This podcast examines the tales of delight and hard work needed to deliver modern, 21st century banks that just work.

The past 20 years have seen an explosion of cool tech, shiny digital apps and progressive business models, not all have migrated successfully to traditional banking. Have we lingered too long in the glittering halls of cutting edge? Have we forgotten the real goals of reliable, trustworthy, and functional banking? Is it time to find the real magic in building a bank that works?

Every month, Liz Lumley, deputy editor at The Banker sits down with a number of industry leaders to discuss what innovation really means for banks.

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In 2019, Jusan Bank (then Tsesna Bank) was pushed to insolvency — all due to precarious banking practices and a lack of regulatory supervision. But, through adopting the ecosystem business model, Jusan achieved $1.2bn in profits, acquired 1mn new customers and paved the way for an initial public offering in London. At the helm of this turnaround was Yerbol Orynbayev.Guest: Yerbol Orynbayev, independent financial services consultant, former Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan and former chair of the board of directors of Jusan Bank and Heartland Securities.

How did sub postmasters become de facto bank branch managers? The Post Office in the UK provides a vital service to communities, specifically as it picks up the slack from customers who are left wanting from the disappearance of bank branches on the high street. Do they have what they need to succeed in this role?

Guest: Andra Sonea, analyst, researcher, PhD student at University of Warwick

Most of the global banking industry is currently on the journey to migrate to the ISO 20022 messaging standard for cross-border payments. What lessons have been learned so far, what do banks need to do now, and will the industry be ready for the ultimate decommissioning of the legacy Swift MT standard in November 2025?

Guests:

• Jeremy McDougall, director of payments at EY
• Stephen Lindsay, business lead, Swift Platform

This year, Intesa Sanpaolo launched Isybank, a new digital bank based on cloud native architecture, along with a partnership with Thought Machine. The new €650m digital offering is part of the Intesa’s continuing 2022-2025 strategic business plan.

Guests:

• Massimo Proverbiò, chief data, AI, innovation and technology officer, Intesa Sanpaolo
• Paul Taylor, CEO and founder, Thought Machine

Partnering with fintech start-ups has always presented a myriad of obstacles for incumbent banks and financial institutions. To combat this, TechPassport co-created a set of ‘enterprise ready’ questions along with 14 global banks. These questions allow fintech companies to learn the key metrics financial institutions use to influence their vendor selection process. This new level of transparency allows even the smallest start-up to sell to the largest of institutions by becoming enterprise ready.

Guests:

• Layla White, CEO and founder, TechPassport

• Sean Manahan, head of business development, managing director in the innovation group, Morgan Stanley

On the road at Hightech Payment Systems’ WeMeeting in Morocco, Liz Lumley sits down to listen to the story of the first fully digital bank in Barbados: Sagicor Bank.

Guests:

• Nabil Ibenbrahim, managing director, Hightech Payment Systems
• Trevor Torzsas, managing partner, Torzsas Advisory

Former banker Shaun Hayes, author of The Gray Choice, pleaded guilty to participating in a scheme to defraud Excel Bank and to profit from illegal insider loans and was sentenced to federal prison in 2018. Today, he talks to Liz Lumley about the ultimate cost of his crimes: his family, friends, freedom, and fortune. He also speaks about ethical (and unethical) business practices, reworking the definition of success, and the cost of stepping into the grey areas of business decision-making.

Guest:

• Shaun Hayes, former banker and author of The Gray Choice

A new report from Fair4All Finance highlights the positive impact of the customer support banks provided during the pandemic and calls for some measures to be re-introduced or modified to help people navigate the rising cost of living. 

In research conducted with Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest Group and Yorkshire Building Society, Fair4All Finance looked at the response of major banks and building societies during Covid-19. The aim was to understand the impact of support measures like payment holidays and interest free overdrafts on customers and the financial institutions themselves. 

The research found that many of the lessons learned can support financial institutions in the way they treat their customers and help people in vulnerable circumstances weather current and future financial storms.

UK-based Shawbrook Bank has partnered with Pega to use low code to transform its unsecured loans process, improving processing time by 75%, saving 1500 hours per month, and improving the customer experience. 

Liz Lumley sits down with Shawbrook Bank and Pega to discuss the fintech partnership and the benefits of a low code platform.

Guests:

• Steve Morgan, banking industry market lead, Pega
• Russ Thornton, chief technology officer, Shawbrook Bank

Recently, financial tech provider Broadridge released their 2023 Digital Transformation and Next-Gen Tech study, which surveyed 500 C-suite executives and their direct reports across the buy side and sell side globally on their current plans and attitudes towards ongoing digital journeys and technological impacts.

Liz Lumley sat down with Broadridge and SEB to discuss the findings of that study.

Guests:

• Samir Pandiri, President of Broadridge International
• Kristian Gårder, Co-Head of Equities at SEB

One of our favourite topics here at Functional Banking Magic is to look at the partnerships and relationships that develop between a bank and a tech company.

HSBC has partnered with fintech company Diginex to provide their commercial banking customers in various markets with a sustainability reporting tool, allowing businesses to plan and report their ESG performance online and manage their performance against ESG indicators and globally recognised frameworks.

This episode we sit down with:

• Natalie Blyth, Global Head of Commercial Banking Sustainability, HSBC
• Mark Blick, CEO, Diginex

What can banks learn from the so-called 'growth hacking' of startups? What can B2B learn from B2C? Which banks are hitting a home run with growth and marketing?

