Global Banking & Finance Review Issue 77 - Business & Finance Magazine

Powering Financial Inclusion and SME Growth in Botswana

Mr Kgotso Bannalotlhe CEO Letshego Botswana

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Varun SASH

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Wanda Rich email: wrich@gbafmag.com

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editor

Dear Readers’

Welcome to Issue 77 of Global Banking & Finance Review.

As financial institutions continue to evolve in response to digital risk, infrastructure complexity, and shifting customer expectations, this issue examines how the industry is rising to meet new challenges with sharper tools, strategic investment, and a renewed focus on trust.

Deepfake voice fraud is quickly becoming one of the most urgent security challenges in financial services. "The End of Voice Trust: How AI Deepfakes Are Forcing Banks to Rethink Authentication" by Anurag Mohapatra of NICE Actimize explores how AI-generated voice clones are challenging traditional biometric defences and accelerating the shift toward layered, cryptographic authentication.

"Banking with Purpose: How Creand is Advancing Digitalisation, Specialisation and ESG Excellence" features CEO Xavier Cornella’s perspective on how Creand is evolving its digital platforms and sustainability focus while deepening its international private banking reach.

"Revolutionizing Payments: Secure, Scalable, Sovereign" by Hans de Graaf of Diebold Nixdorf outlines how containerisation is helping banks modernise payments infrastructure while improving flexibility, performance, and operational control.

"Powering Financial Inclusion and SME Growth in Botswana" features insights from Mr. Kgotso Bannalotlhe, CEO of Letshego Botswana, on how Letshego is advancing digital access and responsible lending for underserved individuals and entrepreneurs. From mobile microloans to structured SME financing and financial literacy initiatives, Letshego's inclusive approach continues to unlock economic opportunity across Botswana.

At Global Banking & Finance Review, we remain committed to sharing the strategies, technologies and insights shaping global financial services. Whether your focus is on fraud prevention, client experience, or core infrastructure, we hope this issue provides valuable perspective on where the industry is heading next.

Enjoy the latest edition!

Wanda Rich Editor

Stay caught up on the latest news and trends taking place by signing up for our free email newsletter, reading us online at http://www.globalbankingandfinance.com/ and download our App for the latest digital magazine for free on Google Play and the Apple App Store

Banking with Purpose: How Creand is Advancing Digitalisation, Specialisation and ESG Excellence

Xavier Cornella, CEO, Creand INTERVIEW

Powering Financial Inclusion and SME Growth in Botswana

Mr Kgotso Bannalotlhe, CEO

Botswana

Revolutionizing Payments: Secure, Scalable, Sovereign

Abstract

This article explores the paradox within the financial industry: while banks offer modern digital services, many still rely on outdated payments infrastructure. It argues that payments are central to customer engagement and revenue generation, yet modernization is hindered by legacy systems. The piece advocates for containerization—a cloud-native approach already used in other banking functions—as a solution to modernize payments infrastructure. It highlights the benefits of containerization, including scalability, security, and cost efficiency, and showcases Diebold Nixdorf’s role in enabling this transformation through RedHat® OpenShift® and Kubernetes. The article concludes by emphasizing the strategic importance of resilient, highperformance payment systems and proposes a stepwise migration strategy to modernize without disruption.

Introduction

At first glance, banking appears to be fully modernized—mobile apps, AI-powered chatbots, and digital wallets have become standard offerings. Yet beneath this digital veneer, many financial institutions continue to rely on outdated payments infrastructure that limits their ability to innovate and scale.

Payments are not just a transactional function; they are central to customer engagement and financial operations. As one of the most frequent touchpoints between banks and their customers, payments play a pivotal role in building loyalty and trust. The data generated through payment interactions offers deep insights into consumer behavior, lifestyle preferences, and financial health— enabling banks to personalize services, assess risk, and unlock new revenue opportunities through cross-selling.

From a financial perspective, payments account for approximately 35% of the global banking revenue pool , driven by fees, services, and interest income from payment products like credit cards. This revenue stream continues to grow, underscoring the strategic importance of payments modernization.

However, many institutions remain constrained by technical debt and rigid legacy systems, making transformation feel risky and complex. This disconnect raises a critical question:

What if payments modernization could be achieved without disruption—securely, incrementally, and with minimal risk?

Applying Containerization to Payments Modernization

To overcome the limitations of legacy infrastructure, many financial

institutions have adopted containerization to streamline application deployment across various functions—such as human resources systems, customer relationship management (CRM) platforms, and compliance tools. This proven approach offers a compelling opportunity: why not apply the same strategy to payments?

What Is Containerization?

Containerization is a modern software deployment method that packages an application along with all its dependencies into a lightweight, selfcontained unit known as a container. These containers can run consistently across different computing environments—whether on-premises, in the cloud, or in hybrid setups.

Think of containers like shipping containers for software: portable, standardized, and easy to move and scale. This analogy highlights their ability to simplify deployment and ensure consistency across diverse environments.

Benefits of Containerization for Payments Infrastructure

Containerization offers a range of advantages that align perfectly with the demands of modern payments systems:

1. Consistency Across Environments

Containers ensure that applications behave identically regardless of the underlying infrastructure. This is especially critical for banks operating across multiple cloud platforms and data centers, where uniform performance and reliability are essential.

2. Scalability and Speed

With orchestration tools like Kubernetes, containers can automatically scale during peak transaction volumes. They also support rapid, secure deployment of updates through CI/CD pipelines, and offer self-healing and load-balancing capabilities—ensuring uptime in the 24/7 world of payments.

3. Enhanced Security

Containerized environments are isolated, reducing attack surfaces and improving control over configurations. This isolation simplifies compliance with data protection regulations and strengthens the security posture for sensitive financial data.

4. Cost Efficiency

By sharing non-functional resources and optimizing infrastructure usage, containerization reduces operational costs without compromising performance. This efficiency is particularly valuable in high-volume transaction environments.

Business Development Manager Payments

Diebold Nixdorf

Hans de Graaf

5. Agility for Innovation

Containerization empowers banks to experiment and deploy new payment features faster. Whether it’s real-time fraud detection, advanced analytics, or AI-driven compliance tools, containers enable rapid innovation, integration, and iteration.

Delivering Payments Modernization Through Containerization

Diebold Nixdorf is actively transforming the payments landscape—not just by advocating for modernization, but by enabling it. In collaboration with leading global banks and payment processors, we are deploying a unified, container-based architecture that leverages trusted, widely supported technologies to drive incremental modernization without disruption.

At the core of our approach is RedHat® OpenShift®, a Kubernetesbased platform already well-established in the banking sector for its robust security, monitoring, and compliance capabilities. This platform provides a consistent runtime environment that supports:

Zero-Downtime Configuration Changes

Financial institutions can update or modify system configurations without interrupting service availability. In the payments domain, where uptime is critical, even brief outages can result in lost transactions, customer dissatisfaction, and regulatory exposure. Our platform ensures continuous service delivery, even during updates.

Reduced Reliance on Third-Party Vendors

By consolidating services within a single, integrated containerized platform, banks gain greater control over their operations. This reduces complexity, enhances oversight, and improves operational resilience— critical in an environment where institutions bear the risk of continuity.

Agile Development and Continuous Delivery

Our architecture supports agile development practices, enabling banks to respond quickly to evolving customer needs and regulatory requirements. Continuous delivery pipelines allow for frequent, reliable updates, making it easier to introduce new features or adapt to emerging standards.

This modernized approach empowers financial institutions to migrate to a next-generation payments processing platform with minimal risk, lower total cost of ownership, and greater scalability for future growth. By leveraging modern development tools, banks can also

expand their internal technology capabilities and tap into a broader pool of resources.

A regional European processor currently running our solution on OpenShift shared:

“This is, in our opinion, a future-proof infrastructure that enables us to be ready for the digital euro. We don't know exactly what the digital euro is going to look like, but with this platform, we are confident that whatever it brings to us, we can utilize a lot of code that is already there.”

Why It Matters in Banking Payments

Payments systems must operate continuously—24/7/365. High availability and throughput are not just technical requirements; they are foundational to customer trust, business continuity, and regulatory compliance. Our platform delivers:

• Continuous Access to Funds: Prevents service interruptions that could block purchases, transfers, or account access.

• Real-Time Expectations: Supports high-volume, instant transaction processing.

• Revenue Protection: Scales during peak periods (e.g., holidays, payroll cycles) to avoid lost fees and reputational damage.

• Risk Management: Enables real-time fraud detection with alwaysactive systems.

• Regulatory Compliance: Aligns with frameworks such as DORA and FFIEC.

• Competitive Advantage: Fast, reliable payment enhances customer experience and loyalty.

• Stepwise Migration Strategy: Allows institutions to modernize at their own pace while maintaining operational continuity.

The future of payments is fast, secure, and customer-centric. Let’s build it—one container at a time.

Work-Life Balance: A Strategic Imperative for Business Leaders

Work-life balance has become a defining issue for senior executives and business owners. The ability to sustain performance over the long term is directly linked to the capacity to manage professional demands without compromising personal well-being. For leaders guiding complex organizations, the implications extend beyond individual health. Balance influences decision-making, creativity, corporate culture, and ultimately financial results.

The World Health Organization classifies burnout as an occupational phenomenon arising from unmanaged workplace stress, with wideranging effects on productivity and effectiveness. When fatigue undermines leadership judgment, the impact reverberates across teams, stakeholders, and markets. Organizations led by overextended executives risk instability, while those guided by resilient leaders gain an advantage in agility and trust.

Shifting workforce expectations add further weight to the issue. Employees increasingly demand that well-being form part of corporate culture, and credibility depends on leaders who set the example. Executives who model balance strengthen loyalty and engagement, while those who neglect it face reputational risk and weakened organizational performance.

The Business Case for Balance

Balance between professional excellence and personal well-being is not a soft benefit. It is a leadership variable that shapes decision quality, execution, and organizational stability. When equilibrium falters at the top, the effects show up in slower decisions, uneven communication, and culture drift. When it holds, leaders think more clearly, teams perform more consistently, and stakeholders retain confidence.

The global cost signals the scale of the issue. The World Health Organization estimates that depression and anxiety alone lead to 12 billion lost working days every year and US$1 trillion in lost productivity. For executive teams, that headline number translates into familiar line-items: turnover, presenteeism, operational errors, and missed opportunities that compress margins over time.

Cognitive clarity is a competitive advantage. Research summarized in Harvard Business Review shows that structured recovery periods improve focus, creative problem-solving, and judgment under pressure. Leaders who protect time for true breaks return to complex problems with better perspective and fewer errors, which compounds into

superior execution over quarters, not days.

Workforce expectations make credibility a strategic issue. Gallup’s global workplace data indicates that 44% of employees report daily stress. Cultures that visibly prioritize well-being tend to see stronger engagement and retention; cultures that signal support but model exhaustion at the top lose credibility and performance. For board-level oversight, the gap between message and practice has become a reputational risk as well as a productivity risk.

Investment cases now exist, not only narratives. Employer analyses increasingly quantify the returns from structured mental-health and wellbeing programs. Deloitte’s UK research, for example, finds an average £5 return for every £1 invested in workforce mental-health support, driven by lower absenteeism, reduced turnover, and higher productivity. While returns vary by context, the direction is consistent: deliberate investment in wellbeing pays back in financial and operational terms.

Managing Leadership Time

Time is the most limited resource a leader controls, and how it is structured determines the quality of decisions and the pace of execution. When it is left unmanaged, organizations experience slower cycles, unclear priorities, and diluted impact. When it is governed with intention, time becomes a lever for strategy and resilience.

Reclaiming executive time is essential McKinsey has found that fewer than half of leaders believe their schedules reflect their organization’s strategic priorities, and many acknowledge that administrative obligations consume disproportionate hours. This misalignment weakens leadership focus on growth and long-term planning. Addressing it begins with a disciplined review of calendars to identify which commitments genuinely advance enterprise goals and which can be restructured or delegated.

Meeting culture represents another significant drain. Executives now spend an average of nearly twenty-three hours each week in meetings, compared to less than ten hours in the 1960s. This growth reflects organizational complexity but also illustrates inefficiency. Leaders who enforce clearer standards around meeting purpose, attendance, and length regain time for strategic thought, talent development, and external engagement.

The rise of hybrid work has further blurred boundaries Microsoft’s Work Trend Index highlights that the average workday has lengthened in digital

environments, with collaboration often extending into evenings. This creates hidden risks of fatigue and burnout at the senior level. Leaders who define hard stops, preserve uninterrupted focus windows, and rely more on asynchronous updates create healthier conditions for sustained judgment.

Delegation remains one of the most powerful disciplines. Effective leaders resist the temptation to solve every problem themselves. Assigning ownership with clear expectations allows decisions to be taken at the right level while freeing executive attention for enterprise challenges. It also strengthens organizational capacity, ensuring that resilience is not concentrated in a single office.

Cognitive recovery is equally important. Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that decision quality declines steadily as fatigue accumulates and improves measurably after breaks. Leaders who deliberately schedule recovery protect judgment at critical moments.

Strategic time management is not about efficiency alone. It determines whether leadership energy is depleted by routine or invested in shaping the future of the business.

The Evolving Workplace Reality

Workplaces have changed in structure and expectation. Hybrid and flexible arrangements have shifted from contingency plans to core elements of operating models, and the way leaders manage time, attention, and communication in this environment now shapes judgment, energy, and organizational stability.

Evidence of the upside is clear. A large UK survey reported by The Guardian found hybrid workers were happier, healthier, and more productive, with strong gains tied to reduced commuting time and better recovery routines. These outcomes matter for leadership because healthier teams retain talent, lower operating friction, and deliver steadier execution.

The same tools that enable flexibility can also extend the workday and erode recovery. Microsoft’s Work Trend Index shows that the span of the workday has lengthened since the pandemic and that after-hours and weekend activity rose materially, a pattern that quietly drains attention and weakens decision quality at senior levels. Clear norms around response times and protected focus windows are therefore not niceties but controls that preserve judgment.

