Global Banking & Finance Review Issue 79 - Business & Finance Magazine

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editor

Dear Readers’

Welcome to Issue 79 of Global Banking & Finance Review.

The future of finance and business is being shaped by innovation, leadership, and a focus on the customer. In this issue, we explore how institutions around the world are embracing change to redefine how services are delivered, experiences are created, and leadership is enacted.

Featured on our front cover is Absa Digital. In Digital by Design: How Women Are Engineering Absa’s Tomorrow, we spotlight the women driving digital transformation across South Africa. From shaping products and technology to redefining governance and risk, these leaders are proving that diversity and inclusion are essential to building financial services that are accessible, innovative, and human-centered (Page 24).

OCBC Securities is charting its own path of innovation. In Expanding the Edge: OCBC Securities Accelerates Innovation under Wilson He, we explore how the firm is redefining the investor experience through a focus on customer engagement and integrated platforms. By putting clients at the center, OCBC Securities is creating agility, growth, and confidence in a complex market (Page 28).

Customer experience is increasingly the driving force behind efficiency and profitability. In Driving Efficiency and Profit Through Customer-Centric Banking, Pelwasha Faquiryan of Diebold Nixdorf outlines how banks can leverage operational improvements, personalization, and seamless service to strengthen loyalty, streamline processes, and unlock growth opportunities (Page 32).

Together, these stories reflect a broader theme: leadership, innovation, and customer focus are shaping the future of finance. At Global Banking & Finance Review, we remain committed to providing expert perspectives on the strategies and trends defining today’s institutions.

Enjoy the latest edition!

Wanda Rich Editor-in-Chief Global Banking & Finance Review

Featured on the front cover from left to right: Suella Derman, Head of Risk and Control, Absa Digital, Phiwokuhle Mlotshwa, Portfolio Lead, Absa Digital, Sivan Lapidus, Head of Design, Absa Digital, Anna Nascimento, Head of Digital Adoption, Absa Digital, Michelle Bisaro, Portfolio Lead, Absa Digital, Zeenat Hassim, Interim Chief Information Officer, Absa PPB

Wanda Rich Editor

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Driving Efficiency and Profit Through CustomerCentric Banking

Pelwasha Faquiryan, Head of Global Enterprise Accounts, Banking, Diebold Nixdorf

Banking at the Intersection: From Nashville to Cannes, A Strategic Call to Action

As the sun set over Nashville this September, Intersect 2025 closed not with a whisper but with a resounding call to action. More than 330 banking leaders, technologists, economists, and innovators gathered to explore the future of financial services. From rooftop conversations to mainstage revelations, one thing became clear: the future of banking is not just digital—it’s deeply human, profoundly strategic, and increasingly urgent.

Intersect Nashville 2025 wasn’t just another conference. It was a movement. A convergence of vision, execution, and partnership. And it’s only the beginning. As we look ahead to Intersect Cannes 2026, the stakes have never been higher. Transformation is no longer optional—it’s operational. And the time to act is now.

The Renaissance of Customer Experience

Steven Van Belleghem’s keynote on the “Customer Experience Renaissance” set the tone. In a world where AI can deliver hyperpersonalized service, the human touch becomes more—not less— important. Customers are no longer comparing banks to other banks; they’re comparing us to the best experiences they’ve ever had.

The challenge is not just digital transformation—it’s emotional connection. As Steven noted, “Connection will matter more than perfection.” Banks must move beyond efficiency to empathy, designing experiences that are intuitive, inclusive, and deeply personal.

Yet 90–95% of AI projects remain internally focused, aimed at productivity rather than customer value. This imbalance is a strategic risk. As consumers shift toward algorithmic buying and single-platform decision-making, banks must evolve from segmented marketing to hyper-personalized engagement. Loyalty will hinge on the 9s and 10s—not the zeros we eliminate.

At Intersect Cannes, we’ll take this conversation further. How do we build trust in a world of synthetic interactions? How do we ensure that personalization doesn’t become manipulation? These are the questions that will shape our next chapter.

Cash Matters: Choice, Resilience, and Inclusion

Cash is not dead. It’s evolving. The Payment Choice Coalition reminded us that cash remains vital for millions, especially the unbanked, underbanked, and digitally excluded. In fact, recent data shows cash usage is rising among Gen Z, driven by budgeting needs and privacy concerns.

Cash is more than a payment method—it’s a strategic asset. In times of crisis, from natural disasters to cyberattacks, cash is the fallback that keeps economies moving. The proposed Payment Choice Act, which mandates cash acceptance for transactions under $500, is not just policy—it’s a reflection of our values.

At Intersect Cannes, we’ll explore the future of the closed cash ecosystem. How do we optimize cash handling through automation? How do we balance innovation with inclusion? Expect deep dives into cassette-based recyclers, AI-driven forecasting, and branch interoperability.

Cash Automation: The Closed Ecosystem Advantage

The session on cash automation revealed a powerful opportunity: the closed cash ecosystem. By integrating teller cash recyclers (TCRs) and ATM cash recyclers, banks can reduce operating costs, improve customer experience, and streamline branch operations.

With up to 50% of branch expenses tied to cash handling, the ROI is compelling. Institutions like PNC, U.S. Bank, and Zions Bank are already seeing gains in efficiency, uptime, and customer satisfaction. The future is not just about recycling cash—it’s about recycling trust, speed, and strategic value.

AI and Automation: From Hype to Human Impact

AI was everywhere in Nashville—from fraud detection and customer onboarding to predictive analytics and conversational interfaces. But the real insight came from Dr. Jessica Kriegel’s keynote on change management. Her “Results Pyramid” reframed the conversation: results come from actions, actions come from beliefs, and beliefs come from experiences.

This is the missing link in most AI strategies. Technology alone doesn’t transform organizations—people do. And unless we align beliefs and behaviors, AI will remain a tactical tool, not a strategic lever.

At Intersect Cannes, we’ll move from pilots to platforms. How do we scale AI responsibly? How do we govern it across silos? And how do we ensure that automation augments—not replaces—the human workforce?

Operational Excellence: Lean, Local, and Learning

Frank Bauer, Diebold Nixdorf EVP of Operational Excellence, emphasized that what gets measured improves—but what gets understood transforms. From manufacturing in North Canton, Ohio, to field service optimization, operational excellence is not just about cost—it’s about capability. It’s about reducing repeat service calls, improving uptime, and delivering seamless experiences across channels. It’s about sourcing inregion for the region and building resilience into every layer of the supply chain.

At Intersect Cannes, we’ll showcase global best practices—from Latin America to Europe to Asia. How are banks localizing operations while scaling innovation? How are they training technicians, modernizing branches, and integrating cash and digital workflows?

Strategy in Action: Branch Automation Solutions

We officially launched our Branch Automation Solutions (BAS) portfolio—a new ecosystem designed to help banks and credit unions deliver

seamless, secure, and scalable experiences across their ATM and branch networks.

Powered by our cloud-native Vynamic® Transaction Middleware, BAS is turning ATMs into mini-branches, automating complex transactions, and freeing up staff to focus on revenue-generating activities. It’s built to be consumed as a service and designed to deliver:

• Availability and security

• Integrated cash management

• Branch and ATM automation

• End-to-end transaction processing

Customers like America First Credit Union are already seeing results: 2 million transactions a day, seamless integration, and a roadmap for future innovation. Their journey is proof that transformation is not only possible, but also profitable.

Leadership Transformation: Say-Do Culture and Strategic Clarity

Diebold Nixdorf President and CEO Octavio Marquez and his executive team led a powerful discussion on leadership. Their “say-do” culture— where promises are kept and feedback is acted upon—has become a model for the industry. However, leadership is not only about execution; it’s also about having a clear vision.

Jessica Kriegel’s “Surrender to Lead” framework challenged us to rethink control. True leadership is not about mandating change—it’s about creating experiences that shift beliefs. It’s about clarity, alignment, and accountability.

At Intersect Cannes, we’ll convene the next generation of banking leaders. How do we lead through uncertainty? How do we build cultures of innovation and inclusion? And how do we measure success beyond the balance sheet?

Why Cannes?

Cannes is not just a destination—it’s a declaration. It’s where strategy meets storytelling, where technology meets trust, and where leaders meet the future.

In April 2026, we’ll gather in Cannes to continue the journey we began in Nashville. We’ll bring together global perspectives, local insights, and actionable frameworks. We’ll showcase the best of what’s next—from AI to cash, from customer experience to operational excellence.

But most importantly, we’ll build a community of changemakers. Because the future of banking will not be built by algorithms alone. It will be built by people—people who believe in purpose, who lead with empathy, and who act with integrity.

Join Us on the Journey

Intersect Nashville 2025 was a celebration of progress—but it was also a call to action. To our customers, our partners, and our peers: the future of banking is being built now. And it’s being built together.

At Diebold Nixdorf, we’re not waiting for change. We’re leading it. Through innovation, collaboration, and a relentless focus on the customer, we’re helping banks transform with confidence.

If you’re ready to challenge convention, embrace bold ideas, and deliver exceptional experiences—join us at Intersect Cannes. Because transformation doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens at the intersection of vision and execution.

And that’s exactly where we are.

Juergen Kisters, Vice President, Banking Marketing, Diebold Nixdorf

How Banks Can Win Back Customer Loyalty in the Digital Age

For decades, banking loyalty was almost automatic. Customers opened accounts, stayed for decades, and often passed the same institution down to their children. Today, that bond is fraying. Digital innovation has made switching banks effortless, while scandals, hidden fees, and rising fraud have weakened trust.

According to Forrester’s 2024 U.S. Customer Experience Index, customer experience scores for banks fell to a low not seen in ten years. This decline illustrates that even small lapses in service can have outsized effects on customer retention (Forrester). Every confusing fee statement or delayed response becomes a moment of friction that chips away at confidence.

Bain & Company’s 2023 Global Loyalty in Banking report shows that many customers are now unbundling their finances, keeping checking accounts at traditional banks while moving loans, savings, or investments to specialized providers. This trend highlights that convenience alone is no longer enough to secure loyalty. Trust and perceived value are critical drivers of retention.

The good news is that loyalty is not lost. It is being redefined. The banks winning customers back do so through reassurance, relevance, and respect. They protect customer funds, anticipate needs, and demonstrate fairness through action rather than slogans. In today’s digital landscape, trust is no longer assumed. It must be actively earned at every interaction.

What Customers Really Want in 2025

The modern banking customer is no longer drawn solely to flashy apps or large branch networks. They want institutions that make life simpler, safer, and more predictable. Technology alone is not enough; the experience must be seamless, intuitive, and trustworthy at every interaction.

Research by Accenture in 2025 shows that over half of banking customers would consider switching to another bank for a better digital experience or more personalised financial guidance . This statistic highlights that digital convenience is now the baseline expectation. Banks that do not deliver reliable digital services risk losing customers before trust can be established.

However, loyalty is not driven by technology alone. Accenture also found that fairness, transparency, and ethical behavior influence customer advocacy far more than product variety or marketing efforts. Customers want clear pricing, honest communication, and tangible evidence that their bank acts in their best interest. After years of economic uncertainty and inflationary pressure, trustworthiness has overtaken innovation as the most valued attribute in banking. Banks offering features without demonstrating integrity are at a disadvantage in retaining customer loyalty.

