Innovation in Digital Banking Awards 2021

While the Covid-19 pandemic has certainly ground to a halt many of the in-person business (and social) opportunities that the global banking industry depends on, what it hasn’t curtailed is the innovative spirit that permeates the sector, as evidenced by the wealth of impressive entries in this year’s Innovation in Digital Banking Awards. Instead, the general consensus is that the pandemic has accelerated digital transformation across the industry, leading to a leap forward when it comes to launching new products and services.

These awards are truly international with industry players — banks, consultancies and technology providers — submitting entries from across the globe, from the Philippines to Brazil. As such, the judging process takes into consideration the local operating environment and applauds technology solutions that have made a significant impact in a domestic market.

Every year it is incredibly difficult to pick the winners among such high-quality submissions, but somehow this year seemed even more so. As such, we would like to take this opportunity to extend thanks to our independent judging panel of industry experts for their efforts.

In 2021, the mobile category garnered the greatest number of award submissions, illustrative of the work that has gone into improving remote access to financial services during multiple pandemic lockdowns. Whereas a few years ago, the focus was on delivering simple account services, today it is a much richer experience with the whole bank in the customer’s pocket. Many banks have launched what they call a ‘super app’ to deliver extra functionality, including loans, health insurance and financial education.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics was another highly contested category, which encompasses machine learning, optical character recognition, facial recognition, natural language processing and robotic process automation. Banks are using AI to improve straight-through processing and efficiency, allowing their staff to focus on higher value-add activities, but also to provide a much better customer experience. An emerging trend, featuring in a few entries this year, is emotion recognition, where the digital assistant is being trained to understand not just the words, but the sentiment behind them.

Responding to a significant trend that has been building for several years, we added a new category this year for financial inclusion. Part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, this has become a driving force for innovation as banks and fintechs look to address the needs of the swathes of individuals, as well as micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, that remain unbanked or underbanked. Unsurprisingly, this category attracted many entries from across the world, with projects ranging from mobile wallets to digital identity.

In another first this year, we decided to include an award for chief innovation officer of the year. While acknowledging that innovation is a team effort, there are some movers and shakers in the industry that are pushing the envelope and driving the change agenda in their organisations.

Congratulations to all the winners in this year’s Innovation in Digital Banking Awards.

REGIONS

Global/Asia-Pacific
DBS Bank

Renowned as an industry leader in digital banking, DBS is effectively leveraging emerging technologies that are reshaping the banking industry, warranting its accolade as the foremost innovator of 2021 globally and in Asia-Pacific.

Jimmy Ng, chief information officer and head of group technology and operations at DBS Bank, says: “Being named global and Asia-Pacific winner in The Banker’s Innovation in Digital Banking Awards is a strong affirmation of DBS’s unwavering focus in leveraging digital innovation to make banking intelligent, intuitive and invisible for our customers, especially during these unprecedented times. We remain committed to dialling up our use of emerging technologies, and bolstering our data infrastructure and analytics capabilities, to reshape the future of banking.”

The past year, DBS has distinguished itself in digital transformation in the following areas:

• Being digital to the core — industrialising its artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities, breaking down technology silos and leveraging emerging technologies that it believes have the power to reshape banking, such as blockchain and distributed ledger technology;
• Embedding the bank in the customer journey — remaining at the forefront of digital banking by offering its customers cutting-edge solutions;
• Thinking and acting like a start-up — building a data-driven culture and democratising technology skillsets among its employees to ensure no one is left behind on its digital transformation journey.

In the past year it launched DBS Digital Exchange (DDEX), a blockchain-based ecosystem for fundraising through asset tokenisation and secondary trading of digital assets including cryptocurrencies. It is a private exchange for institutional investors and accredited investors.

Given the exponential pace of asset digitalisation, DDEX is representative of the bank’s efforts to be a first-mover in redefining the future of capital markets. The platform includes security token offerings, a digital currency exchange and digital custody services.

Since DDEX launched in December 2020, digital trading value has grown tenfold, and digital assets under custody have exceeded S$80m ($58.5m). Given the high level of demand, the bank plans to begin 24/7 trading of cryptocurrencies. The first issuance, listing and secondary trading of securities tokens is in the pipeline for the second half of this year.