Policy design helps translate intent into practice. Eurofound’s analysis of the right to disconnect at company level documents how explicit rules reduce out-of-hours connection and support healthier work-life balance without sacrificing performance. For leadership

teams, formal guardrails are a way to align culture with stated values and to prevent digital presenteeism from becoming the default.

There is also a visible shift in how chief executives discuss endurance and recovery. Recent reporting highlights senior leaders who recalibrated routines after health wake-ups, treating sleep, fitness, and structured downtime as prerequisites for sustained performance rather than personal luxuries. The signal to investors and employees is that resilient leadership is an operating requirement, not an individual preference.

Sustainable Practices for Leaders

Balance becomes durable when it is treated as a management discipline. The aim is not to lighten the workload but to establish a repeatable cadence that preserves judgment and improves execution.

Start with how leadership time is spent. Audit recurring commitments against strategic priorities and remove activities that do not advance enterprise goals. Convert routine status updates into written briefs. Require pre-reads and set decision dates so meeting time is used to decide, not to inform. Protect uninterrupted focus blocks on executive calendars and treat them as immovable as investor meetings. These steps reduce the cost of coordination and return attention to the choices that matter.

Codify boundaries into daily practice. Agree response-time standards, define quiet hours, and set shared focus windows that apply to leadership as well as teams. Where appropriate, formalise right-to-disconnect rules at team or company level so expectations are clear across time zones. These guardrails prevent always-on behaviours from becoming the norm and make balance a visible standard rather than a personal preference.

Design delegation with structure. Assign ownership at the correct level, specify the next milestone, and schedule the check-in that will test progress. Keep escalation for exceptions, not for routine work. Use deputy coverage for critical remits so recovery does not create gaps, and rotate responsibility for high-intensity cycles to prevent the same leaders carrying repeated peaks. Structured delegation protects senior attention for enterprise decisions and builds decision capacity across the organisation.

Plan recovery the way you plan delivery. After transactions, launches, or regulatory deadlines, schedule deliberate cooldown periods. Short, planned intervals of lower intensity reduce rework and help leaders reset before the next cycle. Recovery is most effective when it is visible on the calendar and protected like any other critical activity.

Align incentives with outcomes rather than hours. Recognition and advancement should follow clarity of goals, quality of execution, and results. When outcomes drive rewards, teams naturally optimise for effectiveness rather than signalling busyness, which supports balance without lowering standards.

Measure what matters and review it at the top table. Track time on strategy versus operations, time-to-decision on priority items, rework rates on executive outputs, leadership availability for critical issues, and the regular use of annual leave in pivotal roles. Boards and executive committees should review these indicators as part of risk oversight. When metrics drift, the fixes are structural: meeting governance, reporting cadence, decision rights, staffing plans, or incentives.

Handled this way, balance stops being a wellness theme and becomes a leadership capability. The organisation benefits through steadier execution, fewer avoidable errors, and a culture that treats energy as a finite asset to be allocated with the same discipline as capital.

Challenges and Burnout

Burnout is an operational risk that weakens decision quality, raises rework, and increases churn. At senior levels the effects compound, because the pace and tone set at the top shape how the whole organization spends time and attention.

Early indicators appear before output collapses. Decision cycles lengthen without added complexity. Meetings multiply but do not resolve issues. Quality problems surface at the margin as avoidable errors and repeated edits. High performers begin to defer decisions or escalate routine matters. Engagement signals drift as leaders postpone leave, respond late at night, and rely on last-minute pushes to hit deadlines. Treated as data, these patterns are actionable. Ignored, they become culture.

The first control is capacity planning at leadership level. Calendar audits reveal where attention is consumed by updates rather than decisions. Converting status to written briefs, setting clear decision deadlines, and pruning standing meetings reduces noise. Guarding uninterrupted focus windows allows complex choices to be made with the depth they require.

Workload smoothing matters. Intensive sprints are sometimes unavoidable, but stacking them back-to-back guarantees fatigue. After major launches, transactions, or regulatory milestones, schedule deliberate cooldown periods. Rotating ownership for high-stakes items prevents the same individuals from absorbing the heaviest cycles repeatedly. A visible deputy program ensures coverage so recovery does not create a vacuum.

Delegation must be enforced, not only encouraged. Upward delegation signals that roles and decision rights are unclear. Restating ownership, agreeing the next milestone, and setting explicit checkpoints keeps escalation for exceptions rather than routine. This preserves senior attention for enterprise priorities and builds decision capacity across teams.

Communication norms are a control, not a courtesy. If messages arrive at all hours, teams will match that behavior. If leaders protect evenings and weekends and use delayed send for non-urgent notes, the signal is that performance is measured by outcomes, not presence. That clarity lowers anxiety, reduces performative busyness, and improves the quality of the work returned.

When strain is already visible, treat recovery like any other remediation plan. In the near term, reduce optional commitments, rebalance work across the senior team, and add temporary specialist support where bottlenecks are most acute. In the medium term, correct the structures that allowed overload to persist: meeting governance, reporting cadence, decision rights, and hiring plans. In the long term, build balance into incentives so recognition follows results and clarity rather than hours.

Governance completes the system. Boards and executive committees should review leadership sustainability as part of risk oversight. Simple indicators such as time spent on strategy, time-to-decision on priority items, rework rates, and leadership availability for critical issues reveal whether the operating cadence supports sound judgment. When metrics drift, the remedy is structural, not personal.

Handled this way, burnout moves from a private struggle to a managed risk. The result is steadier execution, fewer avoidable errors, and a culture that treats energy as a finite asset to be allocated with the same discipline as capital.

Balance as Strategic Investment

Work-life balance belongs in the portfolio of strategic assets. It protects decision quality, reduces execution risk, and strengthens credibility with employees, investors, and regulators. Leaders who design balance into operating rhythms preserve the attention required for complex choices and maintain steady performance through volatility.

Treating balance as investment means allocating time and governance to it. Audit where leadership hours create value, codify boundaries that protect focus, and align incentives to outcomes rather than hours. Build recovery into delivery plans so intense periods are followed by deliberate cooldowns. Measure the results with simple indicators such as time on strategy, timeto-decision, rework rates, and leadership availability for critical issues.

Boards should view leadership sustainability as part of risk oversight. When the signals deteriorate, the remedy is structural: meeting governance, decision rights, reporting cadence, staffing, and incentives. Done well, these adjustments compound like any prudent capital allocation.

The return on this investment is resilience. Leaders retain clarity for the choices that matter, teams deliver with consistency, and the organisation treats energy as a finite resource to be managed with the same discipline as capital.

The Authenticity Imperative in an AI-Saturated Marketing Landscape

Generative AI has quickly become a fixture of modern marketing. Tools that can create text, images, and video in seconds have lowered production costs and accelerated output across digital channels. The result has been an abundance of content that delivers efficiency but often lacks distinction. Customers, faced with material that looks and sounds alike, are growing more selective and less responsive to messages that feel manufactured.

Research by McKinsey estimates that AI could add as much as 4.4 trillion dollars annually to the global economy by 2030, with marketing and sales among the areas most affected. The forecast explains why companies are embracing these tools quickly. For marketing teams, however, the benefit of producing more material at lower cost comes with a drawback. As volume rises, it becomes harder to stand out, and customers are more likely to ignore content that does not feel credible or distinctive.

AI in Marketing Today

Generative AI has moved from pilot projects into daily practice for marketing teams. Tools that generate text, images, audio, and video are now embedded in workflows from campaign planning to execution. They are used to draft email campaigns, create graphics for social media, optimize ad copy, and even design personalized product recommendations in real time.

Salesforce’s State of Marketing report found that 71% of marketers use AI mainly to create content and personalize campaigns. The figure shows how firmly AI has embedded itself in day-to-day marketing work. Teams use it to draft emails, design visuals, and test variations of advertising copy.

The challenge is that when almost everyone has access to the same tools, the output begins to converge. Content becomes easier to make, but harder to distinguish. That shift is redefining what gives brands a competitive edge. It is no longer enough to say a company uses AI; advantage now depends on whether the material produced feels original, credible, and true to the brand’s voice.

The Saturation Effect

AI tools now enable marketers to produce vast amounts of content quickly and cheaply — from blog posts to social-media visuals. But

that abundance has created a different problem: oversaturated channels and dwindling engagement.

According to Hookline’s 2025 AI in Content Marketing Report, 82.1 percent of Americans can recognize AI-generated content, and nearly half say discovering content was AI-generated lowers their opinion of the brand. (Hookline & 2025 report via Column Five Media summary) The finding suggests that widespread familiarity with AI output is fueling skepticism— not engagement.

For marketers, producing more is no longer the issue. The challenge is whether people pay attention. Content that looks automated is often ignored, while work that carries a clear and credible voice is more likely to be noticed.

Why Authenticity Matters More Than Ever

Authenticity has become one of the most valuable currencies in marketing. In a digital environment where audiences can detect patterns that feel automated, the risk is that a message comes across as artificial or manufactured. When this happens, the relationship between brand and customer weakens quickly.

A study from Edelman found that 81 percent of consumers say they must be able to trust a brand to “do what is right” before making a purchase decision. The figure underscores a simple truth: visibility alone is not enough. For companies in finance, technology, or consumer goods, credibility is often the deciding factor. Without it, even the most sophisticated campaign risks being ignored.

Authenticity does not mean avoiding technology. It means anchoring communication in voices and perspectives that feel genuine. This can be seen in expert commentary from employees, in the experiences of customers, or in the consistent values a company demonstrates over time. Messages that reflect lived reality resonate more strongly because they signal that there are people, not just algorithms, behind the brand.

Human-Led Storytelling

One of the clearest ways companies are countering the flood of automated content is by turning back to human voices. Storytelling that highlights the perspectives of employees, customers, or communities carries a weight that machine-generated text cannot replicate. It offers nuance, personality, and credibility that audiences recognise as genuine.

Formats that showcase real people have become increasingly valuable. Long-form interviews, podcasts, and behind-the-scenes videos are gaining traction because they create space for unscripted insight. Nielsen data shows that 92 percent of consumers trust recommendations from people they know above all other forms of advertising, and content that reflects authentic experiences often taps into that same trust dynamic. Storytelling rooted in actual voices builds a connection that polished automation struggles to achieve.

The lesson for marketing teams is that human perspective is not a supplement but a differentiator. By making space for voices inside and outside the company, campaigns can move beyond volume to create meaning. Storytelling provides the texture and credibility that help a brand stand apart in a crowded digital environment.

Transparency as a Differentiator

As AI becomes part of routine marketing work, audiences want to know how content is made. Pew Research Center found that most Americans believe AI systems should credit the material they rely on. That expectation carries over to marketing. If customers suspect that content has been generated automatically without acknowledgement, it can weaken confidence in the brand.

Labelling alone is not enough. Research from the Reuters Institute shows that audiences tend to view items marked as AI-generated as less trustworthy than those produced by humans. The lesson is that disclosure is necessary, but it must be paired with visible human ownership. Brands that label a campaign “AI-assisted” without showing where judgment and expertise shaped the message risk doing more harm than good.

For marketing leaders, the practical approach is to frame disclosure as part of the brand’s commitment to honesty. Explain where AI plays a supporting role, make human oversight clear, and show who is accountable for the final message. In this way, transparency becomes a differentiator. It positions the company not as a passive user of tools but as an active, responsible communicator that puts human credibility at the center of its marketing.

Reframing Creativity

As AI becomes the default marketing tool, differentiation no longer comes from access to technology—it comes from creativity. When every brand posts endless, machine-generated content, being memorable depends on clarity of voice and intention.

At Cannes Lions, BCG’s CMO Jessica Apotheker revealed that 71 percent of CMOs now plan to invest over $10 million a year in AI, up from 57 percent just last year. Yet many admit they still haven't seen a scalable ROI from it. That dual insight—enthusiasm tempered by realism—signals a shift: marketing leaders are acknowledging that investment alone is not enough; creativity, judgment, and trust matter more than ever.

For marketing leaders, that means letting AI lighten the load—but anchoring each campaign in your brand’s humanity. Use AI to generate ideas and experiment, but let your voice, your values, and your stories write the final chapter.

Risks of Overreliance

AI brings speed and scale, but leaning on it too heavily creates sameness. When many brands use the same systems to generate copy and visuals, the work often converges on similar patterns. Instead of building distinction, campaigns start to blend together. What begins as a tool for efficiency can reduce brand equity if the audience cannot tell one message from another.

There is also a trust risk. CivicScience reports that 45 percent of U.S. adults view customer service chatbots unfavorably, while only 19 percent view them favorably. The negative perception has grown since 2022, which shows how quickly consumer sentiment can shift against automation when it feels impersonal. For marketing teams, that is a warning sign. Long-term reputational costs may outweigh the immediate benefit of efficiency if audiences come to associate the brand with automation rather than expertise and care.

Compliance adds another layer of complexity. In industries such as finance or healthcare, AI-generated content must be checked carefully for accuracy and suitability. A misplaced claim in a financial promotion or an error in regulated product advertising is more than a creative misstep — it can trigger legal exposure. Without human oversight and clear accountability, brands risk both reputational and regulatory consequences.

Lessons for Marketers

Many marketing teams already use AI as part of their daily work. The challenge now is not whether to adopt the technology but how to apply it without losing credibility or distinctiveness. Companies that manage this balance treat AI as a support tool. They use it to increase efficiency while making sure that creativity, trust, and human perspective remain at the center of their communication.

The first lesson is that efficiency on its own does not deliver results. Publishing more material only helps if the content reflects a brand’s purpose and voice. Teams that focus on clarity and consistency are more likely to be remembered than those that flood channels with output that looks the same as everyone else’s.

The second lesson is that trust must be preserved. Research already shows that audiences are quick to question messages that appear to be machinemade. Being transparent about where AI is used, and making human oversight visible, helps to maintain confidence in the brand.