Younger generations, particularly Millennials and Generation Z, are accelerating this trend. While these customers value mobile convenience, they are equally motivated by ethics, inclusivity, and social responsibility. They reward institutions that actively demonstrate transparency and purpose, from environmental initiatives to equitable treatment of all customers. Banks

that fail to meet these expectations risk disengagement from the demographic that will constitute the largest portion of future banking revenue.

Emerging markets illustrate similar expectations. Digital payments systems such as India’s Unified Payments Interface and Kenya’s M-Pesa have redefined customer experience standards by providing fast, low-cost, and inclusive financial services. The World Economic Forum highlights that digital financial inclusion is critical to building trust and encouraging adoption in these markets. When banks simplify access and make services more transparent, customers develop confidence that their bank is reliable, secure, and aligned with their needs.

For banks around the world, the lesson is clear. Respect the customer’s time, simplify complex processes, and provide reliable, transparent services. Each interaction is an opportunity to build confidence or create friction, and banks that consistently deliver on these fronts will strengthen loyalty even in a highly competitive, digital-first marketplace.

The Trust Deficit: How Fraud and Complexity Drive Churn

Trust is the emotional currency of banking. When it is depleted, no rewards program or flashy feature can fully compensate. Every interaction that leaves a customer feeling uncertain—whether it is a poorly explained fee, a confusing statement, or a security incident—chips away at loyalty.

Consumer fraud continues to be a major driver of trust erosion. The United States Federal Trade Commission reported that consumers lost 12.5 billion dollars to fraud in 2024 . Each of these incidents represents a customer who felt unprotected, anxious, and increasingly likely to reconsider their banking relationship. Research by Bain & Company indicates that nearly two-thirds of customers who experience fraud consider switching to another bank, underscoring how central trust is to retention.

Complexity amplifies the problem. Hidden costs, opaque fee structures, and unclear terms frustrate customers and quietly drive them away. J.D. Power’s 2024 U.S. Retail Banking Satisfaction Study found that institutions with simple, transparent fees consistently scored higher in customer loyalty. Complexity may appear profitable in the short term, but it undermines long-term relationships. Each confusing fee or convoluted policy signals to the customer that the bank prioritizes revenue over their experience.

Fraud is not limited to bank systems; it often begins outside the institution, through phone calls, emails, or text messages designed to deceive the customer. Collaborative initiatives, such as the GSMA-backed Scam Signal project, enable banks and telecom providers to share real-time data, intercept suspicious communications, and prevent scams before they reach the customer. Such coordinated efforts demonstrate that proactive protection is not just risk management—it is a competitive advantage that builds confidence and loyalty.

Ultimately, loyalty erodes one interaction at a time. Each fraudulent email, unclear charge, or delayed resolution silently communicates to customers that they are on their own. Banks that consistently deliver clarity, security, and responsiveness can restore trust, but those that fail risk losing customers to competitors who demonstrate reliability and care.

Reassurance: The First Step Back to Trust

Rebuilding loyalty begins with reassurance. This involves demonstrating consistently that customer well-being is the bank’s first priority. Reassurance is no longer a compliance obligation; it is a competitive differentiator. Customers who feel safe and understood are more likely to remain loyal, even in highly competitive markets.

Digital threats have grown faster than many institutions’ defenses. Experian’s 2024 Global Fraud Trends Report predicts that online-payment fraud could cost businesses $362 billion worldwide by 2028 . This is not merely a statistic—it reflects the stakes for institutions that fail to safeguard customer funds. Fraud prevention must be treated as a core customer experience initiative, not just a back-office process.

Some banks are turning security into a visible brand promise. Singapore’s DBS Bank, for instance, invested in real-time fraud-detection systems and customer education, significantly reducing phishing incidents and winning public praise for transparency. When protection becomes part of the customer-facing identity, it strengthens loyalty in a way that traditional marketing cannot.

Transparency extends beyond technology. When Ally Bank and Capital One eliminated overdraft fees in 2023, customer satisfaction and trust increased measurably. Customers interpreted these changes as ethical choices rather than promotional tactics, signaling that the bank prioritizes fairness over profit.

Reassurance also requires attention to vulnerable groups. Older adults remain a prime target for scams, and the FBI reports that Americans aged 60 and older lose more to fraud than any other age group. Leading institutions now implement safeguards such as extra confirmation steps, automated alerts, or callback procedures for unusual transactions. These proactive measures demonstrate that the bank is actively looking out for its customers, restoring confidence across generations.

Reassurance can also be strengthened through collaboration. Fraud often begins outside the banking system, via phone calls, texts, or social media. The GSMA-backed Scam Signal initiative allows banks and telecoms to share real-time data and block scams before they reach customers. This type of ecosystem-level defense not only reduces risk but also signals to customers that the institution is proactive, connected, and trustworthy.

Ultimately, reassurance is about making customers feel secure through visible action. Banks that embed protective measures, communicate clearly, and collaborate externally build trust one interaction at a time. Those that fail to do so leave customers anxious, disengaged, and primed to explore alternatives.

Personalization That Feels Human

For years, banks have treated personalization as a data-driven checkbox rather than a core relationship-building tool. In reality, personalization defines the modern customer-bank relationship. True personalization requires empathy, timing, and understanding—it is about anticipating a customer’s needs and responding in ways that feel genuinely helpful rather than promotional.

Research by McKinsey shows that effective personalization can increase revenue by up to fifteen percent while reducing churn by around twenty percent. These figures are more than financial—they quantify the trust and engagement that personalized interactions can generate. A timely alert about an upcoming overdraft, a recommendation to adjust savings in response to expected bills, or proactive guidance on managing a loan demonstrates attentiveness and reassures customers that their bank understands their circumstances.

BANKING

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia provides a leading example. Its AI-driven Customer Engagement Engine analyzes millions of daily interactions to deliver tailored advice and alerts. Rather than pushing products, it offers guidance at helpful moments, such as alerting a customer before a large debit or congratulating them for consistent saving. Customers describe these prompts as supportive and personalized rather than sales-driven, illustrating that technology can enhance the human touch when applied thoughtfully.

Personalization must also respect privacy and remain transparent. The European Union’s AI Act requires institutions to explain algorithmic decisions and protect individuals from bias.. Banks that can clearly communicate how and why recommendations are made foster confidence far more effectively than those that rely on opaque systems. In other words, responsible use of data—not sheer volume—is what builds long-term loyalty.

Generational expectations amplify the importance of humanized personalization. Younger consumers are digitally fluent, yet they are acutely sensitive to intrusive or irrelevant communications. They reward institutions that provide value through actionable insights, timely alerts, and meaningful engagement, rather than generic marketing messages. By contrast, misaligned personalization can alienate this demographic, turning technology into a source of frustration instead of trust.

In addition, personalization can strengthen cross-channel engagement. Customers increasingly interact with their banks across mobile apps, web platforms, and physical branches. Coordinated, context-aware personalization ensures that whether a customer is receiving a mobile notification or speaking to an advisor, the experience feels seamless and attentive. Each thoughtful touchpoint reinforces the perception that the bank is listening, understands, and cares.

Ultimately, personalization is not about selling more products. It is about creating moments of recognition, reducing friction, and proactively supporting the customer’s financial goals. Banks that master humanized personalization transform routine interactions into trust-building opportunities, fostering loyalty that no loyalty program alone can achieve.

Balancing Automation and Empathy

Digital transformation has made banking faster, more convenient, and accessible across the globe. Yet this convenience often comes at a cost: the human warmth that traditionally built trust in customer relationships. Customers want technology that saves time but still allows them to feel seen, understood, and supported. The challenge for banks is to balance automation with empathy, ensuring that technology enhances rather than replaces human connection.

Accenture’s global consumer banking research shows that approximately two-thirds of customers prefer digital channels for routine transactions, such as transfers or bill payments, yet they still expect immediate access to a human representative when a problem arises. This insight underscores a critical truth: efficiency alone does not drive loyalty. Customers feel secure when they know a real person is available to intervene when issues arise.

Several banks have successfully designed digital systems that embed empathy into automation. NatWest in the United Kingdom introduced a Click to Call feature, allowing customers who notice suspicious activity to connect instantly with a fraud prevention specialist rather than navigate automated menus. The system communicates urgency, care, and attentiveness— qualities that directly reinforce trust. Similarly, Equity Bank in Kenya leverages secure video branches to connect remote customers with professional advisors. This approach preserves the personal connection of face-to-face advice while keeping operational costs manageable.

These examples illustrate a broader principle: technology itself is not the value; the experience it creates is. A well-designed chatbot can handle routine queries efficiently, but it only strengthens trust when a human can intervene promptly for complex or emotional issues. Banks that track metrics such as “time to human contact” alongside “time to resolution” are far more likely to retain customers than those that focus solely on operational efficiency.

The balance of automation and empathy also plays a crucial role in reinforcing brand values. When digital systems consistently reflect care, attentiveness, and responsiveness, they signal that the bank prioritizes the customer’s experience over pure transactional efficiency. Over time, this consistent messaging builds confidence and loyalty in a way that marketing campaigns alone cannot.

For institutions seeking to win back loyalty in the digital age, automation and empathy are not opposing forces. Instead, they are complementary tools: technology delivers speed and scale, while empathetic design ensures that every interaction reinforces trust and understanding. Banks that successfully integrate both will differentiate themselves in a marketplace where products are largely commoditized, and relationships are the true competitive advantage.

Rewarding Loyalty with Purpose, Not Perks

Traditional loyalty programs, based on points, cashback, or tiered rewards, are losing their appeal. Today’s customers, especially younger generations, are guided not just by value but by values. They seek banks that demonstrate social responsibility, environmental stewardship, and alignment with personal principles. When a bank’s incentives reflect shared purpose, it strengthens both trust and long-term loyalty.

Accenture’s 2025 Global Banking Consumer Study found that advocacy and retention increase sharply when customers believe their bank contributes positively to society. This demonstrates that loyalty is not solely transactional; it is emotional and value-driven. Customers reward institutions that integrate ethical behavior and purposeful action into their business model.

Practical examples illustrate this trend. Santander’s Eco Saver program in Spain links financial incentives to environmental responsibility. Customers who fund energy-efficiency projects or purchase electric vehicles benefit from higher interest rates. This approach ties personal financial reward directly to meaningful social impact, fostering a sense of partnership between the customer and the bank.

Similarly, Bank of America’s Preferred Rewards program combines financial education, personalized guidance, and incentives, resulting in retention rates roughly 25 percent higher among participants. Rather than merely offering discounts or points, the program encourages customers to engage in financially responsible behavior, making loyalty feel mutually beneficial rather than promotional.

Edelman’s 2024 Trust Barometer reinforces this shift. Sixty-one percent of consumers expect banks to act visibly on sustainability and inclusion. This statistic highlights a cultural expectation that banks cannot ignore: purpose is becoming a critical measure of premium service. Customers increasingly favor institutions that address societal challenges through transparent, actionable initiatives.

Purpose-driven loyalty programs do more than reward behavior; they signal the institution’s commitment to shared values. Initiatives like green mortgages, inclusive lending practices, community development loans, or carbon impact reporting demonstrate that a bank prioritizes positive impact alongside financial performance. These programs foster emotional attachment, strengthen brand identity, and cultivate advocacy, ensuring that customers remain engaged even in competitive digital environments.

Ultimately, loyalty is no longer measured solely by transactions or points accumulation. It is about creating a sense of alignment and partnership. Banks that embed purpose into their loyalty strategy strengthen their relationships with customers while contributing to broader social and environmental goals. In a world where trust is fragile, shared purpose becomes a unique differentiator that points to the next era of relationship banking.

