Share the article
twitter-iconcopy-link-iconprint-icon
share-icon
TechvisionMarch 18 2022

HSBC's mission-based banking

The global head of platforms at HSBC Commercial Banking is bringing the Silicon Valley mindset to a 156-year-old bank. Liz Lumley reports.
Share the article
twitter-iconcopy-link-iconprint-icon
share-icon
HSBC's mission-based banking

While at Google, where he worked on various e-commerce initiatives such as Google Pay in Singapore and the design of the ill-fated Google Plex in the US, Aman Narain got into the habit of making lists. 

A Google document was kept open where Mr Narain would “obsessively” keep track of “things I was learning along the way”, and areas where he would think: “If only I’d known this when I was in banking before.”

Career history: Aman Narain 

  • 2021 HSBC, global head of platforms
  • 2017 Google, global new payments ecosystems lead
  • 2016 Schroders, head of digital and Fintech
  • 2014 BankBazaar, CEO international

At its most basic, a bank is a secure, regulated entity that takes deposits and makes loans, in addition to a wide variety of financial services offered to individuals and businesses. However, technology has enabled many of the services to be unbundled from the bank and made accessible via a platform by emerging tech companies. The ability to pay back a friend for your share of a bottomless brunch, finance expensive exercise equipment or switch currencies on a mobile wallet while travelling are now enabled by a wide variety of tech firms launched in the past 20 years, rather than through the established, centuries-old, banking ecosystem.  

Some banks are now waking up to the evolution and proliferation of applications and services available via platform banking. One such bank is HSBC, which recently lured Mr Narain back to the realm of incumbent banking, after his four-year stint at Google, as its newly installed global head of platforms in the commercial banking business. 

Return journey

Despite his foray into big tech, Mr Narain has spent most of his career in traditional banking, including 15 years in various digital roles, such as global head of digital banking at Standard Chartered. However, it was not until he started working with merchants as part of Google Pay that he became interested in the pivotal role small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) play in the larger economy. 

“I really didn’t, quite honestly, understand that role,” says Mr Narain. “There’s a huge problem to solve, which is: ‘How do we solve for SMEs to make them more efficient, allow them to trade internationally?’” While he was contemplating this, Mr Narain got a call from Barry O’Byrne, chief executive of global commercial banking at HSBC, about joining the bank.

“I thought he’d got the wrong guy,” he says. “I was like: ‘I’m a tech guy, I’ve spent my time serving large multinationals retails’, and he saw that as an asset, as opposed to a liability.” That conversation, which examined how a new global head of platforms could be central to transforming HSBC’s commercial business and expand its reach through embedded finance, led to Mr Narain returning, “like a boomerang”, to a bank he describes as a “156-year-old start-up”. Plus, he adds: “Barry’s a pretty persuasive guy.” 

Mr Narain says he took four focus points, gathered from his Google-era list-making, to frame his new role at HSBC.

“The first is about pace and scale,” he says. “I think the thing that I’ve learned, working away from banking and specifically in a company like Google, is a monomaniacal focus on scaling and on the consumer.” That pace and scale is about switching your mindset from an objective backwards view to a forward view. “You’re asking the question why not, rather than, why,” he adds. 

While banking is a regulated industry, bringing change to customers and the bank at ‘pace and scale’ is more complex. “That just means that you need to be much more thoughtful about it,” says Mr Narain.

Partner strategy

The next area Mr Narain is working in involves partnerships. Those include partnering with fintechs and big tech to bring capabilities the bank needs, as well as partnering to gain access to distribution avenues the bank is looking to expand into.  

“I always admired how Apple and Google used to compete so intensely with each other, and yet they hosted each other’s services that were so critical to their success,” he says. “I got a backstage pass to see how that process is made. And I’m really excited to bring that thinking to HSBC.”

Mr Narain’s third focus is around productivity. He has kicked off an initiative at the bank called ‘Ways of Working’, which looks at the use of collaborative tools that allow people to work in distributed workforces and work asynchronously. “I think this is a major competitive advantage in the banking landscape and I don’t think all banks work that way,” he adds. 

The fourth focus is around people and purpose. “I think it’s really important to articulate a mission for what we’re doing,” he says. “When it comes to banking, I think the customer’s experience and expectation of experience has been transformed by experiences in industries like travel, music, entertainment and shopping. Our mission is to enable businesses to be able to seamlessly conduct their financial transactions. That’s really huge.”

Was this article helpful?

Thank you for your feedback!

Read more about:  Digital journeys , Tech vision
Liz Lumley is deputy editor at The Banker. She is a global specialist commentator on global financial technology or ‘fintech’. She has spent over 20 years working in the financial technology space, most recently as director at VC Innovations and architect of the Fintech Talents Festival, managing director at Startupbootcamp FinTech London and an editor at financial services and technology newswire, Finextra. She was named Journalist of the Year for Technology and Digital Finance at State Street’s UK Press Awards for 2022.
Read more articles from this author