The third lesson is that creativity remains the deciding factor. AI can draft copy or suggest variations, but it cannot replace human judgment. Campaigns that stand out are usually those that reflect real customer experience and the values of the business.

From Compliance to Core Strategy: The Rise of ESG Integration

Twenty years ago, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) was treated mainly as a reporting task. Companies produced sustainability reports to satisfy regulators or to reassure investors, but the exercise rarely went further. The focus was on publishing information, not on changing business practice.

That approach is no longer enough. ESG now influences how companies plan, operate, and compete. It is part of business strategy, tied directly to performance and long-term value.

Why Disclosure Alone Falls Short

Sustainability reporting has created more transparency, but it has also exposed the limits of disclosure. Frameworks such as GRI, SASB, CSRD, and TCFD have given companies a way to present ESG data in a consistent format. That consistency helps investors compare performance, but reporting itself does not guarantee progress.

Baringa notes that when ESG reporting becomes a box-ticking exercise, it often results in superficial disclosure and increases the risk of greenwashing.

Many reports highlight successes but leave out setbacks or unresolved risks. The result is a selective picture that makes it difficult for investors to judge resilience over the long term.

Expectations are also higher than they once were. Stakeholders now look for proof that measurable action rather than polished reports back ESG commitments.

Operational Integration Defined

Operational integration means embedding ESG into the way a company functions rather than treating it as a reporting exercise. It shapes business processes, culture, and decision-making daily.

Sphera describes operational ESG as moving beyond disclosure to the systems and practices that determine how work is carried out across an organization. The point is not just to report outcomes but to design operations so that environmental and social considerations influence decisions at every level. In practice, this extends from supply chain standards to workforce management and product development.

Integration also requires cultural change. It depends on building awareness, aligning incentives, and making accountability part of the company’s identity rather than treating ESG as a compliance burden.

Consultdss notes that companies that embed ESG into operations are better prepared for disruptions and more capable of developing products and services that reflect changing customer expectations. This resilience matters because it allows companies to anticipate shifts in regulation and consumer demand, reducing risk while opening new opportunities for growth.

Governance

Effective governance is the foundation of ESG integration. Boards and executives set the tone by embedding sustainability into oversight structures, defining accountability, and linking leadership incentives to longterm goals.

PwC emphasizes that ESG should be treated with the same rigor as financial reporting, with clear processes for oversight and transparent disclosure. This perspective underscores a growing expectation that directors are not only responsible for financial results but also for the environmental and social impacts tied to those results.

Ecoactivetech notes that board-level engagement strengthens credibility by ensuring that ESG performance is not left to isolated teams but is addressed at the highest level of decision-making. That alignment matters because when executives are held accountable for sustainability alongside profitability, ESG becomes a driver of strategy rather than a compliance afterthought.

Risk Management

Environmental, social, and governance risks are now understood as business risks. Climate change, social inequality, and governance failures can disrupt operations and erode value, making them inseparable from enterprise risk management.

KPMG highlights that companies are beginning to build ESG directly into enterprise risk frameworks, enabling leadership to identify and address these issues before they escalate. Treating ESG in this way changes its role from an external reporting exercise into an internal decision-making tool that informs capital planning, supply chain oversight, and strategic growth.

Thomson Reuters adds that scenario planning and stress testing increasingly include ESG variables, allowing companies to prepare for a wider range of uncertainties. This practice matters because it equips management with a clearer view of how environmental and social pressures may affect future demand, regulatory requirements, or operational continuity.

By embedding ESG in the same systems that already govern financial and operational risks, companies move closer to proper integration—where sustainability considerations shape decisions at the core of the business.

Finance and Investment

ESG considerations are increasingly influencing how capital is allocated and how investment decisions are made. Strong performance in this area signals not just responsible practice but long-term resilience, and investors are responding accordingly.

EY reports that institutional investors now view ESG strength as an indicator of lower risk and better positioning for the future. This change reflects a broader shift in capital markets: sustainability metrics are no longer treated as optional extras but as part of the information investors use to evaluate the quality of a business.

MSCI research supports this connection, finding that companies with higher ESG ratings tend to enjoy lower costs of capital

across both equity and debt markets. Lower financing costs give these firms a competitive advantage, enabling them to pursue investments and innovations that might be out of reach for peers with weaker ESG performance.

A separate study shows that strong ESG credentials can reduce borrowing costs in bond markets, reinforcing the financial link between sustainability and access to capital. Taken together, these findings highlight that ESG integration does more than satisfy regulators or stakeholders—it directly influences the cost of doing business and the ability to attract investment.

Operations and Supply Chains

Supply chains are a major focus of ESG integration because they account for much of a company’s environmental and social impact. Expectations

around transparency and sustainable sourcing have grown, and many businesses are now building ESG criteria directly into supplier requirements.

This shift reflects the recognition that risks such as carbon emissions, labor practices, and resource use often occur outside the company’s direct operations. By extending ESG oversight across suppliers, firms reduce exposure to regulatory and reputational risks while strengthening resilience in their networks.

The goal is no longer to report supply chain data after the fact, but to design procurement and logistics processes that minimize risk and create long-term efficiency. When ESG standards are embedded in supplier contracts and performance reviews, sustainability becomes part of how supply chains function rather than a compliance add-on.

Technology and Data

Technology plays a central role in how ESG integration moves from reporting into daily operations. Digital platforms, sensors, and advanced analytics now allow companies to track performance with far greater speed and accuracy than was possible with manual reporting.

CSE-Net notes that tools such as AI and IoT can deliver real-time monitoring of emissions, resource usage, and other sustainability metrics, giving management dynamic insights rather than static snapshots. This capability matters because it changes ESG from a backward-looking disclosure exercise into a live management tool. When performance data is available in real time, decisions about production, procurement, and investment can be guided by sustainability as well as financial criteria.

When these systems are built into everyday operations, reporting becomes more reliable and management gains the ability to respond quickly to changes. Real-time data turns ESG into a practical management tool rather than a retrospective exercise.

Human Capital

People sit at the center of ESG. Diversity, equity, inclusion, and employee well-being are no longer side projects but part of how companies compete. Firms that make these issues a priority tend to keep talent longer, face fewer recruitment costs, and build reputations that strengthen their position in the labor market.

When people see support for their well-being and growth, they tend to work with more focus and stay longer. ESG becomes real in the workplace when it is built into hiring decisions, training programs, and the way managers lead teams day to day, instead of being left in a handbook.

Product and Service Innovation

ESG integration also reaches into how companies design and deliver what they sell. Products and services are increasingly expected to reflect sustainability goals, whether through lower environmental impact, fair labor practices, or contributions to social well-being.

Building ESG into innovation helps companies stay ahead of regulation and customer demand. It opens new markets, strengthens brand loyalty, and reduces the risk of products being rejected for failing to meet rising expectations. In this way, ESG is not only about compliance or risk reduction but also about shaping growth opportunities.

Measuring Impact Beyond Compliance

For ESG to move beyond disclosure, progress must be judged by outcomes rather than outputs. Publishing reports or tracking the number of initiatives launched may show activity, but it does not prove impact.

GRESB, the global benchmark that assesses ESG performance of tangible assets, has highlighted a shift toward outcome-based reporting. Investors now look for concrete reductions in energy use, water consumption, and waste rather than broad descriptions of ambition. This change matters because it raises the standard: companies are expected to show measurable results, not simply effort.

Reliable data and independent verification are central to this shift. When outcomes are backed by credible evidence, companies strengthen trust with investors and close the gap between stated commitments and actual performance.

Challenges and Barriers

Embedding ESG across an organization is not without difficulty. One of the biggest obstacles is data. Information is often fragmented across departments and geographies, which makes it costly and complex to build a single system that gives management a clear view of performance. Ecoactivetech notes that this fragmentation is one of the main challenges facing companies as they try to turn ESG into a consistent, verifiable practice.

Organizational culture presents another barrier. ESG requires collaboration between functions that have traditionally operated

in silos, such as finance, compliance, operations, and human resources. Resistance to change can slow progress, especially when there is limited expertise inside the company.

Short-term financial pressures also weigh heavily. Publicly traded firms, in particular, are under constant scrutiny to deliver quarterly results. That pressure often makes it harder to prioritize long-term investments in sustainability, even when those investments reduce risk and create value over time.

The Future of ESG Integration

The regulatory environment is moving beyond simple disclosure. New rules are emerging that expect companies not only to report their ESG performance but to verify results and demonstrate impact. Harvard Law has noted that recent policy changes point toward stricter standards, requiring companies to show evidence of how sustainability commitments translate into measurable outcomes.

At the same time, investors and customers are demanding proof of credibility. Companies that can show verified results will stand out from those that rely on statements of intent. As ESG becomes integrated into governance, risk, and finance, the firms that treat it as a strategy rather than compliance will have the advantage in attracting capital, managing risk, and building long-term trust.

The expectation is no longer limited to publishing reports. To stay competitive, companies must demonstrate impact in the way they operate, not just in the way they disclose. ESG has become part of how businesses grow, adapt, and endure, and those that embed it into their daily decisions will be the ones that define sustainable success.

Africa’s Next Growth Hubs

Africa’s economic story is shifting. Growth is moving into cities that until recently were considered secondary. Banks and fintechs are following the trend, looking to serve populations that are younger, more connected, and moving into the middle class. These new hubs are starting to set the pace for how people save, borrow, and use digital services.

Urbanization and Economic Momentum

Many of Africa’s biggest changes are playing out in its cities. People are leaving rural areas in large numbers, and the pull of jobs and better infrastructure is swelling urban populations. Brookings points out that some of the fastest-growing cities in the world are in Africa, and that trend is set to push the continent past the halfway point for urbanization by 2030.

What matters for banks and fintechs is how city life changes financial habits. Urban households are more likely to use mobile money, open savings accounts, or apply for loans and insurance. Rural communities remain harder to reach, with lower incomes and limited connectivity, but in cities, the appetite for digital services is much stronger.

This growth goes well beyond banking. Rising incomes feed into demand for retail, housing, transport, and consumer goods — and finance is at the center of all of it. That is why major institutions are setting up in cities like Lagos, Nairobi, Cairo, Abidjan, Dakar, and Cape Town. These hubs are becoming the proving grounds where new products and digital platforms can scale quickly.

Lagos, Nigeria

Lagos is Africa’s most populous city and the beating heart of Nigeria’s financial system. It has also become the continent’s fintech capital, home to firms such as Flutterwave and Paystack that are redefining digital payments. McKinsey notes that mobile-first banking models are bringing millions of previously unbanked Nigerians into the financial system, accelerating growth across the sector.

Banks in Lagos are shifting more activity onto digital platforms as they chase the city’s mass market. At the same time, people are using their phones for everyday financial tasks such as paying bills, transferring money, and even opening their first accounts. For many, the branch is no longer the starting point.

Nairobi, Kenya

Nairobi is known around the world as the birthplace of mobile money. M-Pesa changed how people send and receive funds, and that legacy continues to shape the city’s financial system. A young, tech-savvy population is quick to adopt new tools, from app-based payments to digital lending.

Tech in Africa notes that the city is also home to a growing pipeline of fintech startups, supported by policies that encourage innovation. For banks, this environment means pressure to keep up with consumer expectations for speed and convenience. The competition between traditional institutions and digital newcomers has made Nairobi one of the most dynamic financial hubs on the continent.

Cairo is one of North Africa’s largest population centers and an increasingly important financial hub. Egypt’s financial inclusion rate has climbed from about 27 percent in 2016 to 71.5 percent by mid2024, according to data released by the Central Bank and reported by Arab News. The rise reflects new digital services such as mobile wallets and prepaid accounts that have made formal banking more accessible.

At the same time, policymakers have backed efforts to expand digital banking. The rollout of streamlined account access, broader agent networks, and nationwide inclusion campaigns are changing how people interact with money. Banks and fintechs are taking note—and responding.

West Africa’s Francophone capitals are quickly rising as financial centers. Both Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire and Dakar in Senegal are benefiting from rapid population growth, rising urban incomes, and a push toward regional integration. Brookings highlights that West Africa is home to some of the fastest-growing cities in the world, underscoring the scale of opportunity for consumer and financial services.

Banks are moving into these markets as demand grows. Mobile services are picking up quickly, with more people using phones for payments and everyday banking as incomes rise. Governments in both Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal have also backed digital adoption, which has given startups and regional lenders room to expand. Abidjan and Dakar are now seen as launchpads for Francophone West Africa, connecting local markets with the wider region.

Cairo, Egypt

Abidjan and Dakar

Cape Town, South Africa

Cape Town is home to one of Africa’s most competitive banking markets. South Africa’s big institutions already have a strong presence, but the city is also attracting a wave of fintech activity. EY notes that digital platforms and new entrants are challenging incumbents and broadening consumer choice.

For customers, this means faster digital onboarding, more mobile options, and greater transparency on fees and services. For banks, it raises the stakes in a market that is already crowded. Cape Town has become a place where incumbents and startups compete side by side, pushing innovation at a pace that sets the tone for much of the country.

Growth Drivers and Opportunities

Digital and Mobile Banking

Digital channels are becoming the main way people in Africa open and manage accounts. McKinsey reports that the majority of new accounts are now created through mobile platforms, a sign that branch-based banking is no longer the dominant model. For banks, this shift reduces costs while widening reach into new customer segments. It also sets the stage for new business models built around apps rather than physical branches.

Financial Inclusion

The World Economic Forum points out that simple and affordable products, especially when delivered through mobile, are critical to

extending financial services to unbanked and underbanked populations. Institutions that focus on these groups are finding both social impact and strong commercial opportunities. In practice, this means first-time savings accounts, access to microloans, and easier bill payments — small steps that quickly change household participation in the financial system.

Demographics

Africa’s population is the fastest growing in the world and is also the youngest. Statista shows that this demographic profile is fueling demand for everything from payments to credit to insurance. A young, urban population also means higher adoption of digital tools, since mobile phones are often the first point of contact with financial services. This dynamic makes demographics not only a volume driver but also a catalyst for the digital-first models that are spreading across the continent.