Our guests are:

• Isha Chander, head of EMEA marketing, executive director, payments, J.P. Morgan
• Lucy Woolfenden, founder, The Scale Up Collective
• Shilpa Bangera, chief revenue officer- platform and data, Finastra

Whether a bank is partnering with a small, seed stage fintech startup or a global tech enterprise – relationships work because of the people involved. 

Because of this – we here at The Banker Podcasts will be showcasing several shorter Functional Banking Magic episodes focused on the partnerships and relationships that develop between a bank and a tech company. 

To start us off here is an episode where I sit down with:

• Prashant Jajodia, Managing Client Partner and Financial Services Leader, IBM Consulting UK & Ireland
• Mike Gamble, Director of Analysis and Design, TSB Bank

Sreeram and Mike talk about startup culture, teamwork and gathering your tribe.

Today is all about digital first – but do we still have a need for in person, physical banking? Has a focus on digital first further isolated communities - so rural communities, unbanked, demographics that don't have confidence in the digital world.

Guests:

Chapter 1 – What does the research show us about banking and rural communities?

• Andra Sonea, postdoctoral research Fellow in FinTech, Said Business School, Oxford 

Chapter 2 – How technology can address some of these ‘banking in the ‘real’ verse issues 

• Shanker Ramamurthy, global managing partner, banking, IBM 

Chapter 3 – Putting the human touch back into banking 

• Wendy Redshaw, chief digital information officer at NatWest
• Nina Raphael, managing director, banking and capital markets, Accenture

There isn't a bank worth their innovation lab that hasn't spoken about the need to instil 'entrepreneurial values' and the 'start-up mindset' inside their walls. What does that mean exactly? Is startup culture all it's hyped up to be? What does being an entrepreneur mean inside a centuries old incumbent bank with tens of millions of customers?

Liz Lumley, deputy editor at The Banker, sits down with four leading banks to discuss how the seeds of start-ups can blossom in centuries old banks. 

Guests:

Chapter 1 – ‘What does a quick change and pivot look like?’

• Xavier Rebes, director of innovation, CaixaBank

Chapter 2 – ‘The start-up mindset is the ability to adapt to change’

• Adizah Tejani, portfolio, HSBC Ventures
• Wincie Wong, head of services workforce technical capability, NatWest
• Craig Fox, managing director - fintech, Silicon Valley Bank

Many are attracted to the glittering halls of cutting edge technology – whether that be quantum computing, Web3 or the varied siren calls coming from the depths of the metaverse. Banks are no exception. 

Shows like Money 2020 showcase those ‘glittering halls’ promise a future of seamless, friction-free payments and banking. But what does it really mean? How long does it take for a stage worthy tech trend to make its way into financial services and start improving customers' loves – if it makes that journey at all?

Liz Lumley, deputy editor, The Banker sits down with three guests at Money 2020 to discuss what they have seen, what impressed them and which technologies are the most likely to impact how we bank today. 

Guests:

• Eimear Creaven, president, Western Europe at Mastercard
• Kunal Bist, global head of TTS strategic partnerships, Citi
• Nektarios Liolios, co-founder, Future Farm

As artificial intelligence and machine learning is growing in use inside financial institutions - including services that make decisions for customers. How do we ensure AI is fair and ethical, when humans who develop AI are far from it.

Liz Lumley, deputy editor at The Banker sits down with a number of industry leaders and one leading bank to discuss evolution of AI in financial services.

Guests:

Chapter 1 – ‘Algorithms have parents’

• Clara Durodié, CEO, Cognitive Finance Group and author of Decoding AI in Financial Services

Chapter 2 – ‘Because Daddy said so’ – putting ethical rules and restraints on AI

• John Duigenan, Global CTO, VP, and distinguished engineer, Banking and Financial Services at IBM
• Peter van der Putten, director AI lab, Pegasystems

Chapter 3 – Can we build something that is better then ourselves?

• Prag Sharma, global head, Artificial Intelligence Centre of Excellence (AI CoE), Citigroup

From financial crime, domestic abuse and financial control to addictions that impact your bank balance - what role do banks play in creating a safe space to take charge of your life?

Liz Lumley, deputy editor at The Banker sits down with a number of industry leaders and three leading banks to discuss what role banks have to play in our complicated lives.

Guests:

Chapter 1 – Why are ‘fuck off funds’ mainstream?

• Kimberly Long, Asia editor, The Banker
• Harriet Allner, associate director, Common Industry

Chapter 2 – How do you create a ‘safe space’ at a bank?

• Catherine Rutter, Group Ambassador for Yorkshire and The Humber, Director of Group Vulnerability at Lloyds Banking Group
• Neil Mitchell, Head of Customer Risk at TSB Bank
• Maxine Pritchard Head of Financial Inclusion and Vulnerability, HSBC

The past 20 years have seen an explosion of cool tech, shiny digital apps and progressive business models, not all have migrated successfully to traditional banking. Have we lingered too long in the glittering halls of cutting edge? Have we forgotten the real goals of reliable, trustworthy, and functional banking? Is it time to find the real magic in building a bank that works?

Liz Lumley, deputy editor at The Banker sits down with a number of industry leaders to discuss what innovation really means for banks?

Chapter 1 – ‘What’s your earliest memory of tech and banks?’

• Joy Macknight, editor, The Banker
• Marie Kemplay, investment banking and North America editor, The Banker

Chapter 2 – Learning to love legacy and finding lessons in the Middle Ages

• Alessandro Hatami, founder, Pacemakers
• Teresa Connors, founder, Payment Matters

Chapter 3 – ‘Young ladies’, canaries in coal mines, and backing innovation before ‘we called it innovation’.

• Leda Glyptis, chief client officer, 10x Banking
• Lou Smith, chair, Innovate Finance