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By Myles Bertrand, Managing Director APAC, Mambu
The unprecedented global upheaval wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic has brought with it not only challenges but also opportunities for the Asia-Pacific banking and finance sector. While economies continue to suffer and business remains incredibly uncertain due to the ongoing pandemic, we have also seen clear evidence of a swift acceleration in digital transformation by many financial institutions across the Asia Pacific region. With a significant reduction in cash transactions worldwide, it is vital that banks continue moving forward with their digital strategies to ensure they’re not left behind as the world settles into the ‘new normal’.
Traditional banks need to be looking at how they can evolve with the times and capitalise on the opportunities that the post-Covid world may offer. The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the world, and we will be experiencing the repercussions of it for decades to come. The ways in which we work, communicate, travel, and live have all changed, perhaps irreversibly, and the way we bank and use our money has also changed significantly. The ability for banks to offer digital services has become an essential service, with people all over the world becoming reluctant to handle cash due to its potential virus-transmission risk.
Digital transactions are the way of the future, and if your bank can’t deliver what customers want, you risk fading into obscurity. To compete in the new digital era, banks need to be able to roll out products and services at a rapid pace, adding new features to platforms, while simultaneously enhancing existing ones. Downtime for necessary upgrades will no longer be accepted by customers who want instant access to their financial products at their fingertips. This kind of agility is next to impossible to achieve with most institutions’ legacy systems. However, a composable banking architecture the quick and flexible assembly of independent systems on a cloud platform can provide the opportunity for organisations to create a dynamic platform with intuitive, responsive features that can be quickly and continuously updated.
By utilising agile digital banking technologies that operate exclusively in the cloud and are ‘cloud-agnostic’, or able to operate on any cloud platform – whether that’s a large public cloud or an in-country solution – banks can launch new digital products, or even entire digital banks, within a matter of weeks, without the risks – financial and reputational – associated with launching traditional bricks and mortar operations.
As the continuing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic sees financial institutions scrambling to digitise, innovate and scale to adapt to customer needs, those banks that are able to embrace cloud technologies while remaining committed to strength, security and service will be the leaders of this new era