Cross-Border Expansion

AFIS notes that many of Africa’s leading banks are now looking beyond their home markets, using digital platforms to scale operations and enter new regions. Regional integration and cross-border trade are creating opportunities for financial institutions that can operate seamlessly across markets. Unlike in the past, growth no longer depends solely on building branch networks; digital infrastructure allows banks to expand reach quickly and at lower cost, making regional strategies more viable than ever.

Market Outlook

Africa’s retail banking market is on track for strong growth. Mobility

Foresights projects that total market size will rise from about $1.32 trillion in 2025 to $1.95 trillion by 2031, reflecting a compound annual growth rate close to 7 percent.

The expansion is visible in three areas. First, account openings are rising sharply, driven by digital channels and mobile onboarding. Second, lending is expanding as households and small businesses gain better access to credit. Third, digital transactions are becoming the norm, with cash use declining in markets where mobile payments and digital wallets are scaling quickly.

For banks and fintechs, the forecast means opportunity and competition in equal measure. Growth is attracting new entrants while pushing incumbents to invest in digital platforms and partnerships that can handle scale. Markets that were once considered secondary are now central to long-term strategies, making Africa one of the most contested frontiers in global retail banking.

Success Factors

The institutions best placed to succeed in Africa’s new growth hubs will be those that adapt quickly to the way consumers live and work. Banking is increasingly woven into daily life through mobile channels, where people top up phones, pay bills, and transfer money. Providers that design services around these habits are building the strongest connections with customers.

Success also depends on trust. That means investing in customer experience, improving digital security, and supporting financial literacy so clients feel confident using new tools. Where people understand and trust the platforms, adoption rates are much higher.

Partnerships are another key advantage. Banks and fintechs that work with mobile operators, retailers, and local businesses can broaden their reach and distribute services more effectively. These alliances allow financial institutions to scale faster than they could through branches alone.

Finally, agility remains essential. Regulations differ widely from one market to the next, and consumer expectations are shifting quickly. Institutions that can adjust to local rules while still innovating for customers will have the best chance of sustaining growth across Africa’s most dynamic cities.

Looking Ahead

Africa’s next growth hubs are being shaped by the twin forces of urbanization and digital adoption, supported by a young and increasingly connected population. Cities like Lagos, Nairobi, Cairo, Abidjan, Dakar, and Cape Town show how new markets are rising alongside established ones, creating space for banks, fintechs, and consumer businesses to compete. The winners will be those that blend technology with local understanding, building trust while staying agile in the face of change. These hubs are not just local markets to watch; they are becoming models for the future of finance and commerce across the continent.

The End of Voice Trust: How AI Deepfakes Are Forcing Banks to Rethink Authentication

The banking industry faces an authentication crisis. AI-powered voice cloning technology has evolved from a theoretical threat to an active weapon in fraudsters' arsenals, fundamentally undermining the voice biometric systems that financial institutions have deployed at scale. While recent warnings from technology leaders like OpenAI's Sam Altman have brought mainstream attention to this vulnerability, forward-thinking banks have already begun adapting their security frameworks to address this challenge.

The stakes are significant. Deloitte's Center for Financial Services projects that AI-enabled fraud could cost the U.S. banking industry $40 billion by 2027. This threat requires a shift in the balance between customer experience and customer friction.

Why Voice Authentication Gained Popularity

Banks embraced voice biometrics for compelling reasons. The technology offered a rare combination of security and convenience: voices are unique, always available, and it eliminated the need for customers to remember passwords or carry tokens. For call center operations and high-value customer segments, voice authentication promised to streamline identity verification while maintaining robust security.

The adoption was substantial. HSBC reported over two million Voice ID users by 2020, with the system helping prevent nearly £400 million in fraud attempts. Industry estimates suggest voice biometric systems serve a market valued at approximately $1.9 billion globally as of 2023. These systems successfully blocked traditional impersonation attempts for years—until AI changed the game.

The Evolution of Voice-Based Fraud

AI voice cloning has progressed from laboratory curiosity to operational threat with alarming speed. Some of the high-profile

cases illustrate the sophisticated nature of these attacks. In 2019, what is perhaps the first known use of AI-enabled fraud, fraudsters used an AIgenerated voice to impersonate a CEO, convincing a subordinate to transfer €220,000 to a fraudulent account.

The following year, a UAE incident demonstrated the technology's potential for large-scale banking fraud when AI voice cloning helped facilitate a $35 million fraud against a bank branch manager. Deepfake attacks are not limited only to business, as evidenced by cases where deepfake voices impersonate family members in distress scenarios to extract emergency payments. These incidents show the increasing sophistication of AIgenerated deepfakes and their psychological effectiveness in exploiting trust relationships.

Industry Response: Beyond Single-Factor Solutions

Leading banks recognized these vulnerabilities before they became headline news. Rather than abandoning voice biometrics entirely, the industry is evolving toward layered authentication architectures that reduce singlepoint-of-failure risks.

The most promising approaches center on cryptographic authentication, where banks are implementing passkeys based on FIDO2 standards that provide cryptographic proof of identity impossible to replicate through voice synthesis or traditional attack vectors. Simultaneously, devicebased verification creates secure push notifications to verified customer devices, establishing an out-of-band authentication channel that operates independently of potentially compromised voice channels.

European institutions have advanced remarkably quickly in transactionspecific cryptographic signing, driven by PSD2 requirements that now cryptographically link payment authorizations to specific amounts and recipients, making unauthorized transfers significantly more difficult.

Perhaps most intriguingly, AI-powered detection systems are being integrated into call center operations to identify potentially fraudulent voice interactions in real-time, creating a technological arms race between synthetic voice generation and detection capabilities.

Strategic Friction: A New Security Paradigm

The traditional banking approach prioritized frictionless experiences above nearly all other considerations. However, the current threat landscape requires a more nuanced strategy: strategic friction applied intelligently based on risk indicators. This approach isn't theoretical. A carefully balanced approach to introducing friction can lower fraud risk while keeping the experience smooth for genuine customers. For example, a single verification question recently helped Ferrari's finance team stop a CEO voice scam, showing how targeted checks can make a real difference.

For banks, strategic use of friction may take several practical forms. The use of risk-based callback verification implements automated callbacks for high-risk transactions, thereby creating a verification loop that's difficult for fraudsters to intercept. Step-up authentication requires additional verification factors when unusual patterns are detected, so one must scale security measures proportionally to detect risk.

Most effectively, contextual security questions leverage customer-specific information that would be difficult for fraudsters to obtain, creating personalized verification barriers that deepfakes cannot easily overcome.

Regulatory bodies are supporting this evolution. In 2024, the New York Department of Financial Services asked banks to improve their authentication methods. Instead of relying only on voice or SMS verification, it was suggested that they combine cryptographic and biometric approaches. Adding smart friction where needed can help keep accounts secure without frustrating customers.

The Path Forward

The era of single-factor voice authentication is coming to an end, but this transition represents an opportunity rather than just a challenge. Banks which successfully implement layered authentication strategies will not only improve security but will also potentially enhance customer trust through demonstrated commitment to protection.

What does success require? It means embracing strategic friction and applying additional security measures

Anurag Mohapatra, Director of Fraud Strategy and Product Marketing, NICE Actimize

strategically. When combined with AI-powered fraud detection and proactive customer education this multi-faceted approach provides a robust defense against increasingly sophisticated attack methods.

The banks that master the critical balance between security and user experience will emerge stronger in an environment where trust is both valuable and difficult to secure. The question is not whether to evolve authentication strategies, but how quickly and effectively institutions can implement these necessary changes.

The deepfake threat is growing more rapidly than we would care to believe. The response to beating it must be equally sophisticated, clearly targeted and quite swiftly executed.

Banking with Purpose: How Creand is Advancing Digitalisation, Specialisation and ESG Excellence

With a legacy spanning more than 75 years, Creand is Andorra’s leading financial group, offering expertise in commercial banking, private banking, asset management and insurance. Headquartered in Andorra la Vella, the group also operates in key international financial centres including Spain, Luxembourg and the United States, where it provides tailored private banking and wealth management services through a boutique model. Creand currently manages a business volume exceeding EUR 30 billion.

In Andorra, the bank leads the market in both client assets under management, totalling EUR 10.33 billion as of the end of 2024, and in credit investment, with EUR 2.47 billion. These figures underscore its longstanding contribution to the country’s economy, business sector and broader social development.

Creand’s role in Andorra extends far beyond finance. As a bank with a strong commitment to the country’s long-term development, it actively supports Andorra’s national sport, skiing, at every level from grassroots to elite competition. The group is also a shareholder in the companies that operate the country’s major ski resorts. The bank sponsors the Trobada Empresarial al Pirineu, an annual gathering of business leaders from Andorra and the Pyrenees that focuses on economic dialogue, regional cooperation and sharing practical insights.

The bank also plays an active role in fostering entrepreneurship and the development of the start-up ecosystem, recognising that Andorra’s economic foundation is built on small and medium-sized enterprises. These community-facing efforts are supported by the Creand Foundation, the only bank-run foundation in the country, which delivers programmes in education, health, social welfare and culture.

Xavier Cornella, who has served as CEO for several years, has overseen Creand’s transformation into a more digitally advanced, sustainability-focused and internationally connected financial group. “We are a relationship-driven bank with a strong human dimension,” Xavier explained. “Our goal is to create long-term value not just for our clients and shareholders, but also for society at large.”

That sense of responsibility is central to Creand’s model of committed banking, a model built on service, innovation and purpose. “Our long-term vision is guided by three core principles,” Xavier said. “Specialisation, digital transformation and a commitment to sustainability.”

Xavier’s leadership philosophy is rooted in trust, clarity and longterm vision. He believes effective leadership must be grounded

in approachability, empathy and a deep commitment to people across the organisation. “It’s essential to have confidence in our teams’ capabilities,” he said. “Transparent communication that inspires trust is what allows us to build a culture where motivation and collective effort translate into results.”

Reflecting on the current environment, Xavier noted that uncertainty has become a constant in business and finance, making clear decision-making more difficult. “That’s why leadership today has to be flexible, inclusive and focused,” he said. “It’s essential to foster cohesion while keeping everyone aligned around a well-defined strategy.” “At Creand, we stay true to our values by empowering our teams and maintaining a collective focus on delivering value at every level.”

The 2024–2026 strategic plan is designed to consolidate Creand’s position as a benchmark in specialised, personalised and digital banking, both in Andorra and across the international markets where it operates. “Undoubtedly, one of the main drivers of this growth has been our focus on digital transformation,” Xavier said. “But we’ve always understood that technology must be centred on enhancing the client experience and improving operational efficiency.”

He outlined three strategic priorities: growing the business through client service and continued investment in innovation, maintaining a strong capital position, and delivering long-term value to shareholders. “We follow a balanced policy that supports sustainable growth and financial strength,” Xavier said.

Within the framework of this plan, Xavier described the new mobile-first digital banking app as a standout example of the bank’s digital strategy. It offers a high degree of personalisation and includes features such as an integrated investment portal, Broker, which simplifies financial management and enhances the overall user experience. The platform was developed with strong security measures to ensure client safety and system reliability.

“We are also developing a pioneering service in Andorra for the purchase, sale and custody of cryptoassets, through a strategic partnership with a leading player in the digital space,” Xavier said. “This allows us to broaden our client offering with solutions that meet the highest standards of security.” He also noted Creand’s commitment to open banking through the strengthening of its API architecture, which allows corporate clients to integrate financial data directly into their management systems.

These innovations reflect a deliberate response to changing client expectations. “We recognised some years ago the need to make a firm commitment to digitalisation,” Xavier said, “in response to a new generation of clients who expect immediacy, autonomy and a personalised service.”

Creand’s ongoing transformation into a data-driven organisation has

Xavier Cornella, CEO, Creand

INTERVIEW

played a crucial role in meeting those needs. By embedding data governance, advanced analytics, AI and machine learning into its architecture, the bank has significantly improved its ability to personalise services, make faster decisions and operate at greater scale. “This data architecture gives us a real competitive edge,” Xavier noted. “It allows us to anticipate client behaviours and respond quickly in a dynamic environment.”

At the same time, Xavier emphasised that technology is not a substitute for the close client relationships that define Creand’s identity. “Our approach is based on a clear premise,” he said. “Technology does not replace the relationship model that defines our bank; it enhances it.”

Rather than treating ESG as a secondary initiative, the bank has integrated environmental, social and governance principles directly into its executive structure and decision-making processes. Xavier said, "This strengthens our tangible and responsible impact, and supports our mission of contributing to the economic and social development of our clients, shareholders and the wider territory in which we operate."

The bank’s sustainability agenda is broad and ambitious. In the investment space, Creand develops sustainable products aligned with Article 8 of the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), which promote environmental or social characteristics. It was also the first financial institution in Andorra to issue a sustainable bond aimed at financing projects with clear positive impact, such as renewable energy and affordable housing.

The bank has joined Andorra’s national carbon credit market and invested in renewable energy, including the installation of four photovoltaic plants. These efforts support its wider commitment to reducing emissions and improving environmental performance. Creand also continues to expand its social impact work, with programmes that support education, health, culture and community development. The bank promotes financial education among clients and the broader public, with a particular emphasis on preparing younger generations for long-term financial wellbeing. Additionally, it continues to promote the integration of technological and digital tools to improve access, inclusion and impact.

Xavier described these actions as part of Creand’s model of committed banking, which seeks to advance sustainable transition, inclusive growth and good governance. “We are committed to building a model of banking that generates shared value,” he said. “That means advancing people, communities and institutions, not just profits.” The bank’s participation in the United Nations Global Compact and the UNEP FI Principles for Responsible Banking reinforces this alignment with international standards and accountability frameworks.