The Operating Model Behind Trust

Loyalty cannot thrive if a bank’s internal structures reward short-term gains over long-term relationships. True customer focus requires alignment between governance, incentives, and measurement systems, ensuring that employees and leaders are held accountable for ethical performance as much as for profitability.

McKinsey’s 2025 Global Banking Review found that banks linking executive compensation to outcomes such as customer retention, complaint resolution, and fraud recovery outperform peers in both reputation and growth. This demonstrates that when leadership is incentivized to prioritize customer-centric outcomes, the organization naturally follows suit. Culture and strategy are intertwined: ethical behaviors reinforced at the top cascade throughout the institution, shaping how employees engage with clients every day.

Some banks have taken additional steps to formalize accountability. Cross-functional Loyalty Councils, for instance, convene quarterly to review customer experience data, identify friction points, and implement corrective actions. These councils bridge traditional silos, ensuring that front-line insights inform executive decisions and strategic priorities. By embedding loyalty into governance structures, institutions can respond more quickly to emerging customer concerns and maintain consistency in service quality.

Transparency is another critical component. Monzo Bank in the United Kingdom publishes detailed reports on service reliability, security incidents, and remedial actions. Rather than exposing vulnerabilities, this openness signals confidence in the institution’s ability to improve and fosters public trust. Customers and regulators alike interpret such transparency as evidence of integrity, not weakness.

When organizations measure and reward ethical behavior alongside financial performance, a culture of trust emerges. Employees internalize the importance of acting in the customer’s best interest, and leadership communication reinforces that loyalty and profitability are not mutually exclusive but mutually reinforcing. This alignment transforms trust from a marketing message into a core operating principle, guiding decision-making, risk management, and daily interactions with clients.

Ultimately, a robust operating model creates the structural foundation for all loyalty initiatives. Without governance, incentives, and transparency aligned to customer-centric outcomes, even the most innovative personalization, security, or purpose-driven programs cannot achieve lasting impact. Banks that invest in building this foundation ensure that every strategic decision and operational action consistently strengthens trust, creating loyalty that endures across economic cycles and digital disruption.

Measuring the Long Game

Many banks still treat loyalty as an intangible concept rather than a quantifiable business asset. Yet in today’s competitive environment, loyalty can and should be measured, managed, and optimized like any other key performance indicator. By tracking retention revenue, churn costs, and the return on trust-focused initiatives, institutions can turn goodwill into measurable impact.

The concept of a “Loyalty Profit and Loss” account is gaining traction. This model evaluates the financial effects of loyalty initiatives, from fraud prevention to customer education programs. For example, preventing a single fraudulent transaction can preserve thousands of dollars in lifetime customer value, offsetting the cost of proactive security measures. By quantifying loyalty in this way, executives gain a clear business case for investments in experience, security, and personalization.

Public reporting further reinforces trust. Banks that disclose service reliability statistics, complaint resolution times, and security incident data signal accountability and maturity. Such transparency demonstrates that loyalty initiatives are not merely cosmetic but are tied to measurable performance

outcomes. Customers and regulators alike interpret these disclosures as evidence of reliability, consistency, and commitment to continuous improvement.

Metrics can also provide actionable insights for targeted interventions. By analyzing which segments are most sensitive to service issues, fraud, or complex pricing, banks can prioritize initiatives with the highest potential to improve retention. For example, monitoring churn patterns among digital-native customers may highlight opportunities to enhance mobile app experiences or simplify digital onboarding processes. Similarly, tracking the impact of educational programs or sustainabilitylinked rewards can reveal which purpose-driven initiatives most strongly drive advocacy and long-term engagement.

Measuring loyalty in financial terms also shifts internal perspectives. When employees and executives can see a direct connection between trust-building actions and revenue outcomes, loyalty becomes an operational priority rather than a soft, abstract goal. Incentives tied to measurable retention, customer satisfaction, or fraud mitigation encourage a culture where every interaction contributes to sustainable loyalty.

In essence, measuring the long game transforms loyalty from a concept into a strategic asset. It allows banks to track progress, demonstrate ROI, and continuously refine programs to strengthen relationships. Institutions that embrace this approach ensure that loyalty is not fleeting or reactive but a durable, quantifiable component of business strategy.

A Practical Path Forward

Rebuilding customer loyalty does not require sweeping transformation programs or revolutionary technology. The journey begins with visible, tangible actions that demonstrate intent and earn trust. Banks can prioritize three interrelated steps: reassurance, responsible personalization, and purposeful rewards.

Reassurance through clarity and protection is the first step. Customers must feel that their bank actively safeguards their finances. This involves transparent communication about security features, simplified fee structures, and visible protections against fraud. Clearly explaining overdraft policies or proactively notifying clients about suspicious transactions signals that the bank prioritizes their wellbeing, turning abstract promises into measurable confidence-building actions.

Responsible personalization is the second critical element. Banks should leverage data to serve the customer, not simply to sell. Proactive alerts about savings opportunities, reminders to prevent overdrafts, or tailored financial guidance show attentiveness and empathy. Personalization becomes meaningful only when it is contextual, transparent, and respectful of privacy boundaries. Explaining how recommendations are generated ensures that trust is reinforced rather than undermined by opaque technology.

Purpose-driven rewards form the third pillar. Traditional points or cashback programs are increasingly insufficient to inspire loyalty. Customers now value initiatives that align with their personal and societal values, such as sustainability-linked savings programs, inclusive lending, or community development incentives. By tying rewards to behaviors that benefit both the customer and society, banks foster loyalty that is emotional, ethical, and lasting.

Each of these steps communicates a broader message: the institution is acting in the customer’s best interest. A bank that simplifies fees, prevents scams, or celebrates responsible financial behavior demonstrates integrity and builds confidence without relying on slogans or marketing campaigns. These small, consistent actions accumulate, reinforcing loyalty over time.

Moreover, these initiatives are mutually reinforcing. Clear protections reassure customers and reduce attrition, personalization demonstrates attentiveness, and purposeful rewards create emotional alignment. When combined, they establish a virtuous cycle of trust that strengthens relationships, improves retention, and ultimately translates into measurable business value.

Importantly, this approach is scalable. Whether through digital channels, mobile apps, or branch interactions, the principles of reassurance, personalization, and purpose apply universally. By embedding these elements into daily operations and aligning incentives with customer-centric outcomes, banks can institutionalize trust, making it a core part of the operating model rather than a series of isolated initiatives.

In practice, banks that adopt this path move from transactional engagement to relationship banking, where every interaction, whether a mobile alert, a branch visit, or a financial consultation, reinforces confidence, demonstrates competence, and reflects ethical behavior. Over time, these cumulative experiences reshape customer perceptions, restore loyalty, and differentiate the institution in a competitive digital landscape.

The Return of Relationship Banking

Open banking and digital competition have leveled the field in terms of products, speed, and convenience. Every bank can now offer a mobile app, instant transfers, and broad access. What cannot be automated is trust. Each interaction, whether through a mobile notification, call center, or branch visit, either strengthens or weakens that trust.

Banks that succeed in the coming decade will treat loyalty as a shared relationship rather than a performance metric. Trust becomes the core differentiator, and all customer touchpoints are opportunities to reinforce it. Security is no longer a back-office function but a promise. Personalization is no longer a marketing tactic but a service. Empathy is not optional but the infrastructure that sustains relationships.

Accenture’s Tom Meyer summarized this principle in 2025: “Technology makes banking faster; trust makes it lasting”. This insight highlights the enduring value of human-centric banking, even in a digital-first world. Customers respond to actions that demonstrate reliability, care, and ethical behavior. Technology amplifies these behaviors, but it cannot replace the fundamental need for trust.

Leading banks are embedding trust into their operating model. Real-time fraud prevention, personalized financial guidance, and purpose-driven loyalty programs are combined with transparent communication and governance structures that reward ethical outcomes. Each initiative reinforces the message that the bank is a reliable partner in customers’ financial journeys.

Relationship banking is also about anticipating needs and offering timely interventions. Proactive alerts about potential overdrafts, personalized savings recommendations, or notifications about investment opportunities demonstrate attentiveness. Customers perceive these interventions not as marketing, but as guidance, creating a deeper emotional connection. Over time, these small, context-aware actions build cumulative trust that is difficult for competitors to replicate.

In emerging markets, this principle is particularly evident. Systems like India’s Unified Payments Interface and Kenya’s M-Pesa have shown that speed, accessibility, and trust combine to create strong customer loyalty, even in highly digital ecosystems. The lesson for global banks is clear: technology must serve humans, not replace them. Simplifying experiences, safeguarding funds, and demonstrating integrity are the pillars of lasting customer relationships.

Ultimately, relationship banking is the next frontier in loyalty. Technology will continue to make banking faster, but trust, empathy, and purpose make it meaningful. Banks that invest in reassurance, transparency, personalization, and ethical practices will not only retain customers but also convert them into advocates. Loyalty will once again become the most valuable currency of all, grounded in action, integrity, and shared purpose.

The Corporate Power Shift: How Decentralized Decision-Making Is Redefining Modern Business Leadership

The corporate world is undergoing a structural power shift. For decades, leadership meant sitting at the top of a pyramid, issuing directives that cascaded down through layers of management. Today, value creation is increasingly happening at the edges of the organization—inside small, autonomous teams with direct access to data, customers, and AI tools.

From Spotify’s “squads” and Amazon’s “two-pizza teams” to Haier’s radical micro-enterprise ecosystem, leading companies are redistributing decision rights away from headquarters and closer to where work actually happens. This transformation promises speed and innovation, but it also forces leaders to rethink risk, governance, and accountability in an environment where control can no longer be equated with centralization.

From Command-and-Control to Distributed Power

Traditional corporate hierarchies were built for a world where information was scarce, markets moved slowly, and coordination required layers of managers. Decisions were centralized because the people at the top had the broadest view of the business and the best access to data and expertise.

That logic is eroding. Digital technologies now make information widely accessible, and the pace of change in most industries punishes slow, committee-based decision-making. Research on decentralized decision-making notes that pushing decisions closer

to the affected areas typically produces faster, more flexible responses and often greater innovation, because local leaders have richer, more immediate information than distant executives.

Harvard Business Review highlights a growing trend: organizations are “pushing decision-making down and out” toward the front lines to become faster and nimbler. The caveat is that not all decisions should be decentralized—leaders must be deliberate about which choices remain centralized and which can safely move outward.

The emerging view is that corporate power structures work best when they are neither fully centralized nor fully flat. The goal is a calibrated balance where strategic direction, major capital allocation, and enterprise-wide risk remain tightly governed, while everyday product, customer, and operational decisions are made by the teams closest to the work.

Flat Hierarchies and Autonomous Teams

As organizations search for that balance, many are deliberately flattening structures and organizing around small, autonomous units.

The Scaled Agile Framework synthesizes lessons from innovative companies and argues that the most adaptive organizations push decisions “as far down in the organization as possible,” allowing people at all levels to move quickly, exercise creativity, and assume responsibility for outcomes.

In practice, this has led to a shift away from monolithic departments toward cross-functional teams that own a product, service, or customer journey end-to-end. Instead of simply executing centrally crafted plans, these teams are responsible for defining problems, testing solutions, and making day-to-day tradeoffs. Their power comes not from titles but from clearly defined mandates and visibility into the data that matters.