DBS also launched NAV Planner, a feature-rich digital advisory solution powered by more than 100 AI models. Integrated into DBS and POSB’s internet banking and digibank app, NAV Planner helps customers track, protect and grow their money, while providing actionable insights.

NAV Planner provides all DBS/POSB customers with a personalised balance sheet, which gives a full overview of their cash savings, loans, insurance protection plans and current investments as they are held with the bank. Customers can also include external holdings to complete their balance sheet view.

Using the balance sheet as a basis, the advisory solution will then provide users with insights and analyses unique to them on how to improve their financial wellbeing. There is also a new ‘Map Your Money’ interactive dashboard, which is targeted at helping customers better prepare for retirement by projecting their future retirement needs based on their current finances.

NAV Planner is one of the key solutions DBS has rolled out to enable financial inclusion, and empowers customers from all walks of life to become more financially literate. It has delivered more than 30 million personalised financial planning insights to customers, and these insights have helped eight in 10 new-to-investment customers take the first step in investing their money for a better future, the bank reports.

In addition to responding to customer needs, DBS developed a Covid-19 contact-tracing solution using AI and machine learning to safeguard its 30,000-plus workforce, spread across six markets: China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Indonesia and Singapore. The solution was built completely in-house on the Advancing DBS with AI platform, the bank’s enterprise data platform, and used a diverse range of technologies and analytics techniques.

The solution can contact trace up to three degrees of separation. It uses internal employee data, such as staff pass data logged through turnstile taps when employees exit and enter the building, meeting data which show meeting locations and attendees, Wi-Fi connectivity data, and other relevant HR data.

According to the bank, this was a proactive initiative that was implemented within 48 hours of DBS confirming its first positive case in Singapore. The solution leveraged network graphs and analytics to identify the second infected colleague, a first-degree contact of the first case, while they were still under quarantine.

The contact-tracing solution also enabled DBS to swiftly adhere to the three degrees of separation contact tracing guidelines set up by the Singapore government.

Africa
Commercial International Bank of Egypt

CIB Egypt has been flexing its innovation muscles over the past year. It has launched many new features, including: the Personal Financial Advisor (PFA), a robo-advisory platform; an in-house developed analytics tool for optimising branch network distribution; and CIB Smart Wallet to drive financial inclusion, as well as adding new functionality to its mobile app.

The PFA platform is the latest CIB initiative to renovate its service delivery model and boost its digital banking experience. It uses the power of advanced analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) to prioritise and provide tailored financial advice to customers. Regularly, the engine curates a piece of financial advice for each customer that ranges from alternative digital channels to use, to product upgrades and tips on the best practices to better manage their finances. The project is currently in the pilot testing phase.

The branch network optimiser is a data-driven, user-friendly tool that consolidates various data streams, namely customer demand, geographical location characteristics, economic and strategic requirements, while accounting for uncertainties in demand growth. The tool then recommends optimal network distribution and characteristics, such as branches locations, sizes, manpower and service model.

Additionally, when deciding on the network distribution, the tool governs reaching the most profitable locations thanks to its integrated financial analysis capabilities. By optimising such decisions, the tool achieves the tricky balance between digital transformation, customer-centricity and profit generation.

Financial inclusion remains a priority for CIB and in 2020 it launched CIB Smart Wallet, targeting the unbanked and untapped segments of the Egyptian market, with the aim of minimising cash usage. It is a mobile application that allows its users to perform financial transactions, such as sending money, online purchasing, bill payment and QR purchasing.

CIB offers the wallet to its business clients to disburse funds to their employees (blue collar and unbanked) for salaries, bonuses or incentives. Moreover, to ease the companies’ cash collections, the bank tailored a “collection” model to initiate request-to-pay transactions.

To support its customers during the pandemic in 2020, the bank added new functionality to its mobile banking app, including: creating a digital self-onboarding process for existing CIB customers to register for internet or mobile banking, without going to the branch; transforming transaction processing into straight-through-processing; launching self-service via interactive voice response to unlock accounts and recover usernames; and increasing transfers limits through online channels and allowing transfers to electronic wallets.

Central and eastern Europe
Alfa-Bank Belarus

Alfa-Bank Belarus has been a pioneer in its mobile-first strategy. By June 2020, it had already created an advanced digital banking platform, called InSync mobile application, which allowed retail customers to perform all their financial transactions online and, since the first quarter of 2020, to become fully remote.