Looking ahead, Xavier sees both major challenges and opportunities as Creand navigates an increasingly complex and dynamic financial environment. The pace of regulatory change, evolving client behaviour and rapid advances in technology all demand that banks become more agile. “One of the most significant challenges is the need for constant adaptation,” Xavier said, “to respond to a market defined by uncertainty and a client base that is increasingly informed and looking for tailored, specific solutions.”

In this context, one of Creand’s strategic pillars remains specialisation, both in the development of services and in the capabilities of its people. The bank places strong emphasis on both experience and renewal, building teams that combine seasoned professionals with the energy and perspective of younger talent. “We rely on professionals with experience and commitment, and we complement that with younger talent that brings new perspectives,” Xavier said. “People are our most valuable asset.”

This approach is especially relevant in private banking, where clients expect a holistic, integrated service. According to Creand, success will depend on the ability to provide comprehensive wealth management through multidisciplinary teams that can offer legal, financial and personal support in a coordinated way. Creand is building a structure that can deliver responsive, personalised solutions across the full spectrum of wealth management.

Technology continues to play a central role at the bank. According to Xavier, technological innovation is another key challenge that is already shaping, and will continue to shape, the conditions required to ensure the competitiveness of financial institutions. This involves developing the latest digital tools to make services more efficient, connect with new generations and support the creation of new products and services. Our positioning as a data-driven organisation is central to this evolution, particularly through the adoption of predictive AI.

To strengthen its position in existing markets and growth, Creand will also continue to promote strategic partnerships, leveraging collaborative growth to scale its offerings and enhance client value.

As Creand moves through the current strategic cycle, it remains firmly anchored in the values that have guided it for more than seven decades: service, innovation and a commitment to Andorra’s long-term progress. “We will maintain our dedication to Creand’s role as a driver of Andorra’s economic and social progress,” said Xavier.

Powering Financial Inclusion and SME Growth in Botswana

With a focus on financial inclusion, responsible lending, and digital access, Letshego Botswana plays a central role in supporting individuals and small businesses across the country. From mobilebased microloans to structured SME financing, the institution provides practical tools that help Batswana achieve personal and economic progress. Mr. Kgotso Bannalotlhe, Regional CEO for BOLESWA (Botswana, Lesotho, and Eswatini), shares how Letshego is expanding access to credit, promoting financial literacy, and transforming the customer experience through digital innovation.

Letshego Botswana was named Best Micro Finance and Best SME Finance Company in 2025. What initiatives do you feel have contributed to your success?

Our recognition as Best Micro Finance and Best SME Finance Company reflects how we’ve stayed true to our brand promise of Improving Lives by making funding more accessible, inclusive, and responsible.

We’ve expanded financial access through mobile loans, ensuring that even customers in remote areas can access credit conveniently. For SMEs, our Purchase Order Finance solution allows small businesses to take on and fulfil larger contracts, helping them scale and create jobs.

But providing funding alone isn’t enough; we also focus on responsible borrowing and education. Through our brand campaign, Itshetse, Iperekele, Ikagele, we encourage customers to borrow wisely, plan for their future, and build sustainably. This is complemented by our Kitso Konokono financial literacy programme, which equips customers with budgeting and debt management skills.

Our Ikagele Housing product reflects this holistic approach, giving Batswana the means to build homes anywhere in the country while reinforcing the importance of structured, manageable borrowing.

It’s this combination of innovative products, responsible lending campaigns, financial education, and strong engagement that has earned us the honour of these awards and, more importantly, deepened our impact across Botswana.

What are some of the core financial products or services Letshego currently offers to micro and SME clients, and how have these evolved in response to customer needs?

Letshego offers a full suite of solutions designed to meet clients where they are in their business journey. For micro and SME clients, we provide working capital loans and innovative solutions like our Purchase Order (PO) Finance, a product that allows registered small businesses to fulfil goods and services orders from government, parastatals, and reputable companies without cash flow constraints.

The PO Finance product, for example, provides up to P10 million in funding for up to four months, secured by cession and director’s surety, helping businesses seize opportunities they might otherwise miss.

Over time, we’ve evolved these products based on customer feedback, offering shorter turnaround times, flexible collateral requirements, and digital application options. This means an SME in a rural village can now apply online or through a Letshego branch and receive funding to deliver on a government order quickly and efficiently.

This evolution shows that we’re not just offering credit; we’re partnering with entrepreneurs to help them access opportunities, fulfil contracts, and contribute to Botswana’s economic growth.

Many SMEs struggle to move from microfinance to structured growth capital. How does Letshego differentiate its approach between microentrepreneurs and growth-stage businesses seeking more sophisticated or flexible financing?

Letshego takes a lifecycle approach to supporting businesses, meeting entrepreneurs where they are and helping them grow step by step.

For micro-entrepreneurs, our focus is on access and simplicity: we provide small-ticket loans, often through digital platforms, with minimal paperwork. This gets them started, helps them build a repayment track record and supports responsible borrowing through the Itshetse, Iperekele, Ikagele campaign.

As customers transition into growth-stage businesses, their needs change and they require larger, more flexible financing. That’s where solutions like our Purchase Order Finance come in, enabling SMEs to fulfil substantial government or corporate contracts with funding of up to P10 million for up to four months. Products like this are designed to unlock opportunities for businesses that are ready to scale but don’t have the working capital to take on bigger projects.

How is Letshego using digital channels to improve access to finance and serve more customers?

Our Letshego Digital Mall has transformed how we deliver financial solutions. It’s a one-stop platform where customers can apply for loans, check balances and even access value-added services, all from their comfort, anytime, anywhere.

For micro-entrepreneurs and SMEs, this means no more waiting in line or being limited by branch hours. They can apply for funding like Purchase Order Finance digitally, upload documents online, and track approvals in real time.

By leveraging the Digital Mall alongside channels like WhatsApp and mobile payments, we’re not just digitising finance; we’re making access simple, inclusive, and on-demand for every customer across Botswana.

As technology continues to change how financial services are delivered, where do you see the greatest opportunities for digital growth or impact in Botswana?

Digital payments and embedded finance hold tremendous promise. With Botswana’s high mobile penetration, we see opportunities in expanding mobile-based lending, integrating with e-commerce platforms, and creating digital wallets for SMEs. There’s also untapped potential in data analytics, using digital footprints to design smarter, more inclusive financial products for previously invisible segments of the market.

Letshego has long partnered with Botswana’s public sector to deliver structured financial solutions. How do you balance public good with prudent credit risk?

We take a shared-value approach, aligning our products with national development priorities like housing and SME empowerment while maintaining robust credit assessments and repayment mechanisms. Payroll deduction models and public sector partnerships have proven effective in reducing risk. Ultimately, we aim to deliver solutions that are accessible and affordable without compromising portfolio integrity.

In what ways does Letshego support customers and communities beyond lending—whether through business development, education, or broader social investment?

Beyond credit, we see ourselves as a partner in progress. Our financial literacy workshops, mentorship programs for SMEs, and community investments such as support for education, health, and youth entrepreneurship extend our impact beyond balance sheets.

Looking ahead, what are your key priorities for deepening financial inclusion and growing Letshego’s reach across Botswana?

Our vision is to make finance simple, accessible, and transformative for every Motswana with the ambition to grow.

Mr Kgotso Bannalotlhe, CEO Botswana

Family Business Futures: Balancing Governance, Succession, and Control Across Generations

Family-owned enterprises play an outsized role in the global economy. They generate close to 70 percent of worldwide GDP and employ more than 60 percent of the workforce. Much of their resilience comes from the combination of entrepreneurial energy at the founding stage and the long-term view that family ownership encourages.

In the United States, family businesses generate more than half of GDP and employ a majority of the workforce. When disputes over leadership or weaknesses in governance emerge, the effects rarely stay within the family. They ripple outward into markets and communities. Deep roots and long-term vision give these firms staying power, yet legacy can also slow innovation when it resists change.

Governance as the Foundation of Continuity

Governance is often the dividing line between family businesses that adapt and those that struggle to keep pace. In the early stages, many family businesses rely on quick, informal decisions from the founder. That may be enough at first, but growth brings added complexity. As more people get involved and the stakes rise, a lack of structure can turn minor disagreements into larger conflicts that spill into the business.

Harvard Business Review notes that independent directors can provide an external perspective, temper internal dynamics, and act as mentors to the next generation, helping preserve the family’s influence while adding the discipline needed for sustainable growth.

Strong governance also sends a signal to stakeholders. Outside stakeholders respond with greater confidence when a company demonstrates clear oversight. Families also benefit from governance frameworks of their own. These structures give them a way to keep traditions intact while still adapting to new ideas, helping the business stay relevant across generations.

Succession Planning and Leadership Transition

Few challenges test a family enterprise more than succession. Even strong businesses can falter if leadership changes suddenly and no plan is in place. Family Business USA points out that transitions work best when they are prepared well in advance, with successors gaining experience both inside and outside the company to broaden their perspective. Leaders who gain that mix of family grounding and outside exposure are often better prepared to respect long-standing values without losing sight of changing market realities.

Clear roles and open communication matter as much as experience. When expectations are vague, personal disagreements can quickly spill into business decisions. Advisors from outside the family are often called in to guide these discussions, helping relatives work through difficult choices and keep both the company and the family relationships on steady ground.

Funding Without Losing Control

Growth forces most families to look for capital, but raising money often comes with hard choices about control. Borrowing is straightforward and lets them keep ownership, but it leaves the company with debt that can restrict flexibility. Some turn to minority equity. Bessemer Trust notes that these deals bring in fresh funding without giving outside investors a decisive voice in family decisions. For families that want room to expand but fear losing their identity, this can be a workable balance. Others look for partners who share their outlook and are willing to commit for the long term. Mercer Capital points out that loans and equity structures can both serve family firms, but the way the agreement is written matters. A contract that tilts too far toward outside investors can erode family influence, while one that protects governance rights helps the family keep its voice in major decisions.

Balancing Legacy with Innovation

A long history often works in favor of family firms. Customers and business partners tend to see them as steady and dependable, but that same reputation can sometimes make change harder. The firms that stay competitive are usually the ones that find a way to combine tradition with renewal. Many have invested in digital platforms to reach new markets, committed to sustainability in their operations, and opened leadership to voices beyond the founding family.

Generational change is a big part of why family firms are evolving. Many of the younger heirs argue that sustainability and digital tools should be integral to the core strategy, rather than being relegated to side projects. The speed of change depends on where the business is based. Grant Thornton observes that in Asia, families often rely on councils to reach collective decisions, while in Europe, it is more common to bring in professional managers from outside the family early on.

The Great Wealth Transfer and Generational Shifts

Over the coming decades, trillions of dollars in family-held assets will pass from one generation to the next. EY’s Family Business Index highlights that this transfer will intensify the need for succession planning, stronger governance, and funding strategies that preserve continuity as well as wealth. Family offices, originally set up to coordinate wealth management, are already expanding into investment strategy, philanthropy, and succession support. Without clear structures, large transfers risk fragmenting ownership among heirs and weakening the alignment that gives family businesses stability.

Tax and inheritance rules will also shape outcomes. In some countries, policies are designed to help families maintain ownership across generations, while in others, high tax burdens make it difficult to pass a business on intact. These differences will influence not only individual firms but also the broader economies where family businesses dominate.

At the same time, many heirs are directing inherited wealth into impact funds and ESG-focused portfolios. Tharawat Magazine notes that this trend is changing not only who owns family businesses but also what that ownership is intended to achieve. For many firms, the challenge is to create governance systems that keep heirs aligned while still allowing room for individual priorities, whether in traditional industries or new areas of investment.

Looking Ahead

The future of family businesses will depend less on the wealth they hand down and more on the choices they make about leadership and control. Clear governance, thoughtful succession, and realistic funding strategies will decide whether firms endure or fade as generations change. Families that prepare early and stay willing to adapt are better placed to carry their influence forward.

Resilient firms manage to hold on to the strengths that come with legacy while staying open to new ideas. Those that strike that balance will not only keep their businesses intact but continue to play a defining role in the economies where they operate.

Flows in Volatile Markets

Markets

When markets turn volatile, wealth does not disappear. It moves. For banks, this reality has always shaped how they serve their most affluent clients, but the past two years have heightened the challenge. Large sums now shift across borders, asset classes, and institutions more quickly than ever. A move that once took weeks can happen in hours, creating sudden pressure on balance sheets and liquidity.

High-net-worth (HNW) clients expect their banks to respond instantly, whether reallocating capital in search of yield, diversifying to reduce risk, or simply moving funds to safety. This speed has forced banks to rethink their foundations and expand the range of tools they use. Banks are making changes that they expect to last. They are holding more cash, keeping a closer eye on risks, and speeding up their systems. All of it is aimed at one thing: being ready when wealthy clients decide to move money quickly.

A Market in Motion

The swings in 2024 and into 2025 have been sharp. Activity from wealthy clients has picked up as they search for yield and new ways to spread risk. Deloitte reports that U.S. banks saw a rebound in capital markets revenues during this period, driven in large part by high-net-worth investors adjusting their portfolios. That rebound underscores how quickly wealthy clients can change course and how dependent revenues have become on their trading and investment activity.

Outside the U.S., the same trend is evident. According to Capgemini’s World Wealth Report 2024, investors in Europe and Asia are also shifting into new asset classes as a way to manage volatility. The shift is not only about chasing returns but also about managing downside risk, and it is reshaping the business mix for banks that serve global clients.

The type of assets drawing attention is also changing. Knight Frank highlights a growing demand for sustainable and resilient

investments, reflecting a broader awareness among wealthy investors that long-term structural risks cannot be ignored. This push shows how volatility is accelerating shifts in investor preference, not just reallocating money between traditional classes.

Banks, in response, are adjusting their revenue mix. With loan demand under pressure, many institutions are leaning more on non-interest income and fee-based services. These lines of business provide flexibility and a buffer against swings in lending, while also creating space to innovate products for HNW clients.

