Go beyond traditional Banks

Mobiquity: Sustainable Digitisation Is the Future of Banking

As the consumer base of the global financial industry becomes increasingly environmentally conscious, banks are facing a building amount of pressure to adopt ESG strategies and shift their operations into a greener light. Matthew Williamson, Vice President of Global Financial Services, Mobiquity In this guest post for The Fintech Times, Matthew Williamson, the Vice President of Global Financial Services for Mobiquity discusses every level of this transition, whilst offering a remedy to the barriers that prevent the full adoption of green financial initiatives. As an experienced turnaround manager and intrapreneur, Matthew is an expert on global payments, technology, M&A, and fraud. He joined Mobiquity during Covid-19 supporting the company’s global growth strategy. Matthew is a thought leader on the bank of the future, cashless societies, digital banking, and security of payments. Matthew is an expert in building brands on a global basis: he was instrumental in the merge of Misys into Finastra, leading its successful hyper-growth strategy as the Global Head of Payments and Cash. He has supported the activities of fintech start-ups like CoBa as its Global Head of Fintech and FORM3 – the world’s first cloud-native payments scale-up – as its Director of Customer Success, supporting the company’s global growth. Barriers To Sustainable Behaviours Sustainability has been a notable challenge for banking and financial services for some time, and companies have already been incorporating Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) strategies into their business plans. Earlier in 2021 for example, the Net-Zero Banking Alliance was launched, with 45 banks from 23 countries joining together to align as an industry with net-zero emissions by 2050. With greater transparency surrounding sustainability and renewed importance on tackling climate change, the importance of sustainable banking has been accelerated over the course of the last year. Despite this, our “Benchmark for Sustainable Banking” report of banking executives across the UK and Europe found something rather surprising. That banks were citing that Covid-19 is the main barrier preventing banks from becoming more sustainable across traditional and challengers in the UK, with nearly a third (31%) of banking executives reporting that the pandemic and related industry demands are to blame. As a result, less than half (45%) of UK banks are planning for sustainability initiatives. Reframing Covid-19 as an Opportunity To Drive Sustainability However, is the Covid-19 pandemic really preventing more banks and financial institutions from going green, or is this merely a diversion tactic? Or perhaps a lack of awareness around the opportunity that the change to our living and working environment brings? As an industry, we need to reframe Covid-19 to be seen as an opportunity instead of a barrier if we are to build a sustainable banking infrastructure of the future. Through our research across the UK, the Netherlands, and Germany we have identified a golden opportunity for the banking and finance industry to drive sustainability through leveraging digital technologies. We call this “Sustainable Digitisation.” Digital technologies are opening up new and exciting prospects for sustainable banking, and there is a growing awareness among challenger and traditional banks around the role that digital can play. What is reassuring is that a large proportion of banks are embracing “Sustainable Digitisation” in a bid to make their operations more sustainable. Our research shows that almost three-quarters (72%) of UK banks are embracing digital technology to make their business operations greener. Digital technologies such as machine learning, intelligent automation, digitisation of paper processes, and investing in Internet of Things (IoT) are all being used by banks to drive sustainable outcomes. Indeed, the benefits of creating a sustainable banking ecosystem are diverse. From retaining and growing customers to improving internal operational efficiencies. Sustainable banking not only improves business efficiencies, but it also helps to make banking and finance a greener industry over time. By using digital to drive sustainable outcomes, banks and financial institutions are already seeing the benefits. Our research found that 2 in 5 (40%) of UK banks reported cost savings, customer retention, and growth through using digital technologies to drive sustainability initiatives. Other benefits highlighted by UK banks included accelerated innovation, improved brand reputation, increased operational efficiency across the business, and maintaining practices against business competition. Bank of the Future: A Digital Lifestyle Enabler With an Eco-Conscience By embracing a sustainable future through accelerating customer-centric digital solutions, banks will remain competitive in an ever-changing banking and financial services landscape. To achieve this, banks need to identify the barriers that are preventing them from becoming sustainable and incorporate sustainability into their planning and execution – this will positively impact the environment while also driving business value. Smart data is also crucial in this path to sustainability, enabling banks to make informed decisions that lead to sustainable behaviours and increased efficiencies. For example, as banks and financial institutions scale digital transformation initiatives, we are able to measure and monitor the impact of operations across the business, including ESG initiatives. For those that remain slow to act, they risk their reputation and their customer base, as an increasingly eco-conscious banking customer base could become alienated over time. The role of the bank in our society has already changed. It is becoming less of a wealth repository and more of a lifestyle enabler and an integrated part of the community that it serves. Taking a Human-Centric Approach to Digital Banking For banks to begin to embrace the benefits of sustainability they must take a human-centric approach to digital banking. Digital solutions need to be seamless and aligned with customer needs, retaining the personalised customer experience that has been traditional banks’ distinguishing feature for many years. By doing so, sustainability becomes the only ‘by-product’ in banking – enabling banks to retain and grow customers along the journey to digitalisation, while creating new revenue streams and optimising processes internally and externally. Banks are becoming increasingly aware of the opportunity to use digital technologies to solve environmental concerns. The next step is leveraging digital to solve frictions across banking and financial services; from sustainable outcomes and better decision making to improving personalised customer experiences and financial inclusion. This will become a business priority as we enter a more connected and socially responsible world post-Covid-19, and the banks that grasp this opportunity will be the ones that grow at lightning speed. The post Mobiquity: Sustainable Digitisation Is the Future of Banking appeared first on The Fintech Times.