This evolution is also closely linked to talent expectations. As digital-native professionals enter the workforce, they increasingly expect autonomy, growth, and meaningful participation in decisions. In banking, for instance, Global Banking & Finance Review describes how institutions are rethinking work design and career paths to attract digital-native skills, emphasizing innovation, flexibility, and project-based work.

The shift toward flatter, more empowered organizations is therefore not only structural, but also a response to how the next generation of employees wants to work.

Spotify: Autonomy with Alignment

Spotify has become an emblematic case of decentralized organizational design. Instead of a traditional product hierarchy, it organizes around a network of small, cross-functional units called squads, grouped into tribes and supported by chapters and guilds.

The Spotify model is described as a people-driven, autonomous approach to scaling agile, focused on culture and networks rather than rigid structures. It aims to increase innovation and productivity by emphasizing autonomy, communication, accountability, and quality.

Within this design, squads behave like mini start-ups. Each squad owns a specific part of the product, has the skills to design and ship changes, and is trusted to choose its own ways of working. External analyses of the model emphasize that success depends on maintaining both autonomy and alignment: squads need the freedom to act quickly, but they also need shared roadmaps, common cultural norms, and clear strategic direction to avoid fragmentation.

Spotify’s experience demonstrates that decentralization cannot be reduced to simply “removing hierarchy.” It requires a thoughtful architecture of roles, rituals, and information flows that allow small teams to move quickly while still pulling in the same strategic direction.

Amazon: Two-Pizza Teams and Single-Threaded Leaders

Amazon’s approach to decentralization is grounded in small, autonomous “two-pizza teams”—teams small enough that two pizzas can feed everyone in the room. The principle is simple: smaller teams coordinate more easily, move faster, and feel a stronger sense of ownership.

Amazon describes these teams as owning a product or service end-to-end, with responsibility for both building and running what they create. This design is reinforced by “single-threaded leaders,” who are dedicated to one major initiative instead of juggling multiple priorities.

Independent analyses of the two-pizza model highlight how this structure pushes decision authority closer to customers and reduces the need for slow, multi-layer approvals. But they also note that, as Amazon scaled, the company had to strengthen coordination mechanisms and clarify leadership roles when some small teams struggled with dependencies and strategic alignment.

Amazon’s story underscores a recurring theme: decentralization works best when autonomy is matched by clear ownership, strong metrics, and disciplined mechanisms for cross-team coordination.

Haier: Micro-Enterprises and the Rendanheyi Model

Haier, the Chinese appliance manufacturer, offers perhaps the most radical example of decentralized corporate power. Under the leadership of Zhang Ruimin, Haier dismantled its traditional hierarchy and adopted the Rendanheyi model, transforming into a platform of thousands of micro-enterprises that function like independent start-ups.

Academic work on Rendanheyi describes it as a management model that integrates employees (“Ren”) and users (“Dan”) so that value creation is directly tied to customer needs. Haier’s organizational structure shifted from a conventional manufacturing firm to an online, entrepreneurial ecosystem where micro-enterprises own their strategy, P&L, and customer relationships.

A detailed analysis in California Management Review shows how Rendanheyi allowed Haier to respond rapidly to changing markets by turning employees into entrepreneurs and the company into a platform for internal and external ventures.

Recent practitioner accounts reinforce this picture, describing how Haier now operates as a network of micro-enterprises with considerable decision authority and direct accountability

for outcomes, supported by shared platforms rather than managed through traditional chains of command.

Haier shows how far decentralization can go when a company is willing to rethink not just its hierarchy, but also its basic assumptions about employment, ownership, and strategy.

AI, Data Transparency, and the Infrastructure of Autonomy

The rise of decentralized decision-making is inseparable from advances in data and AI. Small teams can only make good autonomous decisions if they have access to timely, reliable information and tools that help them interpret it.

McKinsey’s research on the “organization of the future” argues that leading companies are embedding generative AI into the heart of their operating models, using it to augment human decision-making at every level. The report emphasizes that gen AI can empower people—but only if leaders intentionally redesign roles, workflows, and structures around it.

A complementary McKinsey report on AI in the workplace frames AI as a “super-agent” that can amplify human agency by automating routine tasks, surfacing insights, and enabling new forms of collaboration and creativity.

In decentralized organizations, this means AI and analytics increasingly serve as the glue that holds distributed decision-making together. When teams

across the business have access to shared dashboards, predictive models, and experimentation tools, they can align on reality even when they are making decisions independently.

Deloitte’s 2024 Global Human Capital Trends report notes that as work becomes more boundaryless and team-based, organizations are under pressure to develop new ways to measure performance beyond simple productivity counts—putting greater emphasis on innovation, learning, and human impact.

Together, these insights suggest that AI and data transparency are not just technical upgrades. They are the infrastructure that makes distributed power feasible and governable at scale.

Risk, Governance, and the New Accountability Equation

The central tension in decentralized decision-making is the trade-off between agility and control. More autonomy can lead to faster decisions and richer innovation, but it can also introduce fragmentation, inconsistent standards, and new risk exposures.

Harvard Business Review stresses that the decision to decentralize should be based on the nature of the decisions themselves: where information is local, uncertainty is high, and speed matters, decentralization often makes sense; where stakes are high, risks are systemic, or coordination is crucial, centralization may still be necessary.

The World Economic Forum, examining decentralized operations in a post-pandemic world, argues for models that are “decentralized but not fragmented.” Effective organizations, it suggests, use governance to strike a balance between local autonomy and global coherence, ensuring that decision rights are clear and that critical standards—such as safety, ethics, and cyber security—are centrally defined and enforced.

In practice, this is leading to new governance patterns. Central teams increasingly act as platform and policy owners rather than gatekeepers for every operational choice. Guardrails—such as risk limits, AI ethics principles, and regulatory policies—define what is off-limits, while dashboards and monitoring systems track outcomes rather than micromanaging inputs. Accountability shifts from “did you follow the process?” to “did your decisions create value and stay within agreed boundaries?”

Culture, Talent, and Engagement in Decentralized Organizations

Decentralization is not purely a structural change; it is also a cultural and talent transformation. When decisions move to the edges, employees must be prepared to handle greater responsibility, ambiguity, and visibility.

Deloitte’s 2024 Global Human Capital Trends emphasizes that organizations are moving toward a “boundaryless” model of work, where teams form and reform across functions, geographies, and even organizational borders. In that world, human performance—the interplay of business outcomes and human outcomes—becomes the core lens for designing roles, structures, and leadership.

The report argues that thriving in this environment requires rethinking how people are developed, measured, and supported, with a stronger focus on learning, collaboration, and adaptability.

Sector-specific evidence points in the same direction. In banking, the “talent crunch” for digital and technology skills is forcing institutions to design work in ways that appeal to digital natives, who value autonomy, growth, and meaningful impact over traditional hierarchies and rigid career ladders.

When organizations get decentralization right, employees often report higher engagement and a stronger sense of ownership. They can see the direct impact of their decisions, move between projects and teams more fluidly, and shape their own growth paths. When it is done poorly, however, decentralization can feel like abandonment: responsibilities increase, but support, clarity, and recognition do not.

Successes, Failures, and Lessons Learned

The experiences of Spotify, Amazon, and Haier show that decentralized decision-making can unlock significant gains in innovation and adaptability. But they also show that decentralization is not a one-time fix; it is a continuous design challenge.

Spotify has had to keep evolving its model as it grows, fine-tuning the balance between squad autonomy and cross-tribe alignment. https://www.atlassian.com/agile/agile-agile-at-scale/spotify

Amazon discovered that small teams alone were not enough; they required strong leadership, clear metrics, and mechanisms to manage interdependencies among services.

Haier’s journey shows that radical decentralization requires an equally radical reinvention of culture, incentives, and leadership roles, as well as robust platform capabilities to avoid descending into chaos.

Across these stories, a consistent lesson emerges: decentralization magnifies what already exists. In organizations with strong purpose, healthy culture, and solid data infrastructure, distributed decision-making can be a powerful accelerant of innovation and engagement. In organizations with weak alignment or low trust, it can amplify confusion and conflict.

The Future of Organizational Structure in an AI-Driven Economy

Looking ahead, the corporate power shift is likely to deepen as AI becomes woven into every aspect of work. But the destination is not a world without hierarchy; it is a world of more fluid, hybrid structures.

McKinsey’s view of the organization of the future suggests that leaders will increasingly rely on generative AI not just for analysis, but for designing and operating new organizational models—using AI to simulate scenarios, allocate resources dynamically, and support continuous adaptation.

Deloitte anticipates that organizations will become more boundaryless, with people moving seamlessly across internal and external ecosystems, and with HR, technology, and business leaders jointly shaping the structures that enable human and business performance.

In that future, organizational design itself may become a continuous process rather than an episodic “reorg.” Power will be less about formal titles and more about who has access to information, who can mobilize teams quickly, and who can orchestrate complex networks of people and AI agents around emerging opportunities.

Decentralized decision-making is redefining what it means to lead. Leaders can no longer rely on authority rooted solely in hierarchy and control; they must become designers of systems in which many others can exercise power responsibly.

That involves articulating a clear purpose and strategy, setting non-negotiable guardrails, investing heavily in data and AI capabilities, and building cultures that reward experimentation, learning, and ethical judgment. It also means reimagining accountability—shifting from supervising activity to owning outcomes, long-term value, and the health of the overall ecosystem.

The corporate power shift is not about leaders giving power away; it is about redistributing power so that more of the organization can see reality clearly, act quickly, and create value. In an AI-driven economy where speed, innovation, and human ingenuity define competitive advantage, the organizations that learn to combine decentralized energy at the edges with intelligent governance at the core will be the ones that lead the next era of business.

The Leadership Imperative

Digital by Design: How Women Are Engineering Absa’s Tomorrow

In the heart of South Africa’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, there is a growing number of role models in the banking industry who are breaking barriers and redefining what it means to be leaders in finance. From product management and design to cybercrime controls and governance, women are carving out spaces in the supervisory order and transforming institutions from within.

One such institution is Absa Group, a financial powerhouse that has embraced digital transformation with bold ambition and a commitment to diversity. This article explores the dynamic roles women play in South Africa’s digital ecosystem, with a spotlight on Absa’s trailblazing female professionals. Their stories reflect purpose, innovation, and a deep understanding of the unique challenges and opportunities that come with digitising financial services in a diverse and complex market.

The South African Digital Context

South Africa’s digital landscape is marked by contrasts. On one hand, the country boasts high mobile penetration and a growing appetite for digital services. On the other, South Africa’s injustices are now feeding a relatively new form of disparity, that is, digital

inequality. The harsh reality is that the lack of digital access and literacy for many in South Africa is increasing the country’s inequality gap. It grapples with deep socio-economic divides, uneven access to technology, and a persistent gender gap in STEM fields. In this context, digital transformation is more than a business imperative, it’s a social mission.

“Our digital economy is growing at an unprecedented pace. With over 43 million internet users and a mobile penetration rate exceeding 90%, the country is ripe for digital innovation. Yet, the gender gap in digital industries remains a persistent challenge”, says Phiwo Mlotshwa, Digital Portfolio Lead at Absa Digital.

According to the World Economic Forum, women make up less than 30% of the global tech workforce, and South Africa mirrors this trend. However, institutions like Absa are actively working to change that narrative. Through targeted recruitment, mentorship programs, and inclusive leadership strategies, Absa is empowering women to lead digital transformation from the front lines.