Reinforcing Liquidity and Capital Buffers

Large HNW clients can move money in and out of banks with little notice. Shifts that once unfolded over weeks now happen in hours, and the flows are often measured in hundreds of millions. That kind of movement can strain even well-capitalized institutions.

According to the FDIC, banks are holding more high-quality liquid assets and tightening internal controls to prepare for these sudden swings. The agency’s 2024 risk review underscores how volatility is pushing institutions to build stronger cushions and maintain liquidity positions that go beyond regulatory minimums.

For clients, this kind of preparation is largely invisible. But it matters. A bank that can honor withdrawals, process cross-border transfers, and continue lending during turbulent markets signals reliability. Reinforcing liquidity is not just a defensive move. It is also a way of keeping wealthy clients confident that their bank can handle their needs in real time.

Steering Clients Toward Alternatives

When public markets falter, wealthy investors often shift to find stability. Banks are responding by guiding clients into alternatives such as private equity, infrastructure, hedge funds, and private credit. These asset classes can provide income, diversification, and some insulation from market turbulence.

Allocations to alternatives have been rising through 2024. JPMorgan Private Bank observes that wealthy clients are adding more exposure to private equity and private credit as part of this trend (JPMorgan Private Bank). For banks, offering this access broadens relationships and creates fee income that is less tied to short-term market swings.

HSBC’s Affluent Investor Snapshot 2025 shows the trend is global. Investors across regions are cutting back on cash and nearly doubling allocations to private markets, hedge funds, and multi-asset strategies. Much of this shift is being led by younger generations, which reinforces the need for banks to adapt their product sets to different age groups of clients.

Sustainability is shaping choices as well. BlackRock’s Investment Institute has pointed to a growing role for hedge funds and private markets in climate-aware portfolios, showing that alternatives are increasingly expected to deliver resilience alongside returns. For banks, that means innovation is not only about opening doors to private assets but also about linking products to themes that matter to the next generation of wealthy investors.

Dynamic Risk Management and Balance Sheet Restructuring

Market volatility has made banks more flexible in how they manage risk and structure their balance sheets. For wealthy clients, this often translates into more tailored lending and credit solutions that match complex portfolios and cross-border needs.

Banks are also playing a larger role in financing. Their share of private market lending increased in 2024, evidence of a growing appetite to extend credit in areas once dominated by private equity and non-bank lenders, according to McKinsey. For clients, this expansion means access to capital while keeping relationships within the banking system.

At the same time, institutions are trimming exposure in other areas. The IMF’s Global Financial Stability Report notes that many banks have scaled back holdings in riskier assets so they can respond more quickly to client demands during turbulent periods. This balancing act allows banks to meet rising demand for credit while still protecting their ability to adjust when markets turn volatile.

Digital Innovation and Real-Time Service

Wealthy clients want their banks to move as quickly as the markets do. They expect to track portfolios in real time and to receive advice that fits their personal circumstances. That expectation has turned digital upgrades into a necessity.

In its 2024–25 insights, Investsuite explains that investors are asking for instant execution, personalized reporting, and a smoother overall experience in wealth management. For banks, meeting those demands means more than patching old systems. It involves investing in digital dashboards that give live portfolio data, deploying AI to generate tailored recommendations, and offering service channels that are always available.

The push also comes from outside the industry. Wealth clients compare their digital banking experience with the convenience of fintech apps or even mainstream consumer platforms. That comparison raises the bar for established institutions, especially in competitive markets like Asia and the Middle East, where digital-first challengers are gaining ground.

The value goes beyond speed. Clients who can see their positions in detail, move money without delays, and receive personalized recommendations tend to consolidate more of their assets with one provider. That consolidation strengthens trust, which becomes especially important in volatile markets when investors might otherwise spread funds across multiple banks.

Improving Supervision and Regulatory Preparedness

Volatile capital flows do not just test banks — they also test the financial system around them. Sudden movements of large deposits or crossborder transfers can create ripple effects, making supervision more important than ever.

Research published in the Journal of Financial Stability highlights how enhanced stress testing and scenario analysis help banks prepare for these shocks. For supervisors, the goal is to spot risks early enough to prevent liquidity strains from spilling over into wider markets.

Banks are responding with their own internal safeguards. Many institutions are running more frequent stress tests, refining models to account for HNW flows, and tightening reporting lines between business units and risk committees. These steps ensure management sees pressure points before they build into real problems.

Regulators in Europe and Asia have also stepped up requirements around capital adequacy and cross-border reporting. That push forces banks to maintain higher levels of transparency and readiness. While such measures can feel burdensome in calm periods, they provide stability when market conditions deteriorate, and clients are moving money at speed.

The Big Picture

The past two years have shown that high-net-worth capital can move faster than many banks once thought possible. Institutions that want to remain trusted partners are learning to adapt rather than wait for conditions to settle. That adaptation has meant building more substantial liquidity buffers, reshaping balance sheets, and opening doors to new kinds of investments. It has also meant heavier investment in technology and tighter oversight to keep pace with both client expectations and regulatory standards.

For wealthy clients, the effect is clear. They gain access to a wider range of strategies, more responsive service, and stronger reassurance that their bank can move with them through uncertainty. For banks, the payoff is staying relevant in a market where loyalty is not guaranteed and capital is highly mobile.

Innovation Pods in Legacy Banks as the New Blueprint for Transformation

Large banks want the pace of a fintech but cannot afford to relax the standards that regulators, investors, and customers expect. This tension has led to a new model: small, cross-functional pods that operate inside the bank but outside the weight of traditional project structures. These teams are tasked with building and testing new ideas quickly while keeping compliance and risk controls in sight from the start.

For many incumbents, pods have become the preferred way to explore digital opportunities without taking on the exposure of a spin-off. They give staff a controlled environment to apply agile methods, trial emerging technologies, and collaborate with fintech partners. When successful, the work feeds back into the wider organisation, showing that innovation is possible within the guardrails of regulation.

What an Innovation Pod Looks Like

An innovation pod is deliberately small. It brings together people from product, technology, design, and data, often with a compliance or risk partner embedded from the start. The team works in short cycles, with clear ownership and direct access to a senior sponsor who can remove obstacles.

The model differs from the traditional innovation lab. Labs are often set up as separate units, sometimes far from the core business, and risk becoming showcases rather than engines of delivery. Pods, by contrast, sit close to existing product and service lines. They are measured by what they ship, not what they demo.

This approach cuts down on hand-offs. Teams set goals at the start, including the compliance and security checks that must be met. Reviews then look at whether the work delivers the agreed outcome rather than whether all of the usual paperwork has been completed. That approach helps ideas move faster while still meeting the required standards.

Where Banks Are Using Pods Today

Pods are proving most useful in areas where customer experience and speed are critical. Onboarding is a common starting point. A pod can redesign identity checks, forms, and account-opening flows, making them faster for customers and easier for compliance to supervise. The UK Financial Conduct Authority has noted that synthetic data can play a useful role in testing these processes safely, giving pods a way to experiment without handling sensitive customer records.

Payments is another focus. Pods can deliver features such as requestto-pay or account-to-account transfers on top of existing rails, trialling them with targeted groups before scaling up. Because payments touch customers every day, the ability to test and iterate quickly has clear value.

Capital markets teams are also experimenting with pods, particularly around tokenisation and digital assets. By placing these initiatives inside subsidiaries that already hold the relevant licenses, banks can explore new opportunities while staying within their regulatory perimeter. The pod model allows teams to focus on defined use cases while ensuring that any product that moves to production does so with full compliance approval.

Case Studies of Innovation Pods

Several large banks have adopted pod-like structures, either through internal ventures or dedicated innovation hubs, to accelerate product development without breaking compliance models. While the format differs across institutions, the principle is the same: small, accountable teams that move quickly within the guardrails of enterprise governance.

Standard Chartered launched its eXellerator lab in Singapore to give staff a dedicated space to co-create with clients and fintech partners inside the bank’s framework. The initiative has since grown into SC Ventures, which combines venture building with external investment. The progression shows how a single pod can scale into a broader innovation platform when it delivers results.

Citi runs its D10X programme through Citi Ventures. Employees pitch new business ideas to a growth board and, if approved, incubate them in small teams that resemble start-up pods but remain anchored in Citi’s risk and compliance structures. The programme highlights how even within a highly regulated bank, pod teams can be used to test ideas and bring them to market.

Goldman Sachs set up GS Accelerate to support internal entrepreneurs with funding, dedicated staff, and senior sponsorship. The structure is designed to give pods the freedom to build while ensuring new initiatives remain tied to the firm’s oversight and client obligations. The programme reflects Goldman’s attempt to embed start-up style execution inside its governance model.

DBS established DBS Asia X in Singapore as a hub where teams can experiment with partners, build prototypes, and test new services before moving them into mainstream delivery pipelines. The bank uses pods here to focus on defined client challenges, ensuring that

innovation translates into practical outcomes.

ING runs ING Labs in Amsterdam, London, Brussels, and Singapore to incubate new ventures. Teams that demonstrate demand can either scale inside the group or spin out. In 2018, the bank combined all its innovation units into ING Neo to streamline oversight. ING’s approach shows how pods can be aligned globally while still keeping local focus.

Although each initiative is branded as an innovation hub, the common thread is the use of pods: small, cross-functional teams that ship results quickly while staying inside the guardrails of risk and compliance.

How Pods Move Fast Without Breaking the Rules

Pods are designed to move quickly, but they only work if risk and compliance are part of the process. The most effective banks use a few common practices to strike this balance.

Compliance at the start. Rather than waiting for approval at the end of a project, risk and compliance specialists are embedded in the pod from the outset. This approach turns policies into design choices early, reducing the chance of late-stage rework.

Safe environments for testing. Many banks now use synthetic or anonymised data when developing and validating new features. The UK Financial Conduct Authority has published guidance on how synthetic data can be used responsibly for fraud and credit model testing, giving banks confidence to trial ideas without exposing sensitive customer information.

Regulatory sandboxes. When teams need to run live experiments, official sandboxes give them a controlled path. The FCA’s regulatory sandbox in the UK provides firms with the ability to test new services under supervision and with direct input from regulators.

Standards for AI. Where pods rely on advanced analytics, banks often follow frameworks to keep innovation in line with governance. The NIST AI Risk Management Framework sets out clear functions for mapping, measuring, and managing risk in AI systems. Using a recognised framework allows pods to experiment with AI while applying the same discipline expected in other regulated models.

These practices show that speed in banking innovation does not come from sidestepping the rules. It comes from building compliance and oversight into the way pods operate.

Pods deliver results when they are given clear boundaries and the right support. Banks that have used the model successfully tend to define problems narrowly, making sure each team is working toward a specific outcome. A pod focused on onboarding, for example, might be tasked with reducing account-opening time rather than rethinking the whole customer journey. That level of focus helps teams deliver results quickly instead of getting caught in open-ended pilots.

A second factor is the use of common foundations. When secure environments, data access processes, and vendor onboarding steps are already standardised across the bank, pods can get to work without spending weeks on basic setup. The ability to plug into these reusable rails gives small teams the freedom to focus on customer problems while still operating within enterprise standards.

The third ingredient is ownership. Pods that work best have a product owner with day-to-day accountability and a senior sponsor who can remove obstacles. Decisions are reviewed based on evidence from customer tests rather than slide presentations, which allows teams to move forward with confidence. Clear accountability at both the working and executive level is what keeps pods aligned to business priorities while still giving them the space to experiment.

The Talent and Governance Trade

Pods are deliberately small, but they do not run on their own. They need senior backing and clear accountability if they are to succeed inside a

What Makes the Model Work

large bank. The most effective models give each pod an executive sponsor who can remove obstacles and align the work to the bank’s wider priorities. Without that cover, even the best ideas can stall in the face of bureaucracy.

Risk and compliance partners also need space to participate. In many cases, these specialists are stretched thin across the organisation. Banks that commit time for them to sit with pods from the start find that decisions move more quickly and that rework is reduced. It is a trade: leaders must allocate scarce talent into small teams, but they gain speed and quality in return.

There is also a cultural dimension. To make pods work, senior leaders need to accept that some experiments will not move past early stages. The measure of success is not that every idea scales, but that the process surfaces promising concepts while closing off others quickly. At the same time, the standards for security, privacy, and conduct do not change. The balance is more freedom to try, matched by the same discipline expected of any production system.

What to Measure

For pods to be more than experiments, banks need to track whether they are creating lasting impact. The most common measure is time. How long does it take for a pod to move from idea to launch? Tracking cycle times shows whether the structure is really helping teams bypass traditional bottlenecks.

Outcomes matter more than activity. Banks that use pods effectively

measure the percentage of work that replaces or simplifies legacy processes rather than adding new layers on top. A pod that shortens onboarding steps or removes manual checks delivers more value than one that only adds another feature to an already complex system.

Compliance performance is another signal. Pods that build regulatory checks into their workflow should be able to complete assessments on schedule. Delays here suggest that the model is not working as intended. And ultimately, client adoption is the decisive test. If customers use and stay with the services created by pods, it proves that the model is producing meaningful results, not just pilots.

Why the Blueprint Is Durable

Innovation pods are not a replacement for enterprise governance. They work because they bring the right people together from the start and keep accountability clear. By embedding compliance and risk specialists in the process, pods make it easier to meet regulatory expectations rather than harder.

The approach gives banks the pace of a fintech while preserving the discipline of an incumbent. Teams stay small, scopes remain narrow, and outputs are measured against real outcomes rather than activity. This balance of speed and control is what makes pods more than a trend. It is a model that large institutions can use again and again to explore new ideas, confident that the results will meet the standards expected of them.

From Passive to Active ETFs: Reinventing the Investor Experience

Over the past three decades, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have grown from a niche innovation into one of the defining features of global finance. They began life in the early 1990s as low-cost, index-tracking products designed to give investors efficient exposure to broad markets. Today, ETFs have become universal building blocks for portfolios, widely embraced by retail savers, institutional investors, and sovereign wealth funds alike.

