COMMENTARY Resilient in a crisis: Bank of America saw massive increases in digital deposits, traffic and clients
The
year of digital acceleration If fintechs are an ever growing part of the banking future, the pandemic has underlined why established banks are still the bedrock of our financial system. And when it comes to large global banks, few have stronger roots and better credentials than Bank of America.
As one of the world’s leading financial institutions, Bank of America provides individual consumers, small and medium-sized business and large corporations with a wide range of banking, investing, asset management and other financial and risk management products and services. And, like every other financial institution, it is closely managing the long-term impacts of the coronavirus. A bank of its size and historical resilience tends to inspire trust, and there’s no question that it has a wealth of experience and resources to provide the direction and stability needed to help rebuild economies and manage business balance sheets. Paul Taylor, who heads the bank’s global financial institution division for global transaction services, is well-placed to comment on what he sees as a re-evaluation of priorities as a result of the global health crisis. “Strength and stability will always be www.fintech.finance
Paul Taylor, Head of Global Financial Institutions, Global Transaction Services at Bank of America, looks back on 2020. He discusses the ongoing need for security and stability, and why established banks continue to be important for customer confidence and delivering the right technology some of the top priorities for clients,” says Taylor. “They want to know we can deliver the right technology, and how we are set up to handle liquidity, credit, country, counterparty and client risk, and, of course, know your customer and compliance. “Big banks have the scale and the right security focus and investment, which engenders confidence and helps to keep clients safe,” he continues. “And, beyond security, we also have terrific insight into market trends and needs. We are data warehouses on a grand scale, with deep knowledge about transactions between different
counterparties, and different countries and currency corridors.” All of this data and artificial intelligence (AI) is hard to replicate and manage for most companies, says Taylor. He notes the bank invests around $10 billion every year in technology, $3billion of which is channelled into development initiatives. When it comes to industry trends, Taylor says the number and variety of channels have been growing for more than a decade, providing a wider canvas for AI, machine learning and other digital innovations. Open banking and the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) have accelerated this trend, with application programming interfaces (APIs) playing a pivotal role. “Investment in APIs is one of the best things to come out of the last 10 years,” says Taylor, highlighting a recent development. “This year we launched a set of new capabilities, built around APIs, which specifically focus on foreign exchange. Our foreign exchange (FX) trading API enables live trading for our clients, something we’ve never been able to do via an API before, andit also allows bundling of trades. Real-time trading is of course critical for FX, and APIs facilitate that.” Issue 18 | TheFintechMagazine
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