Aleksandr Bobko, executive director at Alfa-Bank Belarus, says: “The mobile bank InSync by Alfa-Bank quickly solves any financial issues of a modern client and has been a familiar name for the people of Belarus. When we say InSync, we mean a bank in your pocket. Our support chat communicates 24/7 without scripts, and brand media provides up-to-date lifestyle content right in the application.”

However, as the Covid-19 crisis continued, the bank decided to transform InSync into an ecosystem, allowing clients to manage their relationships with friends and family in a flexible and innovative way. It combines the Smart Family banking packages (sharing accounts between family members and close friends), digital cards and skins (fully functional digital cards with personalised covers) and InSync Air (allowing non-customers to use Alfa-Bank’s services).

The new Smart Family concept, launched in November 2020, gives the account holder the ability to grant access to their bank account and issue cards for their family and life partners, whatever the legal form, which is quite important for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender plus community in a country where same-sex union is not yet legal. The process is simple and everything can be done online in InSync, without the need to visit a branch. Customers’ response exceeded the bank’s expectations: in just six months, 22,500 extensions were issued, 45% of which were to new customers.

In October 2020, Alfa-Bank implemented fully digital cards. The bank allows customers who ordered a card in InSync to immediately activate and use it, before its delivery by mail. According to the bank, every third client activates the card before mail delivery and 50% perform transactions before receiving the plastic card. It also wanted to personalise the cards, so, in December 2020, the bank launched ‘digital skins’, a set of virtual card covers working with both Mastercard and Visa payment systems.

All these features remained accessible only to Alfa-Bank’s customers until May 20, 2021, when the bank launched InSync Air, which allows any friend and family member to download InSync, enter their phone number, chose a PIN and start using the application.

Europe
BBVA

A bank at the forefront of innovation across its geographical footprint, but especially in its home territory of Europe, BBVA’s digital transformation effort in recent years has paid dividends during the Covid-19 pandemic. Not only was it able to remain operational and continue supporting customers, but also kept up its pace of innovation.

In May 2020, BBVA became the world’s first bank to allow its business clients to measure their carbon footprint based on an advanced analysis of their financial data, corresponding to their bank accounts held with BBVA or with any other bank. In order to come up with this measure, BBVA One View — BBVA’s bank account aggregation tool for businesses and companies — retrieves all utility-related expenses and uses them to calculate a business’s carbon footprint expressed in carbon dioxide emissions. Since its launch, more than 150,000 companies have used this tool.

Another development this past year focused on helping clients improve their financial health. BBVA renewed the suite of personal financial management tools embedded in its mobile app. These provide customers with a global and integrated overview of their financial standing, as well as an estimate of their net worth and credit score, reports on recurring expenses for utilities and subscriptions, and statements of annual expenses, on top of proactive tips to help them manage their finances better.

BBVA has also become one of the first big banks to deploy a commercial cryptocurrency service, launching a bitcoin trading and custody service in Switzerland. The service, which is aimed at private banking clients with advanced market expertise, is offered exclusively through BBVA’s Swiss franchise in the only country with a cryptoasset regulation in place.

David Puente, head of client solutions at BBVA, says, “Despite difficult circumstances, BBVA has continued to invest in innovation to help our clients face great challenges, such as being more sustainable or achieving good financial health. In addition, this year, we have continued to build value propositions on blockchain technology with the launch of the first bitcoin custody service offered by a eurozone bank.

“We are grateful that a prestigious publication such as The Banker recognises with this award a whole strategy that dates back more than 10 years, and that is becoming more and more visible in pioneering and differentiating services that want to bring the opportunities of the new era to everyone.”

Latin America
Banco Bradesco

Congratulations to Banco Bradesco for picking up the most innovative in digital banking accolade for Latin America for the second year in a row. Walkiria Schirrmeister Marchetti, executive managing director, Banco Bradesco, says, “The Bradesco team is pleased and honoured to receive this prestigious award for the second year consecutively. This is the result of the individual and collective effort and commitment of all teams that work in a multidisciplinary environment, using agile methods and techniques in several disruptive projects, always considering the customers’ context and needs, at the heart of our strategy.”