The appeal is clear: ETFs combine diversification, transparency, and intraday liquidity at a lower cost than traditional mutual funds. These attributes have driven extraordinary growth. According to ETFGI, assets invested in ETFs globally reached a record US$16.99 trillion at the end of June 2025, representing a year-to-date increase of more than 26%. Industry observers note that ETFs now account for more than 15% of all professionally managed assets worldwide, underscoring how fundamental they have become to capital markets.

While passive ETFs, which track broad indices such as the S&P 500, FTSE 100, or MSCI Emerging Markets, still dominate flows, the industry is undergoing a structural shift. Increasingly, investors are looking beyond basic market exposure. They want strategies that can reflect personal values, respond dynamically to volatility, or capture megatrends like artificial intelligence, clean energy, and cybersecurity.

This demand has propelled the rise of active ETFs, which blend the flexibility of active portfolio management with the structural advantages of the ETF wrapper. No longer simply passive trackers,

ETFs are evolving into platforms for innovation, giving investors a new range of choices and challenging the dominance of mutual funds. The question facing markets today is not whether ETFs will continue to grow, but what role active strategies will play in shaping the investor experience of the future.

The Rise of Passive ETFs

The foundation of the ETF industry was built on simplicity, transparency, and cost efficiency. Passive ETFs track indexes and provide diversified exposure at a fraction of the cost of most mutual funds. Their ability to deliver broad access with minimal fees reshaped the economics of investing and put pressure on higher-cost managers to justify their value.

Investor preference for index exposure intensified over the past decade. ICI data show that index mutual funds and index ETFs together rose from 19 percent of long-term fund assets in 2010 to 51 percent by the end of 2024, and that between 2015 and 2024, investors added 2.9 trillion dollars to index domestic equity mutual funds and ETFs while actively managed domestic equity mutual funds saw 3.0 trillion dollars in net outflows. This reversal highlights a profound change in investor behavior. Cost has become the decisive factor, and many investors now view index-based products not just as a complement but as a replacement for traditional active strategies.

This momentum helped the largest ETF sponsors consolidate leadership. BlackRock reported that about 390 billion dollars of its 2024 net inflows went into ETFs, underscoring the scale of investor demand for low-cost indexed vehicles. The size of these inflows also raises questions about concentration. With the top three providers, BlackRock’s iShares, Vanguard,

and State Street Global Advisors, now controlling the majority of ETF assets worldwide, market influence is increasingly concentrated in the hands of just a few firms.

TFs have broadened retail participation. According to Financial News London, European ETFs attracted a record $207.3 billion in inflows during the first seven months of 2025, a more than 60% jump from the same period in 2024. Retail investors were key drivers, fueled by the growing use of online platforms and savings plans. This shift illustrates how ETFs are evolving from niche institutional tools into everyday savings vehicles. Their accessibility and low-cost nature make them an increasingly routine choice for individuals building long-term wealth.

Shifting Investor Appetite

As ETFs matured, investors began demanding more than low-cost access to broad market indices. Thematic products—targeting megatrends like artificial intelligence, clean energy, or healthcare innovation—have gained ground, appealing to those who want investments aligned with their values and interests. Morningstar reports that global assets in thematic funds more than doubled from US$269 billion to US$562 billion over the five years ending in mid-2024. This trend reflects an important shift: investors are no longer passive recipients of market returns, but active selectors of narratives and themes they believe in.

While thematic ETFs represent one edge of the demand spectrum, many investors are also gravitating toward actively managed ETF

strategies. According to ETFGI, assets in actively managed ETFs reached US$1.48 trillion globally by the end of June 2025, a 26.7 percent yearto-date rise, supported by US$46.77 billion in net inflows for June alone. These numbers indicate a growing appetite for products that blend the structural benefits of ETFs—transparency, liquidity, tax efficiency—with manager discretion and the potential for outperformance.

Generational change is another force shaping ETF demand. PwC’s Global ETF survey notes that about 28 percent of executives expect global ETF assets under management to more than double, reaching more than US$30 trillion by 2029. This optimism is not purely industry hopeful thinking. Millennials and Gen Z, who increasingly control more wealth, show strong preferences for thematic or actively managed products, particularly those offering transparency and alignment with their values. The combination of digital accessibility and values-driven investing is therefore reshaping ETF product innovation and strategic direction.

Active ETF Mechanics

Active ETFs retain many of the structural benefits of passive counterparts, including intraday liquidity, tax efficiency, and typically lower costs than mutual funds. The key difference lies in portfolio management. Managers actively select and adjust holdings to pursue specific strategies such as growth, value, or risk mitigation. This flexibility appeals to investors who want more than static index exposure.

A critical reason for the rise of active ETFs is structural accessibility. Most disclose holdings daily, offering transparency that traditional mutual funds, which report quarterly, do not provide. Combined with liquidity and

tax advantages, this transparency enhances investor trust and usability.

Active ETFs are now being launched at an unprecedented pace. According to the Financial Times, 476 active ETFs debuted in the United States and Europe during the first half of 2025, compared to 234 passive launches. Despite passive ETFs still commanding around 13 trillion dollars in assets compared with 1.2 trillion dollars for active funds, the latter more than doubled in size since late 2023. This acceleration reflects investor demand for products that combine active management with the efficiency of the ETF wrapper, particularly in strategies designed for downside protection or income generation such as buffer and covered-call funds.

The Role of Regulation

Regulation has significantly shaped the structure and pace of active ETF adoption around the world.

In the United States, a key milestone was the 2019 ETF Rule adopted by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The rule eased the approval process for new ETFs and lowered compliance burdens, giving fund managers the confidence to launch innovative products. The SEC noted that the rule was intended to reflect the maturity of the ETF industry and to promote competition and efficiency. This regulatory clarity has been instrumental in fueling the rapid expansion of active ETFs.

In contrast, Europe has maintained stricter transparency standards that have slowed the growth of active ETFs. According to the European Fund Selector Survey, only 21 percent of institutional fund buyers currently allocate to active ETFs, with another 13 percent planning to do so by the end of 2024. Regulatory concerns about daily portfolio disclosure that could expose managers’ strategies to rivals remain a key barrier. Despite these challenges, Europe is moving cautiously toward semi-transparent structures

in jurisdictions such as Luxembourg and Ireland to protect intellectual property while enabling manager flexibility.

Meanwhile, in the Asia-Pacific region, regulatory approaches are becoming increasingly welcoming. Singapore and Japan implemented rules for active ETFs in 2023, while Australia has led the area with the first active ETF listing as far back as 2015. According to BlackRock, active ETF assets in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa grew to 40 billion dollars by mid-2024, an increase of 25 percent from year-end 2023. This trend highlights how regulators and issuers across global markets are gradually aligning to support active ETF frameworks.

Risks and Criticisms

Despite their rapid ascent, active ETFs face significant scrutiny over performance consistency. A Morningstar analysis shows that in 2024, fewer than 42 percent of active strategies (including both mutual funds and ETFs) outperformed their passive peers, underscoring the difficulty in justifying higher fees without clear performance benefits. This statistic highlights that even in the ETF wrapper, investor outcomes depend heavily on manager skill and market conditions.

Costs remain another point of concern. Data from the Investment Company Institute (ICI) shows that in 2024, average expense ratios for index equity ETFs stood at just 0.14 percent, significantly lower than typical fees charged by actively managed ETFs. The persistent fee gap means that active ETFs must deliver compelling performance to earn their keep—a high bar in a low-yield environment.

Finally, critics raise concerns about volatility and trend-driven behavior. Highly thematic or niche active ETFs can experience inflated valuations and sharp drawdowns. This pattern was evident in the ARK Innovation ETF during its rollercoaster performance in the early 2020s. The Wall Street Journal noted that such “self-inflated returns” often collapse once investor inflows reverse. This underscores the importance of caution when evaluating launch hype versus long-term durability.

Opportunities Ahead

While active ETFs face headwinds, they also present a powerful growth opportunity. PwC’s “ETFs 2029: The Path to $30 Trillion” report projects that global ETF assets under management could more than double to over US$30 trillion by 2029, with nearly 30 percent of surveyed executives anticipating this outcome. (PwC) This outlook reflects confidence not just in investor demand but in continued product innovation and global adoption.

ESG integration offers another growth frontier. The Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing reports that sustainable funds reached US$3.5 trillion in assets by mid-2024, marking a new high and highlighting sustained investor interest in themes such as climate, governance, and social responsibility. Active ETFs are becoming key tools within this broader sustainable investing ecosystem, offering flexibility and thematic alignment that passive funds alone may struggle to deliver.

Institutional uptake is picking up pace as well. Financial Times analysis predicts that ETFs could capture up to half of the 19.6 trillion dollars held in long-term U.S. mutual funds over the next decade, with investors attracted to their lower costs, liquidity, and ease of use. This shift suggests that active ETFs, many of which offer customization and tactical flexibility, could become central in institutional portfolios.

Closing Takeaway

The evolution of ETFs has transformed them from simple index trackers into versatile platforms for innovation. Passive ETFs remain the backbone of the industry, but the rise of active strategies signals that investors are seeking more than just low-cost access to market returns. They want products that combine efficiency with flexibility, and that can align with both short-term opportunities and long-term convictions.

The growth of active ETFs reflects broader shifts in finance: investors demanding transparency, regulators opening pathways for innovation, and institutions reassessing how best to allocate capital. Their expansion into areas such as sustainability and tactical strategies suggests that active ETFs are no longer a niche experiment but an increasingly mainstream tool.

Looking ahead, the question is less about whether active ETFs will succeed and more about how they will reshape competition with mutual funds and traditional active vehicles. Their trajectory will depend on whether managers can deliver performance that justifies their cost and whether product innovation continues to match evolving investor priorities. What is clear is that active ETFs have established themselves as a defining feature of the modern investment landscape, and they will play an essential role in how portfolios are built in the years to come.

Closing the Gap Between Brand Identity and Brand Image in Financial Services

Brand identity is the system a financial institution designs to signal who it is across every surface a customer touches. It covers the architecture that links corporate and product names, the marks that live on cards and ATM screens, the colour and type that remain legible on statements, and the tone that turns regulated language into clear guidance. Identity is planned. It is documented, trainable and testable under the real constraints of banking.

Brand image is different. It is the reputation customers carry after opening an account, moving money, replacing a card or resolving a dispute. Image is earned in the wild, shaped by reliability, ease, fairness and the way a firm communicates when something goes wrong. When identity and image reinforce each other, trust compounds and marketing works harder. When they diverge, even strong campaigns struggle to land.

This distinction matters now. In a fragile trust climate and with switching intent rising in many markets, closing the gap between how a bank looks and how it works is not cosmetic. It is an operating discipline that reduces complaints, stabilises deposits and protects margins.

How identity is built in finance

Identity has to work under real banking constraints. The system should hold together on cards, ATM screens, app icons, statements and dashboards, and remain legible when a customer reads on a small screen in poor light. This is where accessibility becomes a brand decision. Set colour and type to the contrast minimum (4.5:1) for normal text so fees, dates and amounts stay readable in everyday conditions. Because the threshold is objective and testable, teams can enforce it at scale across templates and components instead of debating aesthetics on every page.

Clarity in writing is just as structural. In the United States, SEC Rule 421(d) requires key prospectus sections to be clear, concise and understandable. Even when a document isn’t a prospectus, the principle travels: treat first-read comprehension as the standard for fee pages, support content and in-app explanations. If ordinary readers can’t understand how a charge is calculated or

what happens next in a process, the communication hasn’t met the bar— regardless of whether the legal words appear on the page.

The United Kingdom frames the same expectation in the FCA Handbook: retail-bank communications must be fair, clear and not misleading. That test focuses on what a reasonable customer would take away, not just what a firm intended to say. In practice, brand and legal use it as a shared editing lens: remove ambiguity, cut jargon, and structure information so the likely takeaway matches the truth of the product.

Consumer Duty raises the bar from wording to outcomes. The FCA’s Consumer Duty FG22/5 asks firms to assess, test and evidence what customers actually understand and experience. That’s why identity work now sits with product, service, risk and data: teams review completion rates, error states and complaints alongside UI and copy choices to ensure the designed identity and the lived experience stay aligned.

Governance keeps the system coherent under pressure. Maintain a versioncontrolled library, fast approvals and a naming glossary so the right asset and the right sentence are the easiest to use. No rule forces that discipline; skipping it simply shows up later as drift, confusion and make-good credits.

How image is formed

Brand image is a lagging indicator of lived experience. It moves with the reliability of core journeys, the effort required to complete everyday tasks, the fairness of fees and dispute outcomes, the quality of care when something goes wrong, and the public narrative that builds around those moments. Because image accumulates across many small interactions, the fastest way to shift it is to improve the moments customers notice most and to explain those improvements clearly.

A practical first signal is what people say immediately after using your product. App Store ratings and reviews capture real reactions at scale and in customers’ own words. Treat the star trend as the headline and the review themes as the brief for product, service and copy. If ratings dip after a release, look for patterns in recent comments, map them to the journeys you just changed, and respond publicly with what you fixed. The point is not to reply to every comment. It is to turn the feedback into a small backlog you can ship quickly so the public signal and the product move together.

A second leading indicator is search behaviour. When people are more likely to search for your brand than for a rival, it often reflects changes in mental availability and consideration before sales data shows it. The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising has highlighted share of search as a predictive measure for market outcomes. You do not need a complex model to use it. Track your brand’s category share of search over time, compare it with a stable peer set, and watch whether improvements in journeys and communications are followed by a rise in branded demand.

Complaints data is the third lens and it ties image directly to pain points. In the United States, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau maintains a public Consumer Complaint Database that can be filtered by product and issue type. Use it to benchmark where your category is frustrating customers and to spot whether your own themes match the market. If people across the industry are struggling with chargebacks or identity checks, write clearer explanations in those flows. If complaints spike around a fee change, treat that as evidence to simplify the statement and add a pre-transaction fee preview.