South African women transforming tech at Absa Bank

Across disciplines and departments, their contributions reflect a powerful blend of technical expertise, strategic vision, and cultural insight that

is redefining what it means to be digital in Africa. Absa has embraced this mission with clarity and purpose. As part of its broader strategy to become a digitally powered bank, Absa has invested heavily in platforms, partnerships, and people. Central to this transformation is advocating for women in digital roles, an intentional move that reflects both a commitment to diversity and a recognition of the unique value women bring to the digital table. From Johannesburg to Cape Town, Durban to Polokwane, women at Absa are shaping the bank’s digital journey in ways that are both visible and profound. Their work spans technology, product development, risk and governance management, design, cybersecurity, and digital adoption, each area contributing to a more inclusive, agile, and customer-centric financial ecosystem.

“In a space traditionally dominated by men, more women are now architecting smart, human-centric digital experiences, building IT infrastructure, systems, and applications that serve our diverse South African communities”, says Zeenat Hassim, Interim Chief Information Officer at Absa. “By blending technical expertise and visionary thinking with the understanding of our economical and geological landscape, we turn our technological capabilities into a competitive advantage.”

Building inclusive digital products for a diverse nation

“South Africa’s population is as diverse as its geography, and designing digital products that resonate across this spectrum requires empathy,

cultural fluency, and a deep understanding of local realities”, says Sivan Lapidus, Head of Design at Absa Digital. “Women at Absa are at the forefront of this effort, helping to craft digital solutions that reflect the lived experiences of South Africans. Whether it’s simplifying mobile banking for informal traders, integrating vernacular language support, or designing interfaces that accommodate varying levels of digital literacy, we ensure that technology serves everyone, not just the digitally astute”.

This commitment to inclusion is both good ethics, and good business. By expanding access to financial services and removing barriers to entry, Absa is tapping into underserved markets and fostering long-term customer loyalty. Women’s contributions to product development are central to this strategy, helping the bank deliver solutions that are innovative and impactful.

Securing trust in the digital age

As digital banking accelerates, so does the complexity of risk. In this evolving landscape, governance is not just a compliance tick box - it’s about earning trust. “Risk management in digital banking is fundamentally about building confidence,” says Suella Derman, Head of Governance and Control at Absa Digital. “We champion fraud awareness and customer education because informed customers are empowered customers.” This commitment goes hand in hand with

cutting-edge safeguards. Absa employs advanced risk analytics across its digital products, platforms, and processes, backed by comprehensive monitoring and rapid incident response. Every interaction is designed to be secure and seamless.

“Innovation is about creating a digital future where safety and simplicity coexist”, continued Suella. ”In South Africa, where financial scams often target vulnerable communities, this approach is both a strategic intent and also a social imperative. By anticipating threats and educating users, we are shaping a safer digital environment for all”.

At the heart of this effort lies a simple truth: trust is the cornerstone of every digital experience, especially with banking.

Leading change from within

“Digital transformation is more than launching new products. It’s changing how people live, work, think, and interact. We are propelling a cultural shift, helping customers embrace new technologies and ways of working”, says Michelle Bisaro, Digital Product Lead at Absa. “Managing this change is both an art and a science. We use storytelling, gamification, and customer education initiatives to make digital transformation engaging and relatable for our clients”.

The digital transformation of South Africa’s financial sector is a complex and ongoing journey. It requires a deep understanding of the country’s unique challenges and opportunities. Having a diverse and representative leadership team, Absa is playing a central role in this journey, driving digital banking across disciplines and redefining what it means to lead in digital.

Empowerment through partnership

Absa’s commitment to women in digital extends beyond its internal operations. They provide targeted financial products and business support to help women entrepreneurs launch and scale their businesses, such as their “She Thrives” program, which offers women-owned businesses low-cost banking solutions, while the “Women-in-Business Directors Training Programme” collaborates with the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SACCI), offering training to help increase the number of women on corporate boards.

The “She's Next” initiative, In partnership with Visa, provides women entrepreneurs with funding, training, and mentorship to help them succeed. In 2025, the program awarded over R1 million in grant funding.

“We recognize the importance of creating pathways for more women to enter and thrive in digital careers. Because when women lead in digital, the entire nation moves forward,” says Anna Nascimento, Head of Digital Adoption at Absa. “Digital adoption encompasses consumer culture, customer education and digital dexterity. Over the past year, Absa

Digital has grown its digitally active customer base by more than 11%, introduced AI-led personalisation pilots, and strengthened digital fraud protections, all while keeping ethical innovation at the centre”.

These efforts reflect a broader vision: to empower Africa’s tomorrow through inclusive innovation. By supporting women in digital, Absa is contributing meaningfully to a more equitable and prosperous society.

The Road Ahead: Challenges and Opportunities

While progress is undeniable, challenges remain. In the industry, women in digital still face barriers such as unconscious bias, limited access to mentorship, and underrepresentation in leadership roles. Deliberate inclusion, opportunities and collaborating with external partners to support STEM education and entrepreneurship among women is key to advancement.

Looking ahead, the future of digital in South Africa will depend on how well institutions harness the full spectrum of talent. Women bring unique perspectives that are essential for building inclusive, resilient, and innovative digital ecosystems.

Women at Absa are playing a central role in its future

The women of Absa Digital’s executive committee stand for customerfirst innovation, where every product, feature, and experience begins

with a single question: How can we make banking easier, safer, and more human? Every discipline plays a critical role: Design ensures every journey is built around empathy and insight, creating digital experiences that feel intuitive and inclusive. Digital Adoption connects innovation to customers’ everyday lives, ensuring that the right solutions reach the right people in ways that build trust and confidence. Digital Products drive growth and delivery, turning ideas into scalable products that solve real customer challenges. And Operational Governance anchors it all in integrity, resilience, and responsible innovation.

“Together, we are united by a shared belief that digitalisation must start and end with the customer”, says Subash Sharma, Chief Digital Officer at Absa. “Digital progress is being powered by women across Africa. Their leadership, creativity, and persistence are transforming the way we think about technological advancement. I’m incredibly proud to witness the remarkable work being done by our women executives”.

The inspirational stories of Zeenat, Phiwo, Michelle, Sivan, Suella and Anna from Absa demonstrates that the future of digital banking is being designed, delivered, and governed by women who turn customer insight into impact and innovation into trust. As institutions continue to evolve, the involvement of women in digital roles will be essential to building systems that are resolute, and responsive to the needs of all citizens.

Expanding the Edge: OCBC Securities Accelerates Innovation under Wilson He

OCBC Securities, a wholly owned subsidiary of OCBC and one of Singapore’s leading brokerage firms, is expanding its edge in the market through focused innovation—enhancing platform capabilities, leveraging Artificial Intelligence in customer-centric ways, and building on its integration with OCBC. Under the direction of Managing Director Wilson He, the firm has continued to advance its digital roadmap, including the rollout of A.I. Oscar, an innovative artificial intelligence powered virtual trading assistant, which provides personalised stock ideas based on a customer's trading history and basic demographic data. Alongside ongoing upgrades to the iOCBC trading platforms and the continued success of the co-branded ETFs with Lion Global Investors, OCBC Securities is deepening its commitment to giving investors more responsive tools, broader access, and a seamless trading experience.

We caught up with Wilson to explore how these initiatives— spanning artificial intelligence, platform upgrades, and product development—are shaping OCBC Securities’ vision for a more agile, integrated trading experience.

Expanding Access Through A.I. Oscar

In June of 2024, A.I. Oscar began providing stock ideas for the U.S. and Hong Kong markets. By November, the number of unique monthly users had almost doubled. Wilson said the growth reflected the tool’s ability to deliver timely and relevant stock ideas based on customers' trading history.

“In the current volatile environment, our customers want insights that add value,” Wilson said. “A.I. Oscar has proven itself to be an indispensable tool in providing just that.”

A real-time example came in April 2025, when an unexpected tariff hike announced by President Trump triggered market turbulence. "A.I. Oscar rapidly generated a list of potential stock ideas for our customers," Wilson said.

While the tool was initially expected to appeal to younger users, adoption has extended across age groups. “We’ve found that seasoned investors and traders are also incorporating A.I. Oscar as part of how they monitor market movements and potential opportunities,” Wilson added.

Thematic push notifications have also helped maintain engagement by keeping users up to date on the latest market trends and potential opportunities.

Improving Infrastructure and Trading Access

OCBC Securities has focused on improving how customers manage both funding and trading activity across its platforms. As part of its infrastructure integration with OCBC, the firm now enables instant fee-free fund transfers across up to 11 different currencies between their Basic Trading Account and eligible OCBC bank account.

“Our enhanced fund transfer service helps ensure that investors can respond quickly to opportunities and maintain sufficient balances when needed,” Wilson said.

This capability gives customers round-the-clock access to their balances through the iOCBC trading platforms. “The aim is to make trading simpler, more efficient, and more accessible,” Wilson added.

In May 2025, OCBC Securities introduced a refreshed interface for its mobile trading app—part of ongoing updates to the iOCBC trading platforms. Wilson said the revamp focused on making the app easier to use, particularly for investors who trade while on the move. The update included a customisable shortcuts panel and improved access to weekly stock ideas from A.I. Oscar.

Wilson pointed to the addition of a new screen that displays bid-ask prices, trading ranges, and volume in a single view. “Customers can now view live bid-ask prices, daily trading ranges, and market volume all in one place,” he said. “It removes the need to switch between screens and helps users stay on top of market movements more efficiently.”

The project, Wilson explained, was informed by feedback gathered through OCBC’s customer labs, where users test new features and share insights directly with the team. “We’re constantly reviewing how our

Wilson He Managing Director, OCBC Securities

customers interact with the platform and using those insights to guide our product roadmap,” he said. “There are additional features in the pipeline that will continue to build on this foundation and improve the trading experience over time.”

Enhancing Portfolio Control Through Consolidation

Consolidating securities within OCBC Securities allows customers to better monitor portfolio performance, rebalance holdings, and respond to market shifts more effectively. “When everything is under one roof, it becomes easier to make timely adjustments,” Wilson said.

He added that this also improves how customers use A.I. Oscar. “The tool is able to generate more relevant stock ideas when it has access to a fuller view of a customer’s trading history and behaviour,” Wilson said. “That additional context helps surface ideas that are better aligned with how each customer typically interacts with the market.”

Wilson said the firm offers a share financing option that enables customers to use their existing stockholdings as collateral. "They can access up to 4 times the value of their current stockholdings without having to sell their positions," he said. “It’s about unlocking value that’s already in the portfolio and keeping investors in control of their strategy.”

Delivering Thematic Investment Access Through ETFs

OCBC Securities has partnered with Lion Global Investors to co-launch a suite of exchange-traded funds that give investors access to targeted themes and sectors across Asia. "These ETFs are designed to support different trading strategies for both new and experienced investors," Wilson said.

A notable example is the Lion-OCBC Securities APAC Financials Dividend Plus ETF, which was launched in May 2024 and tracks the iEdge APAC Financials Dividend Plus Index. It offers exposure to 30

leading financial institutions1 across the Asia Pacific region, including banks, insurers, and investment services firms and is designed to deliver dividends. It was named Top New ETF by AUM on SGX in 2025 and awarded Best New ETF (Singapore) by Asia Asset Management in 20252

The diversified Lion-OCBC Securities ETFs range include thematic products tailored to different investor goals. These span from sustainability-focused funds like the Lion-OCBC Securities Singapore Low Carbon ETF, which tracks the iEdgeOCBC Singapore Low Carbon Select 40 Capped Index, to other funds like the Lion-OCBC Securities China Leaders ETF, which was the best performing China equities ETF on SGX in 20243

Maintaining the Human Element

Although platform development remains a key focus, Wilson said that OCBC Securities continues to rely on its Trading Representatives as a central part of the client experience. We support our Trading Representatives by providing them access to timely market insights and information," he said. "That enables them to respond quickly when clients require assistance."