Over the past year, Banco Bradesco has released a number of groundbreaking innovations. For example, it augmented its digital assistant, called BIA, with conversational artificial intelligence (AI), to interpret audio and recognise emotions in the user’s voice during interactions, which enhances the customer relationship.

BIA is constantly evolving to understand sentences that can indicate a user’s emotional state, for example recognising a complaint that it can direct to customer service or the ombudsman to solve the issue. One milestone that shows the innovation in this initiative is BIA’s reaction when it detects harassment. BIA can answer in a fair and firm way to these interactions, contributing to combat sexual and moral harassment against women and improving society consciousness.

Banco Bradesco also developed a set of statistical models for optimising the distribution of ATMs and branches. Impressively, the bank reached a 22% reduction in branch numbers in the first quarter of 2021, exceeding the goal established in 2020 (10%). This improves the bank’s operational efficiency index, as well as positively affecting its market performance.

With a focus on increasing financial inclusion, Banco Bradesco launched nextJoy, a banking and financial education platform for young people up to 17 years old. It aims to transform the way children and teenagers learn and talk about money, increasing the connection between parents and their children and teaching the value of each achievement in an interactive financial education journey.

Ms Schirrmeister Marchetti adds, “Receiving this award also increases our believe in innovation’s power. By looking at what we have done so far, we are continually understanding the market and society’s current reality, but also focusing on the future. In this way, Bradesco has been fulfilling its mission in the best way possible by creating opportunities for our customers achieve their goals and for the sustainable development of companies and society.”

Middle East
National Bank of Kuwait

National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) has stepped up to the digital challenge during the Covid-19 pandemic, picking up the accolade for the most innovative in digital banking in the Middle East region.

As Mohamed Al-Othman, general manager, consumer banking group at NBK, says: “The current crisis has brought about radical changes in the banking industry. At NBK, we were fully prepared for these transformations, thanks to our digital transformation strategy, which contributed to strengthen our leadership and excellence as a provider of advanced digital services and payment solutions.”

The bank has focused on a mobile-first strategy, improving areas such as customer acquisition, payments and expanding offerings. Over the review period for the awards, it introduced 25 new features on its mobile and online channel.

For example, it launched end-to-end digital onboarding integrating with Kuwait’s digital identity (ID), as well as mobile and smartwatch payments, including Samsung Pay, Samsung pay checkout, Fitbit Pay and Garmin Pay. It enhanced service offerings by expanding geo alerts combined with push notifications, and rolled out social and digital data-capturing capability for social media sales leads.

It also launched a flagship branch with the key theme being digital and self-service, as well as increased customer convenience with the integration of queue management platform, Qmatic, and its mobile app for booking branch appointment.

Many of these are leading initiatives in the country. With its digital onboarding with the Public Authority of Civil Information (Paci), Kuwait’s digital ID solution, for example, NBK bypasses the need for new customers to come to a branch. Instead, customers have a paperless onboarding process, with instant account opening and money-transfer features. NBK integrates with Paci for customer ID verification and digital signature processes in an online manner through seamless application programming interfaces. This service provides the foundation for upcoming initiatives, such as digital loans.

NBK Geo Alerts is a location-based digital marketing platform to engage customers at the right place and time. According to the bank, the technology is a first of its kind, as an inbound location tracking tool without additional hardware. It is now available in 43 locations, such as shopping malls, standalone shopping areas, automobile showrooms, the airport and universities, and is connected to NBK’s rewards programme.

The Kuwaiti bank is also investing heavily in artificial intelligence, with 34 intelligent robots deployed and 150 additional robots in the pipeline.

North America
Novo

A new US challenger banking platform, Novo shows the art of the possible when it comes to serving small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It launched in 2018 and had surpassed more than $1bn in lifetime small business transactions by April 2021, with more than $600m completed during the first three months of 2021 alone.

“When Tyler [McIntyre] and I started Novo, we believed the future of small business banking would be invisible,” says Michael Rangel, CEO and co-founder of the company. “A future where banking faded into the background, putting the focus on the business owner and how they did business. To bring that future closer, we’ve built Novo with customisability at its core and we’ve never looked back.” 

Novo is completely digital, with no physical branch locations, and its deposit account services are provided by Middlesex Federal Savings, Novo’s community partner bank. Over the past year, Novo has been focused on a series of initiatives to enhance the platform and help small businesses as they recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.