The Fintech Times · 3 hours ago

Hyve Managed Hosting: What Fintechs Should Do When Their Cloud Infrastructure Is Under Threat

The cloud has become an integral part of fintech. It has enabled companies to transform the way data is used and stored, allowing the banking and finance sector to become more flexible and agile. However, as the cloud stores more information, it becomes a bigger target for hackers and those committing cyberattacks. There was a 238% surge in financially motivated cyber attacks during the pandemic, including malware attacks, identity theft, and application infringements. As hackers become more proficient, fintechs must improve their cloud infrastructure to protect their data. As Head of Sales at Hyve Managed Hosting, Neville Louzado boasts a demonstrated history of working in the Information Technology Services industry. Skilled in Sales, Managed Public and Private Clouds, VMware, Data Centers, and Virtualisation, Louzado is a strong sales professional who graduated from Staffordshire University. Louzado has shared what he believes fintechs should do when their cloud infrastructure is under threat: Neville Louzado, Head of Sales at Hyve Managed Hosting Digital transformation has become a necessity across all industries. Among them is the FinTech sector which has embraced cloud technology as a way to innovate and adapt to the ever-changing digital environment. Cloud computing has become a key part of the FinTech backbone. It has completely transformed the way data is used and stored, allowing the banking and finance sector to become more flexible and agile. According to PwC’s report, Financial Technology 2020 and Beyond, fintech companies are rapidly adopting cloud computing. However, the report also indicates some of the challenges companies need to be aware of with regards to their cloud infrastructure, with cybersecurity being one of the top risks. Even though FinTech uses cloud technology to accelerate the process of innovation, driving companies towards efficiency, they need to consider the potential risks and vulnerabilities that could arise when migrating to the cloud. As more services go online, data security is proving to be a major challenge. Top cybersecurity threats on the rise With a new cloud infrastructure comes new risks, in particular, cybersecurity risks, which should be a top concern for any organisation. In order to mitigate these, there needs to be a certain level of awareness of cloud security challenges and threats for companies to make the right decisions regarding cloud adoption strategies. Some of the most serious and on the rise security threats companies could encounter when adopting a cloud computing architecture are: Malware attacks Numerous well-known FinTech companies such as American Express or PayPal have really suffered the consequences of these disastrous attacks which seem to be getting more sophisticated with time. Hackers take advantage of vulnerabilities by launching malware attacks on users. Ransomware attacks seem to be growing in relevance and in number, being a top threat in the FinTech industry. Cloud security risks Most financial services such as online banking services, digital wallets or payment gateways, have adopted cloud-based platforms. As these platforms store sensitive information, they are a prime target for cyber attackers. With data protection and privacy being the main risks, choosing a reliable hosting provider will be key to safeguarding information. Application infringements With mobile banking being widely adopted and clients saving their financial information on smartphones and other digital devices, FinTech applications have become fundamental to customers. These applications store encoded sensitive data and consequently, present a lot of privacy risks which makes them a key target for hackers. Identity theft FinTech organisations struggle to manage the digital identities of customers. Biometrics, one-time passwords or code-generating apps are some of the authentication methods to authorise services. However, these might not be secure enough which can lead to hackers infiltrating themselves and replicating the identity of the users. How FinTechs can reduce risk Building a cyber-risk free ecosystem is one of the biggest challenges for FinTech companies. With the sector constantly accumulating and managing large amounts of sensitive data from customers and enterprises, this information is likely to be exposed to security breaches as organisations adopt cloud architectures. These cybersecurity threats can have a major impact on both companies and their customers. Organisations not only have to avoid daily threats to protect their customer’s privacy and the company’s reputation but also continuously recover breached data, which results in a huge financial cost. In order for the FinTech industry to become cyber resilient to protect themselves, and more importantly, their clients, companies should follow these steps: Conduct regular penetration tests to identify possible vulnerabilities or threats Determine risk tolerance levels and security target state Improve the protection against ransomware and web-based attacks Introduce or increase the deployment of technologies such as machine learning or AI to improve security Introduce customers to best practices in security management Create a framework to monitor risks and prevent data loss Achieving cyber resilience With financial institutions embracing cloud technology, cyberattacks have become ordinary and recurrent events that are now part of their daily activity. For this reason, having a solid response plan to mitigate risks when a cloud infrastructure is under threat is vital. FinTech organisations must build a strong cyber resilience plan that defines the company’s key assets, risks and threats as well as security policies and procedures. It should define a strategy on how to deal with a sudden fallout to reduce risks and remove a potential attack as swiftly as possible. The plan should incorporate the deployment of the most innovative technologies in cybersecurity applications. The more advanced the technology is, the more prepared companies will be to tackle complex and sophisticated attacks. In a sector where customers entrust companies with their most sensitive information and security and data protection play a key role in winning customer’s confidence, becoming cyber resilient needs to be a priority. The consequences of a cybersecurity attack can be irreversible, resulting in the theft of large amounts of data and significant sums of money. As FinTech organisations continue to evolve and leverage the multiple benefits of cloud computing, cybersecurity needs to be an integral part of the companies’ strategy. With a 238% surge in financially motivated cyber attacks during the pandemic, the FinTech sector needs to build a cyber-resilient future for the financial system and the time to do it is now. The post Hyve Managed Hosting: What Fintechs Should Do When Their Cloud Infrastructure Is Under Threat appeared first on The Fintech Times.

The Fintech Times · 5 hours ago