The team also draws on partnerships with organisations including Nasdaq, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Bank of Singapore, and OCBC Wealth Advisory. These relationships ensure representatives are informed on regulatory changes, macro events, and market shifts.

“Our goal is to ensure that customers have access to both timely information and experienced support when it matters most,” Wilson said.

Strategic Priorities for Platform and Product Development

Looking ahead, Wilson said OCBC Securities remains focused on helping investors navigate fast-changing market conditions. “Our customers lead full, often fast-paced lives,” he said. “We want their trading experience to be straightforward—easier to access, easier to understand, and supported by tools that help them make more informed decisions.”

He added that the firm is continuing to refine A.I. Oscar and the iOCBC trading platforms, while expanding product options to meet growing demand for more investment offerings. “We’re investing in our systems, our product lineup, and our people to ensure we can keep pace with customer expectations and support them as those expectations evolve,” Wilson said.

Driving Efficiency and Profit Through Customer-Centric Banking

Did you know that the majority of banking customers say their experience with their bank influences their loyalty more than rates or products? In today’s hyper-competitive landscape, customercentric banking isn’t just a buzzword—it’s a business imperative.

As expectations evolve, banks can no longer rely solely on competitive rates or product innovation. Customers now evaluate their financial institutions by how seamless, personalized, and trustworthy their interactions are. Those that truly put the customer at the heart of their strategy are seeing measurable gains—not only in loyalty, but also in operational efficiency and profitability.

What Customer Experience is in Banking

Customer experience in banking refers to the overall perception and satisfaction customers form through every interaction with their bank. This spans the entire journey—from opening an account, making transactions, or requesting support, to engaging with digital platforms, ATMs, or branches.

Every touchpoint matters. A smooth mobile transfer, a clear explanation from a call center agent, or a helpful branch employee can build trust and loyalty. On the other hand, friction—like unclear fees, long wait times, or clunky apps—quickly erodes confidence.

Why Customer Experience Matters

Putting customers first can significantly move the needle, as many fintechs and select banks have shown. In an industry where competing products and services are often similar, the quality of customer interactions becomes the key differentiator.

• Positive experiences build trust: Satisfied customers stay longer, recommend their bank, and adopt more products.

• Poor experiences carry costs: Churn, complaints, and reputational damage require expensive recovery efforts.

Experience-led growth pays off: McKinsey reports that banks increasing customer satisfaction and engagement by 20% can achieve 15–25% higher cross-sell rates and 5–10% greater share of wallet. But what if customer-centricity can also be a driver to reshaping operations to be leaner, more efficient, and more profitable?

How Banks Can Elevate the Customer Experience and Drive Efficiencies at the Same

Time

1. Embrace customer centrality and simplification

Traditionally, banking processes have forced customers to fit

around internal workflows. In a customer-centric model, the reverse is true: operations are designed around customer needs. Simplifying processes at scale helps in two ways:

• It reduces friction for customers.

• It streamlines internal operations, lowering complexity and costs.

• When banks rethink processes from the outside in, they achieve higher productivity and happier clients and employees.

2. Foster trust through transparency, security, data privacy and compliance

Trust remains the cornerstone of any banking relationship. To foster it, banks must be transparent and uncompromising on security, data privacy and compliance:

• Transparency: clear communication on fees and conditions (e.g., for loan approval) removes confusion and builds confidence.

• Security: customers must feel safe whenever they use a channel provided by their FI. AI and machine learning can help by detecting suspicious patterns and anomalies in real time. Strong measures— biometric authentication, data encryption, continuous fraud monitoring—are essential to reassure customers. As CEOs across the industry point out, the challenge isn’t just adopting AI; it’s ensuring that innovation doesn’t outpace security.

• Data Privacy: Customers must be reassured that their data is fully safeguarded, with strict adherence to privacy regulations and robust controls governing how personal information is collected, stored, and used.

• Compliance: A truly customer-centric approach must also address the critical areas of Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti Money Laundering (AML). By embedding these regulatory requirements into digital processes and automating checks, banks can offer secure, faster onboarding and ongoing monitoring that build customer trust while meeting legal obligations.

3. Guarantee a seamless omnichannel experience

Modern banking customers expect to move fluidly between channels: app, branch, ATM, website, or call center—without repeating themselves or facing inconsistent service. All channels must be integrated. Banks leveraging connected digital platforms that offer accessible and consistent interactions across all channels are seeing measurable impact.

4. Personalize at scale

Tailoring offers to meet customers’ needs and preferences is the new driver for maintaining loyalty and increasing returning customers with next-level satisfaction

Pelwasha Faquiryan, Head of Global Enterprise Accounts, Banking, Diebold Nixdorf

• Analytics can identify key milestones—like buying a home or having a child—that trigger specific needs.

• AI can analyze spending patterns to suggest smarter budgeting, personalized offers, or relevant investment opportunities.

By implementing personalization, institutions can ensure relevant and timely customer engagements, leading to higher sign-up rates and improved long-term loyalty.

5. Allocate resources more intelligently

Automation can transform how banks deploy people and processes:

• Routine tasks: Automated workflows reduce errors, cut manual labor, and lower operational costs.

• Predictive analytics: Banks can forecast service demand and allocate resources more efficiently.

• Employee empowerment: Freed from administrative work, staff can focus on high-value, customer-facing interactions.

This shift doesn’t just improve efficiency—it enables smoother, more seamless customer journeys.

6. Elevate the branch experience

Despite the digital shift, physical branches continue to be the preferred channel for high-value or complex interactions such as loan applications, financial advice, or account openings (GlobalData, 2024).

To succeed in driving meaningful in-person branch visits, banks must:

• Equip staff with real-time data and CRM insights, enabling them to resolve issues promptly and provide personalized product recommendations. This not only boosts productivity but also enhances customer experience.

• Free up resources by migrating routine services to ATMs or other digital channels. In that regard, advances in technology have broadened the scope of cash and non-cash banking services that can now be delivered efficiently and cost-effectively via the ATM channel, opening up new opportunities.

These strategies support the evolution of the role of branches to relationshipdriven engagement and value generation hubs.

7. Deliver 24/7, real-time banking

Customers increasingly expect the ability to bank when, where, and how they want. Self-service tools such as ATMs, chatbots, mobile apps, and virtual assistants make this possible, while also lowering costs:

• They reduce volumes at call centers and branches.

• They offer immediate responses to common inquiries.

• They give customers control over their banking experience. When implemented well, self-service both streamlines operations and enhances engagement.

Leading Through Customer-Centric Banking

The lesson is clear: efficiency and customer experience are not opposing goals—they fuel each other. Banks that truly put the customer at the center of every decision can:

• Streamline operations and reduce costs.

• Unlock new revenue streams.

• Build loyalty and long-term profitability.

Looking ahead, digital transformation is only accelerating. The winners will be those that see customer-centricity not as a one-off initiative, but as a mindset woven into the fabric of the organization.

Diebold Nixdorf’s Branch Automation Solutions combine selfservice, branch and digital capabilities to facilitate seamless, richer, and faster consumer journeys, driving new efficiency levels.

Is your institution ready to lead the way? Let’s connect if you’d like to explore how your bank can drive efficiency and elevate the customer experience in retail banking.

From Cloud to Edge: The Next Great Shift in Computing Power and Business Efficiency

For more than a decade, “move it to the cloud” has been the default infrastructure strategy. That approach worked when data volumes were manageable and most applications didn’t need instant responses. But today, factories, vehicles, ATMs, and city infrastructure are generating torrents of data that must be acted on in milliseconds, not seconds.

The result is the next big shift in computing: from a cloud-only model to a cloud-plus-edge model, where much of the intelligence moves closer to where data is created. Instead of shipping everything to distant data centers, organizations are increasingly processing data at or near the source and sending only what’s necessary to the cloud for long-term storage and heavy analytics.

What Edge Computing Is — And Why It Matters

A clear definition comes from Intel, which describes edge computing as bringing compute “where data is created” so organizations can “act quickly on available data even in locations with poor connectivity,” rather than always sending everything to the cloud first.

A Gartner perspective places edge computing inside a wider infrastructure transformation, calling it one of the key trends reshaping how enterprises design cloud, data center, and infrastructure strategies as workloads increasingly span “cloud, data center and edge infrastructure” instead of living in a single environment.

An accessible explanation from Science News Today describes edge computing as “processing data closer to where it is generated, rather than sending it to a distant cloud server or data center,” emphasizing benefits like lower latency, less bandwidth consumption, and better real-time responsiveness in applications such as autonomous vehicles and industrial automation.

Put simply: cloud is still the brain for heavy analysis and long-term memory, but edge is becoming the nervous system, handling the reflexes that must fire instantly in the physical world.

Cloud vs. Edge: Cost, Efficiency, and Risk

Cloud continues to excel at global scale, elastic capacity, and heavy analytics. It’s where organizations want to train large AI models, consolidate data across regions, and run complex simulations. Analysts like Gartner have repeatedly framed cloud as a foundational platform that remains central even as edge rises alongside it.

The problem is that modern devices generate too much data to send everything to the cloud in real time. The Intel Edge Insight Visual notes that pushing raw data to the cloud for every interaction wastes bandwidth and adds latency, whereas processing at the edge “saves time and cost without the need to send data to the cloud for processing” and allows organizations to keep operating even when connectivity is unreliable.

Independent explainers echo that trade-off. Science News Today points out that moving compute closer to devices “reduces the time it takes for data to travel, enhances real-time decision-making, and increases overall efficiency of networks,” especially when you’re dealing with high-volume data streams such as video or sensor feeds.

There is a cost to deploying and managing distributed hardware, but in many logistics and industrial settings, the business case is strong: you save on bandwidth, avoid bottlenecks, and prevent expensive downtime by making decisions locally. Large vendors’ edge case studies consistently show that organizations recoup investments through higher equipment uptime, more efficient routing, and fewer manual interventions.

Security and compliance also play a role. Intel explicitly highlights “tighter control” as a core benefit, because keeping data at the edge means less raw, sensitive information is transmitted or centralized, which can reduce exposure and simplify regulatory obligations in sectors like finance and healthcare.

The emerging best practice is not “cloud or edge,” but cloud for global intelligence and history, edge for local speed and control.

Edge in Practice: Autonomous Vehicles

Autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles show why edge computing is more than a buzzword. A vehicle is a rolling data center: cameras, radar, LiDAR, and other sensors stream vast amounts of data that must be interpreted in milliseconds.

Science News Today lists autonomous vehicles as a prime edge use case, explaining that they rely on local processing to make “split-second decisions” such as braking or lane changes, while sending only selected information back to the cloud for long-term learning and traffic optimization.

On the infrastructure side, Intel’s network and edge deployment paper notes that many advanced 5G and automotive scenarios fall into the category of ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC) and “require extremely high end-to-end performance,” which can only be achieved by pushing compute closer to end users instead of relying on distant data centers.

In practice, that means vehicles run AI models locally to detect pedestrians, interpret signs, and decide how to steer or brake, while summary data and edge-learned insights are uploaded later for fleet-wide analytics and model retraining.