First, it has built out its business chequing account functionality and has added invoicing, reserves, transaction categorisation, financial insights, self-service capabilities and personalised business banking.

In terms of self-service capabilities, users have the ability through the Novo app to add their ‘Doing business as’ name, add multiple users, cancel ACH payments, download bank letters, update business or personal information, create a travel notice, dispute transactions and more.

To deliver a personalised experience, Novo allows users to customise their banking activities to the way their business operates by adding, removing and organising widgets that appear on the dashboard page.

Novo has also spent the past year integrating with other fintechs, with the aim of streamlining payments, accounting and financial management for small businesses. For example, Novo accounts can now connect to payments platform Stripe. The connection gives visibility into a customer’s available balance in Stripe from within their Novo dashboard.

It is also integrated with payments platform Square, e-commerce platform Shopify, money management app Mint, accounting software QuickBooks and automation tool Zapier.

To help SMEs navigate the US Paycheque Protection Programme, Novo put together a series of materials in its resource centre, including loan frequently asked questions, as well as originated thousands of loans.

Chief Innovation Officer of the Year
Lito Villanueva, Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation

Congratulations to Lito Villanueva, chief innovation and inclusion officer, Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) for picking up the inaugural Chief Innovation Officer of the Year award.

The past year has been described as the year of digital banking year for the Philippines, as Covid-19 disrupted the financial industry. During this time, RCBC sought to create sustainable solutions that would persist after the pandemic, while aso driving financial inclusion.

However, more than 71% of adults (51 million) in the Philippines remain unbanked, and many have no access to bank branches. Internet connectivity across the archipelago is just over 40%, and digital penetration is still lacking, which is a challenge to digital banking.

Under the leadership of Mr Villanueva, RCBC worked on deploying ATM Go, or neighbourhood ATMs, through mobile point-of-sale terminals that cater to clients from far-flung areas that do not have access to physical banks. The bank partnered with various retail stores, co-operatives, microfinance institutions, rural banks and other establishments that are more accessible to clients.

This was key in the pandemic response, as RCBC partnered with the Department of Social Welfare and Development to lead the first massive private initiative in the Philippines to disburse government’s financial aid to its beneficiaries. RCBC disbursed 12.4bn pesos ($250m) worth of financial aid, benefitting 3.3 million low-income families.

RCBC also developed DiskarTech as a financial inclusion ‘super app’, using the Tagalog-English vernacular, for the low-income group and those who may be new to digital banking. Using machine learning and artificial intelligence, the bank was able to identify the needs of customers and offer an array of financial products and services that are attuned to their needs.

Mr Villanueva has brought the excitement of fintech from his most recent work experience to RCBC. “We are always on our toes, pioneering innovative products and services that provide satisfying customer experience. When external factors get in the way, we allow ourselves to fail and fail fast, so that we may learn and keep on creating. This is how the best innovations are made,” he says.

He is the founding chairman of Fintech Alliance.ph, leading important industry discussions that bring together industry leaders to tackle collective challenges, such as the private sector initiative to disburse government aid. He is also among the foremost advocates of open finance in the country.

CATEGORIES

AI and robotics
Winner: BNP Paribas
Project name: ALiX

As the foreign exchange (FX) markets have become more digitised in recent years, there has been a greater need for digital tools to support clients’ trading needs. What was once a phone-based market, where clients would have to call their trading/sales contact to place orders, the FX market has seen transformative change and clients now have the ability to trade independently, automating their business and workflow with digital tools that can both execute trades and/or analyse data.

BNP Paribas has been at the forefront of this innovation. It first launched its personal digital trading assistant, ALiX, in 2019 to industry acclaim. But the bank didn’t stop there. In response to the evolving needs of clients during the Covid-19 pandemic, the French bank expanded ALiX to cover all available products in Cortex FX, the bank’s multi-product FX trading platform, including spot, forwards, swaps, options and orders, in addition to algos.

“The goal of ALiX is to redefine how clients interact with single bank platforms in the future. Taking inspiration from Silicon Valley and combining simplicity with the latest artificial intelligence innovations, such as natural language processing, we created ALiX as a power-packed digital trading assistant, providing all the functionality of Cortex FX into one tiny widget,” says Nick Hamilton, head of Europe, the Middle East and Africa eFX sales at BNP Paribas.

