For the 4th consecutive year Accenture was a co-sponsor at the 21st Annual RiskMinds International conference in December 2014. Steve Culp, senior managing director, Accenture Finance& Risk Services, presented to more than 500 Chief Risk Officers in the plenary session on Managing Risk in a digital world: successfully enabling the quest for new revenue.
A number of fundamental questions are forcing Banks to re-evaluate their strategies in order to stay competitive and relevant in the market place
Customers no longer expect banks to be a simple transaction provider, but to also play the role of…
VALUE AGGREGATOR
Assembly components (financial and non financial, own and third parties) to create an integrated solution for "real world" customer needs
ADVICE PROVIDER
Provide specific buying suggestions, based on deep customer knowledge and purchasing algorithms
ACCESS FACILITATOR
Support the customer in "everyday/everywhere" buying processes (shopping, access to daily services)
Going forward, banks need to expand their capabilities to meet new customer expectations to increase and retain the customer base.
Digital is empowering society to make informed decisions in a more timely manner. Advancements in technology are enabling customers to examine the views of Bill Gates who said “banking is necessary, banks are not?”. As such, Banks across the globe are responding by placing Digital at the heart of their strategies .
Digital technology is transforming the way customers choose to interact with their bank, they are demanding tailored services in a more convenient way
Customers will be attracted by the ability to interact in a simple and seamless manner across online, mobile, branches and call centres – and addressing this challenge can also bring efficiencies to an organisation
Digital banking transactions are now worth c. £1bn a day, with c. 40 million mobile and internet banking transactions every week*
Financial Service institutions are recognising that fundamental changes to their Operating Models are required in recognition of the changed emphasis digital channels require, and the opportunity to ‘re-think’ how services are provided and supported
The impact of digitalisation on Finance and Risk management will be far reaching, and will also require working with less familiar parts of the organisation
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Risk Appetite
Alternative data sources e.g. using social media and customer ‘behaviour’ data will provide the ability to develop more tailored customer credit scoring
Traditional customer segmentation boundaries and clusters will be challenged to reflect potential skews from new volumes of different customer types
Portfolio monitoring rather than ‘name by name’ and an associated new ‘expected loss’ limit may need to be agreed in advance
The ‘speed’ Vs ‘control’ trade off during the transition periods to a pure digital back-office will need to be assessed
Conduct & Regulation
Provision of “advice” to a customer in a digital world will need to be offered and evidenced differently given the lack of person contact
Product development for a Digital channel needs to be fully scenario tested as flaws will be spotted early by customers
Demonstrating Treating Customers Fairly (TCF) will be even more acute given the lack of physical evidence
Customer treatment equality across digital and non digital channels needs to be maintained
Moving from a simply reactive regulatory approach (acting only when new regulation is released) to a proactive approach should help in shaping the regulators thinking
Financial Management
Finance will need to be able to understand and predict the impacts of bank decisions on Capital, Liquidity, Leverage, Profitability etc. in near real time – in order to apply the brake or change direction
New approaches to funding and product development will require increased knowledge of extraction tools for mining business intelligence, data modelling and analysis
Trend analysis, benefits tracking and cost triggers will change the way Finance manage costs within banks
Planning cycles are likely to be shorter and more in-depth
Credit Risk Decisions
The shift from physical to electronic distribution, including customer self service will require the replacement of manual processes and ‘in-trays’
Decisioning should draw on a boarder set of data sources in order to build a ‘digital enabled’ view of the customer. This data can also be leveraged to accelerate checking / verification steps
Hand-offs to third parties (e.g. under-writers) can not be allowed to slow down the process and as a result the digital supply chain will require reengineering
Increased speed to decision will be important in order to capture / retain highest credit quality customers
Operational Risk (incl. 3rd Parties)
A decision will need to be made as to which processes/products are truly Digital end-to-end. For some the bank may want to keep the ability to enable ‘human overwrites’ or adjustments
As customers demand ‘contextual’ services or links and bundled products, the management of 3rd party suppliers to the same standard as the bank’s internal targets will be equally important
As the concept of money/currency evolves policies with respect to payments will also need redesign
Where employees have access to market sensitive information additional consideration will be required
IT Resilience & Business Continuity
Better devices and better connectivity will improve user experience, but be an entry point for business risks. The IT supply chain is likely to face specific assurance challenges
Cloud computing will transform the way businesses rely on/use IT. This will increase information stewardship and control testing
The key is to provide a 24 hour on demand real time service and ensure the infrastructure (and continuity options) are invested in and tested
Even minor failures (ATM in a remote town down for 30mins) can gain notoriety via social media channels
Talent & Culture
Digital support may challenge the traditional positioning of the three lines of defence. Real time operation will require risk and finance professionals to be closer aligned with intra-day monitoring of the service
As digital tools become more pervasive within F&R functions, mundane and repeatable tasks are likely to be performed by technology (Robotic processing, Artificial Intelligence), as such F&R professionals will need to up skill
F&R professionals will need to make faster decisions , waiting for month end or x-week planning cycles will need to be replaced
Analytics & Insight
‘Big data’ has the potential to commoditise some traditional aspects of F&R work, but at the same time enable F&R professionals to move more into the front office to support strategic business decisions
New metrics will be required in the form of early warning alerts both to risks and business opportunities
Predictive, scenario –based, risk-weighted and trending analytics will all grow in use. F&R professionals will need to help define ‘cause and effect’ relationships for such models
We are likely to see an increase in forward looking information within published accounts making it imperative for F&R professionals to gain insights sooner
Financial Crime
Mobile is the fastest growing channel for banks, it is also the fastest growing area for Financial crime
Digital channels may attract customers who posses a higher tendency to ‘stress the boundaries of the truth’ due to the anonymity that the channel affords
KYC and AML solutions will need to be amended in a Digital world as the frequency of face-to-face contact becomes less likely
The more digital entry points the increased risk from malware or embedded ‘Trojans’ within source code
Data Privacy
Uptake of the digital channels will depend on greater certainty and comfort that data privacy is being maintained via new ways of encrypting, acquiring and securing customer data
Transmission of data generally will have to be proven to be more secure
Banks may need to ‘entice’ or compensate customers (via enhanced quality of service) for using their data
Terms and conditions will have to be simplified in order for banks to make sure they are not later faced with customer complaints
Digital Data Sourcing
Capturing additional data sources and data points both from internal ‘silos’ and external ‘new media’ will build a more representative profile of the customer and validate historic assumptions
Customers are starting to expect better contextual service, given their experience with other companies, and therefore more data usage while complying with Data Protection Act should become the norm
A clear understanding of useful data will be vital to filter out “noise” and save costs as data multiplies
Cyber Security
A holistic plan spanning, procedural, physical and technical security will need to be developed and updated on a more frequent basis
Personal financial data is considered the most sensitive data to customers, it’s protection will be a key consideration for customers choosing where to bank
As ‘bring your own IT’ to work becomes more pervasive, security from within will also need to increase
Beyond 2025 research indicates that biotech-engineered bacteria may also be able to contain electronic circuits