Logistics companies are adopting the same pattern inside warehouses and yards: robots, scanners, and smart cameras make real-time decisions on the spot — verifying loads, rerouting pallets, flagging safety issues — instead of waiting for a round trip to the cloud.

Edge in Banking: IoT, Real-Time Decisions and the Talent Crunch

Banks are also moving intelligence out toward the edge — into branches, ATMs, and payment endpoints. Smart ATMs and kiosks increasingly perform biometric checks, device integrity tests, and fraud scoring locally before synchronizing final decisions and logs with central systems, applying the same edge principles used in retail and transport hubs.

Point-of-sale terminals and mobile banking apps can run lightweight AI models at the edge to score transactions in real time, combining device fingerprints, behavioral data, and contextual signals to decide whether to approve, challenge, or block an action. This is exactly the pattern Intel highlights as one of edge computing’s core benefits: fast inference close to the user, with heavy training and aggregation left to the cloud .

All of this, however, depends on people as much as platforms. The Global Banking & Finance Review analysis of “The Banking Talent Crunch” warns that as banks push deeper into advanced digital services, a “growing shortage of skilled talent” in areas like AI, data analytics, and cybersecurity has become a strategic vulnerability, not just an HR problem.

That article explains that forward-looking banks are redesigning recruitment, upskilling, and culture to attract and retain digital-native professionals — shifting toward flexible work, structured learning paths, and innovationfocused environments — because those capabilities are now “foundational to future growth” in a digital-first economy.

In other words: edge computing in banking isn’t just about deploying smarter ATMs or branch sensors. It’s about whether institutions can build a workforce capable of architecting secure, compliant, cloud–edge–AI systems and continuously evolving them.

Smart Cities: Edge as Urban Nervous System

Smart cities are another natural arena for edge. Traffic lights, CCTV cameras, pollution sensors, parking systems, and public transport feeds generate a constant flow of data that must be turned into immediate action.

Science News Today points out that by moving processing closer to these devices, cities can “enhance real-time decision-making” while avoiding the latency and bandwidth overhead of sending every video frame or sensor tick to the cloud .

In practice, roadside units can analyze camera feeds locally to adjust signal timing, detect congestion, or prioritize emergency vehicles, and only send alerts and metadata back to central systems. Utility operators can run analytics at substations to balance loads, detect faults, and manage distributed energy resources in near real time, even if connectivity to central systems is degraded.

The city’s central cloud platforms still matter — they coordinate strategy, run longer-term analytics, and store history — but day-to-day safety and efficiency increasingly depend on the micro-decisions made by edge nodes scattered throughout the urban environment.

5G and AI: Fuel for the Edge Shift

The rise of edge computing is tightly intertwined with 5G and AI. Intel’s edge deployment paper highlights that many of the flagship 5G scenarios — from industrial automation to vehicleto-everything (V2X) — depend on edge computing to meet stringent latency and reliability requirements, because traffic can no longer afford to bounce through a distant core for every decision.

At Mobile World Congress 2024, Intel announced a new Edge Platform described as an open, modular software layer to “develop, deploy, secure, and manage edge and AI applications at scale,” effectively bringing cloud-like tools to widely distributed environments (https://www.intel.com/content/ www/us/en/newsroom/news/edge-platform-scaling-ai.html).

Gartner, meanwhile, has been clear that cloud is evolving from a pure technology platform into a broader business disruptor, with trends such as AI/ML integration and digital sovereignty pushing organizations toward hybrid architectures that blend cloud and edge.

In this model, the pipeline looks like this: large AI models are trained on aggregated data in the cloud, distilled into smaller models, and then deployed at the edge for low-latency inference in factories, vehicles, branches, and city infrastructure. New data and feedback from those edge sites are then fed back into the cloud to continuously re-train and improve the models .

Future Outlook: Distributed Intelligence as Business Infrastructure

Independent analyses increasingly converge on the same picture of the future: distributed intelligence will be the default. Instead of asking “cloud or edge?”, organizations will decide which parts of a workflow run in which place based on latency, bandwidth, privacy, and business impact.

Science News Today argues that edge computing is a structural response to the limits of centralized cloud for real-time data processing and will underpin future applications across autonomous systems, industrial environments, and smart cities.

A summary of Gartner’s four big infrastructure trends notes that enterprises are moving toward architectures where workloads are dynamically distributed across cloud, data centers, colocation facilities, and edge locations — all managed with cloud-like, service-centric operating models.

In financial services specifically, Global Banking & Finance Review makes the talent dimension explicit: firms that invest in digital skills, upskilling, and innovation-led cultures now will be the ones capable of designing and running these distributed, AI-driven systems later.

The lesson for leaders in logistics, finance, and manufacturing is clear. Winning in an edge-enabled world isn’t just about buying new hardware. It’s about re-architecting systems, rebuilding skills, and rethinking culture so that cloud, edge, and AI operate as a single, coherent fabric.

The shift from cloud to edge is really a shift from centralized IT to distributed intelligence — and the organizations that master that shift will be the ones that turn real-time data into sustainable competitive advantage.

Insuring the Future: How the Global Insurance Industry Is Reinventing Risk, Resilience, and Relevance

The global insurance industry is undergoing one of the most consequential and far-reaching transformations in its modern history. A sector traditionally characterised by stability, actuarial rigour and predictability now finds itself at the centre of a world reshaped by accelerating volatility. Climate change, demographic evolution, digital disruption, geopolitical uncertainty and macroeconomic instability are converging to redefine the very nature of risk. The assumptions that guided underwriting, investment strategy and capital management for decades no longer reflect the reality of a world in which systemic shocks are more frequent, more severe and more interconnected.

For insurers, this represents both an existential challenge and an unprecedented opportunity. While they have always served as the financial foundation that allows societies to function despite uncertainty, the scale and complexity of today’s risk environment require a broader, more dynamic and more forward-looking approach. Insurers must evolve from passive risk absorbers into proactive resilience partners, using technology, analytics, prevention models and global collaboration to help economies withstand profound structural shifts. This transformation is not optional; it is the only viable path for insurers seeking to remain relevant and sustainable in a rapidly changing world.

According to the Allianz Research Global Insurance Report 2025, worldwide premiums exceeded seven trillion euros for the first time. That milestone reflects rising global awareness of the need for financial protection, as well as expanding penetration in emerging markets. Asia-Pacific has emerged as a powerful driver of growth, supported by economic expansion, digital adoption and the rising demand for health and life insurance. The Middle East has grown steadily through diversification efforts and infrastructure investment. In Europe and North America, mature markets continue to expand, although at more modest rates, while Africa and Latin America show steady upward trajectories due to advancements in mobile distribution, microinsurance and financial inclusion.

Yet Allianz’s research stresses that premium growth alone does not equate to stronger profitability. Underwriting margins remain under pressure from persistently high claims inflation, demographic shifts and rising catastrophe losses. Reinsurance has become more expensive, with tighter structures imposed by reinsurers seeking to manage their own exposure to climaterelated volatility. At the same time, insurers face significant capital demands associated with digital modernisation, climate-risk modelling, cybersecurity, regulatory compliance and talent transformation. The industry must therefore navigate a paradox: investing heavily in transformation while operating in a market where claims costs, volatility and capital charges are rising.

The global market context underscores the significance of this moment.

The International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) captures this dilemma in its Global Insurance Market Report. The IAIS warns that the challenges facing insurers are structural rather than cyclical. Climate-driven catastrophes, cyber threats, third-party technology dependencies, inflation, geopolitical conflict, longevity risk and rapid digitalisation represent systemic shifts. These alter the shape of risk itself, making traditional backward-looking modelling inadequate. Forward-looking models that integrate environmental science, climate pathways, cyber-scenario analysis, supply-chain vulnerability and macroeconomic stress testing are now essential. Supervisors are intensifying expectations around resilience, solvency, governance, operational continuity and climate-risk transparency.

Climate change stands as the single most powerful disruptor of the insurance landscape. The Swiss Re Institute, through its sigma research, reports that global insured natural catastrophe losses have surpassed USD 100 billion annually for multiple consecutive years— once considered an exceptional event, now increasingly seen as a structural baseline. While headline-grabbing disasters like hurricanes, typhoons and earthquakes remain significant, the more disruptive trend has been the rise of secondary perils. Severe convective storms, flash floods, wildfires and hailstorms now account for a substantial proportion of global losses. They occur with high frequency, often simultaneously across continents, and are more difficult to model given their sensitivity to micro-climatic variation.

further illustrates this shift. It shows a notable rise in mid-sized events that individually generate losses in the USD 1–5 billion range but cumulatively create enormous pressure on underwriting portfolios. These events frequently strike regions previously considered lower risk, undermining assumptions embedded in historical models. Urban expansion, ageing infrastructure and climate-amplified extreme weather events have elevated hazard levels in areas long viewed as stable. As a result, insurers must continually reassess geographic risk concentration, refine zoning assumptions and incorporate real-time environmental data into their underwriting frameworks.

Reinsurance markets have responded with discipline and caution. Reinsurers face their own capital constraints and cannot fully absorb rising volatility, leading to higher pricing, stricter policy terms and reduced capacity in certain segments. Attachment points have risen, aggregate covers have tightened, and catastrophe programs have become more expensive for primary insurers. Many insurers have begun retaining more risk, adjusting their underwriting appetites, exploring alternative capital markets or investing in advanced modelling capabilities to maintain portfolio stability.

Technology represents the second major force reshaping the global insurance sector. The Society of Actuaries Research Institute notes that artificial intelligence, machine learning, predictive analytics, computer

Munich Re’s NatCatSERVICE database

vision, natural language processing and cloud computing have become embedded across every aspect of the insurance value chain. Digital transformation is no longer an option; it is a strategic necessity. Legacy systems—often decades old— impede innovation, create operational bottlenecks and expose institutions to cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Cloud migration enables scalability, advanced analytics, faster product development and seamless integration with third-party systems, including insurtech platforms and data providers.

McKinsey’s global insurance studies demonstrate that digitalmature insurers outperform peers across key metrics such as combined ratios, operational costs and customer retention. Advanced analytics enhance underwriting accuracy by integrating diverse datasets: telematics, IoT sensors, satellite imaging, geospatial analytics, financial behaviour indicators and environmental risk scores. Machine-learning-based fraud detection improves loss ratios by identifying anomalous behaviour patterns and automating low-value claims tasks. Natural language processing accelerates claims triage and reduces administrative burdens.

One of the most significant digital shifts is the rise of embedded insurance. Consumers increasingly purchase protection in the background of digital experiences—while booking travel, using mobility services, renting equipment, buying electronics or applying for credit. Majesco’s research on embedded insurance projects enormous growth potential, with the model appealing to consumers who expect frictionless, integrated experiences rather than traditional, standalone policy purchases. Insurers must therefore design modular, API-enabled products and build partnerships with digital ecosystems to ensure relevance in a marketplace where distribution is being redefined.

Cyber risk represents one of the most complex and escalating threats facing insurers. Cyberattacks have evolved from isolated incidents to systemic threats capable of affecting entire sectors simultaneously. Healthcare systems, financial institutions, logistics networks, government agencies and cloud providers have all experienced significant breaches. The rise of ransomware, supply-chain infiltration and statelinked attacks has reshaped the cyber-risk landscape. The modelling challenge lies in the interconnected nature of digital infrastructure: a single vulnerability could generate simultaneous claims across thousands of insured entities. Insurers must invest heavily in threat-intelligence partnerships, scenario modelling, aggregation management and cybersecurity expertise to underwrite cyber risk responsibly.