Now the digital assistant is able to understand everything from basic spot requests, all the way to complex options request for quotes — in normal everyday market parlance with no specific syntax required — and instantly produce a live tradeable price straight to the client’s desktop.

The rapid response by BNP Paribas to expand ALiX was driven by its focus on helping its clients, many of whom were working from home, to trade more efficiently and effectively. Since the enhanced version was launched in March 2021, BNP Paribas has seen swap volumes increase by more than 180%, and both market share and number of active Cortex users have reached an all-time high, according to the bank.

“ALiX has revolutionised the way clients engage with their FX trades. With ALiX now providing full execution capabilities across FX, our future development is focused on enriching it to push bespoke, curated and personalised content to clients, from trade ideas to trading axes — ultimately acting as a digital gateway into BNP Paribas,” says Joe Nash, the company’s digital FX chief operating officer.

Cyber security
Winner: DBS Bank
Project name: Secure access and remote working
Partners: many

DBS developed a unique secure access and remote working (SARW) solution to ensure a smooth and secure digital journey for 37,000 employees in 18 countries, allowing them to operate seamlessly regardless of where they work. The solution integrates technology tools on encryption, multi-factor authentication, data loss prevention products, end-point solutions and self-defending applications across the bank.

As one judge comments, “An incredibly comprehensive and impressive SARW solution, leveraging a plethora of third-party solutions, which have all been integrated into delivering this working from home (WFH) security ecosystem.”

DBS first enabled employees to WFH by manually opening remote access in a silo solution. However, this was not sustainable as it took too much time and manual effort, leading to increased risks of human error and security exposure, and a poor user experience.

Therefore, the Singapore-based bank developed a SARW solution based on four guiding principles, each addressing a critical part of the user access journey in a secure yet integrated user experience. This solution integrates multiple technology tools, augmented by DBS’s own in-house development:

• Standardise multi-factor authentication (MFA);
• Monitor for unusual employee behaviour;
• Role-based conditional access with time-based access control;
• Prevent data leakage.

The project kicked off in June 2020 with workstream 1, expansion of defence in depth, which included a secure network gateway. Workstream 2, which started in September, was focused on creating unified secure access to the bank’s systems using MFA OneTap and OneAccess. Workstream 3 also started in September, and focused on continuous user behaviour and data usage monitoring, with dynamic watermark, data usage surveillance, behavioural biometrics and a focus on preventing data leakages. Today, all three workstream solutions are live in the bank.

The SARW solution addresses network challenges, while allowing employees to seamlessly work in the office and from home without compromising security. The slick log-in experience, with the added security of MFA, created a positive user experience for employees. User MFA logins are prompted with a clear message on the services they are accessing, making it difficult for man-in-the-middle-type attacks or social engineering.

Data
Winner: Scotiabank
Project name: Supporting vulnerable customers Covid-19

With people’s lives and needs changing as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, Scotiabank had to consider how to best serve its most vulnerable customers. Many had to adjust the way they bank, as they were forced to shift their banking online. But also, many were financially vulnerable, facing uncertainty about when they would see their next paycheque, or losing their jobs altogether.

Scotiabank’s data and analytics (D&A) teams were at the forefront of its response to the crisis, releasing new solutions to support customers through these challenging times. To better understand customers’ financial vulnerability, the bank’s D&A teams developed an engine to detect two million highly vulnerable customers and then implemented a process to proactively reach out to vulnerable customers when they needed it most.

In just a few weeks, the vulnerability model was developed and customers were identified through a vulnerability score, leveraging customer data on solvency, liquidity, credit history and external shock data including job loss prediction, employment industry and use of payday loans. By June 2020, the D&A teams were working with the digital and business teams to build a specific proactive outreach programme to provide customers with avenues for support.

And the results were impressive. Not only were customers pleased to receive the proactive outreach, as shown in a five-point increase in customer net promotion scores, but the bank also saw a strong decline in delinquency rates from 6.5% to 1.7%. Importantly, underpinning Scotiabank’s use of data is a clear commitment to using data ethically, meeting customers’ expectations for how their data is used.

As one judge commented: “Data analytics for financial health purposes, supporting vulnerable customers. The right approach to support customers through difficult times.”