The United Kingdom offers a complementary view through the Financial Ombudsman Service, which publishes a rolling Data and insight series on quarterly complaints volumes and uphold rates. This helps isolate whether a rise in public frustration is general or whether your product is an outlier. If uphold rates are high in a category you offer, review the wording customers see before they act and the decision logic behind outcomes. Fewer surprises and better explanations reduce escalation, which is remembered as care rather than friction.

Public narrative then consolidates these signals. Media and social coverage amplify the stories customers tell each other,

especially around incidents or policy changes. The task is not to manufacture reputation but to earn it by closing gaps in experience and by communicating with the right cadence during difficult moments. When the story customers read matches what they feel in product and service, image moves toward identity and stays there.

The cost of misalignment

Misalignment shows up fast in banking because customers feel it in the moments that matter. When identity promises simple banking but onboarding still requires a branch visit, goodwill erodes. When a pricing page says transparent fees but statements scatter charges under different labels, trust drops. The pattern is visible in market signal. The J.D. Power 2024 U.S. Retail Banking Satisfaction Study reported steady satisfaction but a decline in trust and a material share of customers saying they are likely to switch in the next year. Read clinically, that means small gaps between promise and delivery now carry a higher penalty, because customers feel less patient when confidence is thin.

The broader trust climate reinforces the risk. The Edelman Trust Barometer 2024 describes an innovation anxiety that raises the bar for clarity and consistency. For financial brands this translates into a simple constraint. If communications set an expectation that the product or policy does not meet, customers perceive the friction as a breach rather than a minor inconvenience. The remedy is not cosmetic work on a brand book. It is a cross-functional focus on the journeys and explanations that shape memory, because in a thin-trust environment the reputation you earn will track the experience you deliver.

In practice, misalignment appears as repeat contacts, slower resolution and heavier reliance on discounts to save at-risk customers. Tightening the fit between promise and delivery reduces those costs because fewer interactions escalate and the story customers tell each other matches what they feel in product and service.

Communications that build trust

Clarity is not decoration in a regulated business. It is how a bank keeps promises at the moment a customer decides what to do next. Treat every sentence a customer reads as part of the product, not as packaging. The practical test is first-read comprehension. If a reasonable person cannot explain the fee, the timeline, or the risk after one reading, the copy has not done its job.

Alignment between promotional copy and product terms is where trust is most exposed. If a page says “no surprises,” the statement must group charges in one place with the same names, and the journey should preview any cost before the customer commits. If a headline promises faster access to funds, the deposit timing rules in the help centre must say the same thing. When the words match the experience, price sensitivity falls because customers feel informed rather than managed.

Write about money with numbers, not only with adjectives. Show an example that uses real figures, dates, and the exact sequence a customer will follow. If a transfer is subject to a limit, state the limit and what happens when it is reached. If a card replacement takes three to five business days, say what counts as a business day and whether delivery requires a signature. Specifics reduce repeat contacts because people know what to expect.

Structure matters as much as tone. Put the outcome first, then the condition, then the exception. Use short sentences. Prefer familiar words to internal labels. Where a process is long, add a simple progress marker and explain why each step exists so the customer knows the purpose as well as the action. If you must include legal language, separate it visually and add a plain explanation above it so readers do not confuse caution with refusal.

Test understanding before you ship. Sit a small panel of customers in front of the real screen and ask them to complete the task without help. Listen for the words they use to describe what happened and what they expect next. Edit the copy to use their words. After release, watch the few days of contacts that follow a change. If calls and chats rise on a specific step, treat that as a writing problem first and a training problem second.

During incidents, tone and timing matter more than polish. Say what went wrong, who is affected, what the bank has done, and what the customer should do now. Post an expected update time and keep it, even if the status is unchanged. Close with a short note that explains what has been changed to reduce the chance of a

repeat. People remember the feeling that someone took ownership and told them the truth. That memory becomes the brand.

International brands without dilution

Global banks balance a strong core with precise local relevance. The core holds the elements that protect recognition and trust: the way the name and symbol appear, the colour and type that remain legible on statements, the tone that treats money decisions with clarity, and the privacy posture that explains what happens to data. Local teams then adapt examples, images and everyday references so the brand feels native without drifting from meaning. That balance is not cosmetic. It is respect for context, which customers remember long after a campaign ends.

Translation needs more than accuracy; it needs comprehension. Test key journeys in the local language with real customers and listen for the words they use to describe what happened and what they expect next. Edit copy to use those words. Numbers, dates and currency formats should follow local norms while keeping the same level of transparency. If a card replacement takes three to five business days, say what counts as a business day in that market and whether delivery requires a signature. Specifics prevent repeat contacts and reduce the sense that the bank is far away.

Architecture choices matter during expansion or change. If a new market launches under a product brand, make sure search results, help content and statements connect clearly back to the parent so credibility transfers without confusion. If a unit is being rebranded, publish a simple timeline for cards, statements and apps, and keep dual naming long enough for customers to recognise they are in the right place. The goal is simple: customers should never wonder if they are dealing with the same institution they signed up for.

Local relevance also depends on service and recovery. A global tone can sound distant when customers want a fast, human answer. Equip callcentre and branch teams with authority to solve common issues inside clear guardrails, and make it easy for digital users to reach help in their language within the flow. When recovery feels competent and close at hand, the global brand earns trust as a local partner rather than an import.

Governance that keeps pace

Governance is how a brand holds its shape under real pressure. In banking that means decisions travel fast, the right asset is always easier to use than the wrong one, and every team knows which words to put in front of customers. A brand system that exists only as a PDF invites drift. A working

governance model turns identity into day-to-day practice and keeps image aligned with what the institution actually does.

Start with a single source of truth. Live assets sit in a managed library with version control, expiry dates and clear ownership. When a fee table, an incident holding statement or a KYC explainer is updated, the change propagates to every surface that uses it. Teams are spared the guesswork of hunting through old decks and shared folders because the most current file is also the most visible and the most convenient. Fewer workarounds means fewer inconsistencies that customers will later find on statements or in the app.

Approvals need to be fast and predictable. Split the flow into routine and high-risk changes, set response time targets and publish an escalation path. Routine updates to product copy or imagery should move quickly with a lightweight checklist for clarity and compliance. High-risk items such as pricing, eligibility or recovery messaging get a deeper read with legal and risk at the table, and the rationale for each decision is captured in a short audit note. Teams can ship confidently because the rules are known in advance.

Detection is as important as prevention. Run monthly sweeps of live channels to catch copy drift, outdated offers and broken links in the journeys customers use most. Include app screens, web pages, help content, statements and ATM prompts. Pair this with a short mystery-shopper script for common tasks so the team sees what a new customer sees. When a label differs between channels or a step creates confusion, fix the live experience first and then update the library so the error does not return.

Language needs the same discipline as layout. Maintain a naming glossary that maps the words customers see to the actions they take. If the app says close card, the statement and the service script should say the same thing unless the outcome is different. Synonyms may be natural in conversation, but in financial tasks they create doubt. A shared glossary keeps writers, designers and service teams aligned and reduces the need to explain the basics in support interactions.

Change management keeps people with the system. Publish a brief change log when you update widely used assets so product and service teams know what changed and why. Offer short refreshers for contact centre and branch staff when recovery messages or eligibility explanations are revised. Measure a few practical indicators such as time to publish, the share of pages that conform to current templates and the number of exceptions granted. These are housekeeping numbers, but they predict whether identity will hold its shape in the next busy quarter.

Vendors and partners must work inside the same guardrails. Give agencies and contractors an onboarding pack with the library links, the glossary and the approval flow, and require a simple pre-flight checklist before anything goes live. External teams move faster when the rules are explicit. Internal teams spend less time cleaning up well-meant work that missed a nuance only visible inside the bank.

Good governance is not red tape. It is the cheapest form of brand insurance a bank can buy. When the system is easy to follow, identity remains coherent without stifling local judgment, and customers experience one institution wherever they meet it.

Incident response and reputation

Incidents are unavoidable. What decides reputation is the way a bank responds in the first hour and the next few days. If identity claims reliability, image will be set by how clearly you acknowledge the issue, how quickly customers see action, and whether they feel guided rather than left to guess. The aim is simple: reduce uncertainty, show ownership, and make recovery feel competent and fair.

Start with a plain update that answers four questions in order: what happened, who is affected, what the bank is doing, and what the customer should do now. Post a specific time for the next update and keep it even if the status is unchanged. Avoid hedged language and avoid over-promising timelines. Customers are more patient when cadence is predictable and the path forward is obvious.

Keep channels aligned so the story is the same wherever customers look. The app banner, web status page, social posts, emails, IVR messages, branch notices, and frontline scripts should use the same facts and the same labels. Give service teams a short decision tree for common edge cases and a clear path to escalate exceptions. When every surface gives the same explanation and the same next step, anxiety drops and contacts resolve faster.

Make recovery tangible. Decide in advance when to waive fees, extend grace periods, issue provisional credits, or fast-track replacement cards. Publish those rules during the incident so customers know what they can expect without a negotiation. Consistent remedies feel fair and reduce repeat contacts. Caseby-case promises sound empathetic in the moment but create inconsistency and regret later.

Close the loop with a brief post-incident note that explains what changed to reduce the chance of a repeat. Update any help pages, journey copy, or statements that were confusing during the event. Retire jargon that caused misunderstanding and replace it with language people actually used when they described the problem. Measure the aftermath with a short window of contact drivers, completion rates on affected journeys, and sentiment in reviews so you can see whether the fix landed.

Practice matters. Run dry runs for outages and policy errors so teams know the first three moves and the roles are clear. Keep a small set of pre-approved holding statements that can be adapted in minutes. Name a spokesperson and a technical owner for each severity level. Incidents handled well often strengthen image because customers remember the feeling that someone took responsibility and told them the truth.

Mergers, rebrands, and architecture choices

Brand architecture is strategy made visible. In banking it governs how trust travels across products, segments, and countries when you acquire, divest, or rename a unit. A master brand concentrates equity and creates one promise to keep, which simplifies marketing and support. It also concentrates risk, because a problem in one product can echo across the portfolio. An endorsed approach preserves local equity during transition and gives customers a bridge between old and new. A stand-alone brand can ring-fence risk or serve a distinct audience, but it demands more investment to explain credibility and to keep journeys coherent.

Clarity during change is more important than speed. Publish a simple timeline for what the customer will see and when. List the sequence for cards, statements, apps, web, and branch signage, and keep dual naming long enough for customers to recognise they are in the right place. Explain what stays the same, such as account numbers and protections, and what will change, such as login details or contact points. Put the same message in every surface a customer might use and give frontline teams short answers to predictable questions so the story is identical everywhere.

Search and support are the early warning system for confusion. Monitor branded queries for old and new names, watch contact drivers for spikes in basic questions, and track failed logins and abandoned sessions after each visible change. If customers are searching for the legacy brand and landing on the wrong page, adjust redirects and page titles. If calls rise around a specific step, fix the live copy before training the team to explain it, and update the help centre to match. The aim is to turn the transition from an anxiety event into a proof point that the bank can change without breaking trust.

Regulatory hygiene underpins the whole programme. Update legal entities and disclosures consistently, retire outdated PDFs, and make sure product terms and privacy notices reflect the new structure. When customers see that the language, labels, and outcomes are consistent from the first email to the new card in their wallet, the rebrand reads as competence rather than cosmetics.

Employer brand and frontline behaviour

Customers meet the brand through people as much as through pixels. Hiring, training, incentives and tooling should match the promises you make in public. If the brand speaks about simple banking, frontline teams need clear authority to solve common problems without passing a case from

desk to desk. If you promise transparent fees, service scripts must use the same labels and explanations that appear on statements. The fastest way to align words and actions is to give teams a small set of principles, show what “good” looks like with live examples, and remove internal friction that slows resolutions.

Coaching works best when it is built around the journeys that matter most. Sit with agents as they handle card replacement, charge disputes or identity checks and listen to where confusion starts. Rewrite those moments in plain language and place the right sentence inside the tool they use, not in a separate manual. Recognition should reward outcomes that match the brand’s claims, such as first-contact resolution on a complex step or a clear explanation that prevents a repeat call. When employees feel enabled and trusted, customers feel cared for, and that feeling becomes the reputation you earn.

Internal communications shape consistency across markets. Share short change notes so every team knows when wording or steps have been updated and why. Make it easy for staff to flag confusing copy or a broken link they see in the wild. Close the loop when you fix it. A workforce that helps maintain clarity becomes a living part of the brand system rather than an audience for it.

What to measure, and why

Measurement links identity to image. Start with perception. Track awareness, consideration, preference and trust by segment so you know where the story is landing and where it is not. Read these numbers alongside the messages you are putting into the market so you can see which claims change minds and which are ignored.

Then measure experience. Look at completion and error rates on the journeys customers use most. Watch time to resolve, first-contact resolution, and the themes in post-interaction comments. If you run a loyalty metric, break it down by journey rather than relying on a single headline score. The goal is to find the steps that create friction and to fix them in the product and the copy, not to celebrate a number that hides the weak spots.

Add public signals to close the loop. Monitor app-store ratings and review themes, because they capture reactions in the customer’s own words. Watch complaint volumes by issue and the proportion that escalate. Track the questions customers type into search around your brand and products. When these external signals move in the same direction as your internal measures, you know the work is landing. When they diverge, listen to the market and adjust before the gap hardens into reputation.

Keep the dashboard short enough to be read every week. A small set of stable metrics is more useful than a long list that no one reviews. Tie each metric to an owner and a regular forum where cross-functional leaders choose the next few fixes. Measurement only matters if it changes what you build, how you write and how you resolve issues.

Final thoughts

Identity is your plan. Image is your result. In banking, closing the distance between the two is not a branding exercise. It is how you reduce complaints, stabilise deposits and protect margins in a thin-trust environment. Treat the brand system as an operating discipline that governs decisions across product, service and communications. Promise less, prove more, and measure what customers actually feel. When the system you design matches the reputation you earn, trust compounds and growth gets cheaper.