sign up for a new Citi credit card receive additional discounts on Lazada. The move drives growth in Citi’s cards business via increased customer loyalty.

Internal innovation

To build their internal innovation ecosystem, banks are conducting hackathons and establishing digital R&D hubs that help them retain talent and bridge the digital skills gap. For instance, Bank of America launched its Global Technology and Operations Development Program – which is called GT&O University – to train workers for new and evolving roles related to artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. This has helped the bank not only upskill its workforce but also enhance its retention-oriented employee value proposition. And banks, including ING, are tapping open banking by providing external developers, industry innovators, and clients with access to their APIs. This helps them expand their offerings, provide new channels to serve customers, build new experiences for clients, and enable open collaboration.

Investments

Banks are closely tracking the innovation ecosystem through multiple programs such as investments, incubation support, and partnerships to avoid threats of disruption and competitive disadvantage. This includes investments across academic institutions, startups, and service providers. Interestingly, our research suggests that banks are likely to continue investing in startups via acquisitions or venture capital financing to accelerate their transformation efforts. This is evident from TD Bank’s recent acquisition of Layer 6, a Canada-based AI startup, which adds new capabilities to TD’s growing base of innovation talent and know-how.

Co-innovation

Through co-innovation partnerships with startups, consortiums, academic institutions, and technology giants, banks are jointly developing innovative solutions and technology. Leading banks are forming consortiums with other banks, technology firms, and other participants across industries to solve industry-wide issues such as cybersecurity, API security, and regulatory technology, building platforms and standards for the industry. For instance, TD Bank joined the Canadian Institute for Cybersecurity to co-develop new cyber risk management technologies. And HSBC is working with IBM to jointly establish a cognitive intelligence solution combining optical character recognition with robotics to make global trade safer and more efficient.

To learn more about banks’ leverage of the extended ecosystem to drive competitive advantage, and details on the “why’s” and “where’s” banks are focusing their innovation efforts, please see our report titled “Guide to Building and Managing the Banking Innovation Ecosystem – Case Study and Examples from 40 Global Banks.”

Blockchain Adoption Journey and Impact on Financial Services Industry | In the News

January 30, 2019

Blockchain is increasingly viewed as a ground-breaking technology with potential to disrupt industries by enabling process efficiencies, cost optimization, and building new operating and revenue models. Everest Group research suggests that almost 60% of all blockchain use cases are focused on the financial services industry since the genesis of this technology from the cryptocurrency bitcoin. Some of the use cases of blockchain in financial services are FX settlement, real-time payments, OTC derivatives clearing, P2P lending, cross-border lending, compliance reporting/audit, securities Issuance, P2P insurance, trade finance, KYC as a shared service, event-driven insurance, and core banking.

Read the rest of the article by Ronak in Infosys Insights

Author: Ronak D