Throughout the remainder of the year, Scotiabank continued to release innovations such as its Global Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform and C.MEE, an AI-driven technology, to further improve the customer experience during the pandemic and beyond.

Phil Thomas, executive vice-president, customer insight data and analytics, says: “One of Scotiabank’s top priorities is delivering a great customer experience. The bank focuses on our customers’ needs by leveraging machine learning models, ethical data and advanced analytics to help them manage their financial lives. I’m proud of our teams as they’ve truly helped our customers and delivered real business value for the bank.”

Financial inclusion
Winner: Banco Santander
Project name: Bringing financial services closer to each person — adaptation, proximity and multi-channel integration

Banco Santander picks up the inaugural award for financial inclusion based on two initiatives: one addresses the cash needs of its customer based in remote and rural areas; and the second aims to help clients over the age of 65 to digitally access financial services.

Santander leveraged its agreement with Correos, Spain’s postal service, to create Correos Cash, which allows customers to deposit and withdraw money in 1600 post offices in municipalities where the bank isn’t present, and allows postmen to deliver cash to any address in Spain.

In 75% of the municipalities with fewer than 1000 inhabitants, there is a Correos service point, which will allow Santander to reach 66% of the Spanish population that previously didn’t have a service for cash their municipality. This initiative answers the growing demand in the market regarding the lack of financial services in rural areas, as well as in urban areas, especially for older customers.

Santander also launched Pioneros, a financial inclusion initiative for those over the age of 65 to help them digitise by adapting its app specifically for their needs. The bank felt the responsibility to integrate this potentially vulnerable customer group into an increasingly digitised world. To offer them the same services through the same channels as other clients and to personalise the bank’s digital capabilities to facilitate their inclusion, it adapted its banking app for them, listening and attending to their particular needs. Now they can track daily activity, new movements and bankable purchases, as well as one-click access to an integrated account balance without a login.

Jose Antonio Álvarez, CEO of Santander, says: “Financial empowerment can help lift people out of poverty, while also creating significant opportunity for economic growth. And the exponential growth in digital adoption makes it possible to support more people in more ways than ever before.

“At Santander, we have set a goal to empower more than 10 million people by 2025 by using technology to give access to financial services; providing small loans to microentrepreneurs; and helping improve financial knowledge. We are making progress and are pleased this has been acknowledged by The Banker, but we also recognise that there is much still to do and are committed to playing our part.

“These are innovative, needed, and good for the bank and for customer segments that have unmet financial needs,” comments one judge.

Mobile
Winner: Vietnam International Bank
Project name: MyVIB app
Partners: Trusting Social, MISG

Vietnam International Bank (VIB) is a universal commercial bank that serves more than three million individual customers and tens of thousands of corporate, commercial customers and financial institutions. Its mobile banking application, MyVIB, was first launched 10 years ago, but has gone through many iterations in its quest to deliver the best customer experience possible.

During the review period, from June 2020 to May 2021, VIB deployed several new MyVIB features in quick succession. For example, it launched an online healthcare insurance contract application, in association with MSIG Vietnam, via the app in September 2020 after just four months of development. In the same length of time, it developed a simple and customer-oriented onboarding process — Digital Know Your Customer (KYC) — in co-operation with fintech Trusting Social, which went live in October.

Within one month, it developed a loyalty system for digital customers, called MyVIB Rewards, which launched in December. In another four-month sprint, it converted a traditional credit card product into a full-lifecycle online credit card service, also in conjunction with Trusting Social. This launched in April 2021.

Tran Nhat Minh, deputy CEO of VIB, who is in charge of the digital banking business, says: “Initiated from the concept that each customer can manage their bank in their pocket, VIB continues to invest heavily and apply [cutting-edge] technologies in MyVIB to provide customers with the best and most innovative banking experiences.

“The credit card service, for example, constitutes a full lifecycle of the credit card in a totally digital platform. And many important initiatives of this project are being implemented, which will contribute to changing customers’ banking behaviour and lead the trend in future.”

The bank applies artificial intelligence and big data analytics in the credit card approval and issuance process, which is now completed in 15–30 minutes.

Both the online healthcare insurance and Digital KYC have made a significant impact during the Covid-19 pandemic. Online VIB Care Healthcare Insurance, for example, avoids the complicated and time-consuming process to verify customer during the insurance application by using MyVIB. App users only need to clarify health questions and pay for the contract, which takes just three minutes and the VIB Care contract comes into effect immediately.

