With less than 10% of transactions now requiring face-to-face contact between customers and bank employees, Mr Albino Cezar has presided over a staff of 3500 and an expenditure of $360m in the past year as Bradesco seeks to advance its technological edge over its rivals.
The strides have been impressive. In Rio de Janeiro, Bradesco has begun to use a system that digitalises cheque images, storing them on computers and matching the signatures with signature cards on file, thus reducing the possibility of forgery.
The bank – which was the first private Brazilian company to use computers in 1962 – is also experimenting with technology that will be capable of computer voice recognition of customers accessing information of their account from their home PCs. This would circumvent the use of passwords, which can be stolen if typed in. Iris and fingerprint recognition are also being researched. This will build on a technology structure that currently allows Bradesco to process more than $1.1bn of monthly transactions in its systems.
As a forward-looking face for the company, Mr Albino Cezar, who has championed technology not as just a useful tool, but as an integral part of all aspects of business, might be hard to beat as the future CEO.
Risks: The Brazilian banking sector’s increasing reliance on new technology can be something of a double-edged sword, as was seen this year when Brazil’s Policia Federal arrested 50 computer hackers, who had tapped into the online systems of banks and transferred an estimated $28m in customer funds to other accounts. Any massive exploitation of technological vulnerabilities would surely spell trouble for Mr Albino Cezar, who has a significant competitor in Bradesco executive vice-president Milton Almicar Silva Vargas. The latter may appeal to traditionalists that are uncomfortable with the scope and speed of the changes that Mr Albino Cezar has championed.