Digital KYC eliminates the face-to-face KYC verification process. VIB reports a 300% increase in the number of customers registering for digital banking through MyVIB as of the end of May 2021.

Open banking
Winner: İşbank
Project name: TekPOS (SinglePOS)
Partner: Softtech

İşbank has been at the forefront of open banking in Turkey. In 2019, it was the first commercial bank in the country to launch open banking application, called TekCep, which allows companies to monitor their accounts and balances at other banks. Now it has added TekPOS, a cash flow management service that enables commercial customers to display their daily point-of-sale (POS) transactions with İşbank and other banks, in a single screen.

Previously, the lack of digital solutions regarding POS management was causing commercial customers to waste time and effort by logging into several digital channels to monitor their POS transactions. However, by adding their POS terminals to TekPOS, they can now observe, filter, analyse and monitor their transactions in terms of amounts, transfer due dates, and contracted merchant account numbers, without the necessity of logging in to different banking apps or websites.

Şahismail Şimşek, deputy CEO of İşbank, says, “We believe that it is critical to deliver our technological capabilities to our customers and to assist them to benefit from these capabilities at the highest standards. TekPOS, which we offer as a free solution, is an important part of our open banking investments. With TekPOS, we aim to enable our commercial customers to access their own financial data more easily, as well as to monitor their cash flows accurately and contribute to their business processes.”

Without the necessity of logging in to different banking apps or websites, İşbank’s customers can easily track their cash flow across several banks that they work with. With TekPOS, İşbank consolidates POS information from many different banks and displays it in a single format to its commercial customers through internet and mobile banking.

A dashboard displays information on how much balance awaits in which bank and when it will be released, which is critical information in the cash flow management of companies that receive credit card payments. Additionally, they can export their transactions in Microsoft Excel format and integrate the information in their enterprise resource planning system.

Impressively, the project moved from kick-off in March 2020 to complete testing in July, and channel implementation was done by August. In the first month after launch, 500 customers had already applied. The number of customers using the new tool grew to 3,800 by the end of the first six months and now it is more than 4,750.

Payments
Winner: OTP Bank
Project name: a new checkout method QR code — SimplePay
Partner: OTP Mobil

While moving to instant payments was a country-level mandatory project for all the banks in Hungary, starting in March 2020, OTP Group began its own project in April and developed a new checkout method for customers both in physical and remote payment environments, based on the Hungarian instant payment infrastructure.

OTP Bank and its subsidiary, OTP Mobil, developed SimplePay — a QR-code standard payment checkout solution using a mobile phone. It also added a powerful feature called ‘app deep link’. When it comes to deep-linking, there is no need to read or handle the QR code — just open the application and the user can initiate the payment.

Importantly, OTP Mobil’s new payment method is an open solution and freely available to all banks, payment service providers (PSPs) and merchants. The clients of a participating bank (with the bank’s own mobile banking app) can pay for their order in any online store that has SimplePay as a payment option, using the QR-code-based instant transfer developed by OTP Group and based on the guideline of the central bank, Magyar Nemzeti Bank, with additional security elements. Moreover, banks and PSPs can display the QR-code on their own interfaces.

Péter Csányi, deputy CEO of OTP Bank, says: “The clear leader on the Hungarian online payments market, OTP Group constantly innovates to deliver fast, convenient and secure payment solutions. We rolled out our SimplePay QR-code-based instant payment feature at nearly 10,000 online merchants, to expand our footprint to account-based payments and to streamline the check-out process on the web and, thanks to our innovative deep-link solution, in the fast-expanding mobile commerce space as well.”

Then, in August, OTP Group launched its SimpleBusiness mobile application, which allows merchants to accept electronic payments in the physical environment without having a POS terminal. With SimpleBusiness, the cashier types the amount of the payment and generates a QR-code, which is then read by the customer’s mobile banking app.

When the payment is done, the cashier is able to check the status of the transaction in the app. The QR-code-based instant transfer is already introduced at offline stores and merchants who are using the SimpleBusiness application, helping merchants comply with the legal obligation to provide an e-payment option as of January 1, 2021.

As one judge said, “This is something [other markets] should have in place, enabling more efficient account-based payments at POS.”