Investment management adds another dimension of complexity. With more than USD 35 trillion in managed assets, insurers play a crucial role in global capital markets. The BlackRock Global Insurance Report highlights the delicate balance insurers must maintain between yield, liquidity, capital preservation and solvency requirements in an environment of inflation, interest-rate volatility and geopolitical uncertainty. Rising interest rates improve new-money yields but create unrealised losses on long-term fixed-income portfolios. Insurers are therefore diversifying into private credit, infrastructure, renewable energy projects, real estate and other alternatives to better align long-duration liabilities with stable, long-duration assets.

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) integration has become a fundamental part of investment strategy. Insurers increasingly recognise that climate transition risks—stranded assets, regulatory shifts, carbon pricing and technological disruption—can materially impact portfolio performance. As such, they are reallocating capital toward sustainable energy systems, climateresilient infrastructure, green bonds and socially responsible investments that align with long-term global transition goals.

Regulatory expectations have evolved alongside these transformations. The OECD Insurance Outlook documents a global rise in supervisory focus on climate-risk governance, operational resilience, data transparency, consumer fairness and the ethical use of artificial intelligence. Regulators require banks and insurers to demonstrate their ability to withstand climate-driven shocks, cyber incidents, supply-chain disruptions and macroeconomic volatility. They also expect clear disclosure around sustainability strategy, investment activities, underwriting risks, data usage and AI decision-making frameworks.

Against this backdrop, insurers are embarking on some of the most ambitious modernisation programs in the industry’s history. Core-system replacement, once viewed as too costly and disruptive, has become a strategic imperative. Cloud-native platforms enable real-time data ingestion, seamless integration and rapid product innovation. Insurers are building unified data architectures to break down silos and enable enterprise-wide analytics. They are investing in talent with expertise in data science, environmental modelling, cyber defence, behavioural economics and digital product design.

Product innovation is accelerating. Parametric solutions, which offer fast, transparent payouts based on predefined triggers, have gained traction in regions most vulnerable to climate extremes. Usage-based insurance has reshaped motor markets by aligning premiums with driving behaviour.

Digital health solutions integrate telemedicine, biometric tracking and wellness programs into insurance offerings. Microinsurance models are closing protection gaps in underserved communities by leveraging mobile distribution and simplified underwriting.

Insurers are also fundamentally redefining the nature of their relationship with policyholders. Rather than acting solely as payers of claims, insurers are becoming partners in risk prevention. Smart-home devices detect early signs of danger. Wearables encourage healthy behaviour. Connected vehicles promote safe driving. Industrial sensors predict equipment failure. Environmental monitoring supports early-warning systems. This shift from indemnification to prevention improves loss ratios, enhances customer outcomes and aligns insurance more closely with societal resilience.

Sustainability is increasingly central to the industry’s identity. Insurers are underwriting new forms of climate-friendly infrastructure, enabling green-energy adoption, financing adaptation strategies and helping communities prepare for climate-driven risks. Their investments shape the speed and direction of global decarbonisation efforts. Their underwriting capabilities allow emerging technologies such as hydrogen systems, carbon-capture solutions, distributed energy resources and next-generation solar innovations to scale.

Despite these advances, persistent challenges remain. Legacy systems continue to hinder transformation efforts. Protection gaps, especially in low-income and climate-

vulnerable regions, remain vast. Cyber risks are evolving too rapidly for static models. Climate change threatens the insurability of certain geographies. Inflation and market volatility complicate asset-liability management. Regulatory expectations demand continuous investment. Competition for digital and analytical talent is intense.

Yet the opportunities outweigh the challenges. By embracing digital capabilities, investing in advanced analytics, building ecosystem partnerships, enhancing climate-risk modelling, modernising core platforms and expanding into prevention-focused services, insurers can lead a new era of global resilience. Their role will extend beyond financial protection to encompass risk forecasting, mitigation and adaptation at societal scale.

By the end of this decade, the insurance industry will look fundamentally different. Real-time data flows will shape underwriting decisions. AI will augment human expertise in claims and risk assessment. Ecosystems will replace traditional distribution channels. Climate-scenario modelling will guide investment decisions. Public-private partnerships will support resilience in vulnerable regions. And insurers will be more deeply embedded in the day-to-day functioning of economies and communities.

The global insurance industry stands at a pivotal crossroads. Its resilience, adaptability and willingness to innovate will determine its relevance in the decades ahead. Those insurers that invest boldly, think long-term, embrace emerging technologies, deepen their understanding of climate and cyber risks and commit to sustainable, prevention-focused models will lead the industry into a new era of stability and relevance. In a world defined by complexity, uncertainty and transformation, insurance will remain indispensable—not only as a financial safety net but as a strategic partner in building a more resilient global future.

De-Dollarization

and the Future of Global Banking De-Dollarization and the Future of Global Banking

The U.S. dollar has anchored the global financial system for decades. From energy trade to sovereign reserves, its dominance has been unquestioned. But that dominance is beginning to erode.

Across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, governments are striking local currency settlement agreements to reduce dependence on the dollar. China is leading the charge, using the yuan in energy deals and pushing its currency in Belt and Road projects. India and Russia have turned to the rupee for bilateral trade, while Brazil and Argentina have explored settlement in local currencies to protect against dollar volatility.

The drivers are both political and economic. Sanctions have underscored the risks of relying on dollar-based systems. Exchange rate swings have exposed vulnerabilities in importheavy economies. Rising U.S. interest rates have tightened global liquidity, pushing emerging markets to look for alternatives.

For banks, these shifts carry far-reaching implications. Correspondent banking relationships may need to expand beyond dollar-clearing hubs. FX risk management will grow more complex in a multipolar system. Payment systems and liquidity management will need to adapt to a world where dollar flows are no longer the default.

The question is not whether the dollar will remain important. It will. The challenge is how banks will navigate a future in which alternatives are used more often and in more places.

Drivers of De-Dollarization

For many emerging economies, the motivation to reduce reliance on the U.S. dollar begins with a search for greater monetary sovereignty. Dollar volatility has long shaped inflation, debt burdens, and fiscal planning in countries that import large volumes of food, fuel, or manufactured goods. Shielding domestic markets from U.S. interest rate cycles and currency swings has become a policy priority.

Geopolitics adds another layer of urgency. Sanctions linked to the dollarbased financial system have underscored the vulnerability of countries dependent on dollar clearing. Russia’s rapid shift toward ruble and yuan transactions after losing access to Western financial channels provided a clear demonstration of how reliance on a single reserve currency can become a strategic liability.

Energy trade illustrates how this shift is being tested in practice. China has begun settling a portion of its oil and gas imports in yuan, particularly with producers in the Middle East and Russia. These volumes remain modest compared with global dollar flows, yet the symbolic value is significant. For exporters, accepting yuan reduces settlement risk, while for China it broadens the international use of its currency.

The reserve data show a gradual, measurable decline in dollar dominance. The IMF’s COFER database records that the dollar accounted for nearly 59 percent of allocated global foreign exchange reserves in 2023, down from more than 70 percent at the start of the century. In contrast, allocations to other currencies, including the yuan, have increased, though they still represent a relatively small share.

Regional agreements provide further evidence of change. Brazil and Argentina have explored ways to settle bilateral trade in local currencies, while India has promoted rupee-based settlement frameworks with partners such as Russia and Sri Lanka. Although these arrangements are still limited in scale, they highlight a determination among policymakers to experiment with alternatives to the dollar-centric model.

Implications for Banks

For global banks, de-dollarization introduces both complexity and opportunity. A financial system where the dollar is still dominant but no longer unrivaled demands more flexible strategies in liquidity management, risk control, and client advisory.

One immediate impact is on correspondent banking. Today, most crossborder payments are routed through dollar-clearing hubs in New York. As local-currency settlement expands, banks will need to establish new

networks and relationships to handle transactions in yuan, rupees, and other currencies. This will increase operational costs but may also open opportunities for regional banks to compete with global incumbents.

Foreign exchange risk is likely to become more pronounced. A multipolar reserve system means clients may demand hedging solutions across a wider set of currencies. For banks, that requires more sophisticated trading desks and stronger treasury operations. According to SWIFT, the yuan ranks among the top five currencies for global payments, a sign that demand for settlement capacity in non-dollar currencies is not just theoretical.

Payment infrastructure will also need to adapt. Systems designed primarily around dollar flows may not be sufficient in a world where settlements occur in multiple currencies. Banks that invest in flexible platforms and digital solutions could gain an advantage by offering seamless multi-currency settlement services to corporates and investors.

Client advisory roles will expand in importance. Multinationals exposed to supply chains across emerging markets will need guidance on how to manage reserves, settle invoices, and hedge exposures in a system with competing currencies. Banks that provide clarity and confidence in this uncertain landscape are likely to strengthen client loyalty.

hifting Trade and Capital Flows

The effects of de-dollarization are not limited to banking operations. Trade flows are beginning to show signs of diversification as exporters and importers experiment with local-currency settlement. For commodity producers in particular, accepting yuan, rupees, or rubles reflects both a geopolitical statement and a hedge against U.S. dollar volatility.

Capital markets are also adjusting. Sovereign wealth funds and central banks have increased their holdings of non-dollar assets, even if the scale remains relatively modest compared to dollar reserves. The renminbi’s share of allocated global foreign exchange reserves rose from 1.1 percent in 2016 to more than 2.8 percent in 2022 before settling at about 2.3 percent more recently, according to the Federal Reserve. This gradual accumulation reflects both China’s growing role in trade and the intent of central banks to diversify portfolios.

Another dimension is the role of regional blocs. Initiatives such as the BRICS discussions on alternative payment arrangements, or ASEAN’s promotion of local-currency trade, underscore the political will to rebalance financial power. While these frameworks remain experimental, they provide institutional pathways for moving away from automatic reliance on the dollar.

Global investment patterns could shift as well. If more trade and reserves are denominated in alternative currencies, demand

for dollar-denominated assets may gradually soften. That would have implications for U.S. Treasury markets, long considered the ultimate safe haven, as well as for emerging market bonds that price risk against U.S. benchmarks. The pace of this change will be slow, but the direction is being set.

Risks of Fragmentation and Unintended Consequences

While de-dollarization carries appeal for many governments, it also introduces new risks. A world with multiple reserve and settlement currencies can easily become more fragmented, with overlapping systems that complicate rather than simplify global finance. For banks, this means navigating inconsistent rules, standards, and compliance obligations across markets.

Liquidity is another concern. The dollar’s central role has long provided deep, liquid markets that underpin global trade and investment. Alternative currencies lack that depth. Wider use of the yuan or rupee in crossborder settlement could create bottlenecks in times of stress, especially if secondary markets remain thin. The Bank for International Settlements has cautioned that fragmentation could amplify volatility if parallel systems grow without adequate coordination.

There is also the risk of uneven adoption. Large economies may be able to build regional settlement frameworks, but smaller markets could be left behind, facing higher costs and reduced access to liquidity. This would undermine the very goal of greater financial resilience.

Unintended consequences could also emerge if de-dollarization accelerates too quickly. A sharp decline in demand for U.S. Treasuries, for example, would reverberate through global bond markets. Even modest shifts away from dollar assets could raise borrowing costs for governments and corporations worldwide. For banks and investors, the transition will need to be gradual to avoid destabilizing the system they rely on.

Navigating a Multipolar Currency World

The decline of dollar dominance will not be sudden, but the trend is clear. A multipolar system is emerging in which several currencies share a role in trade, reserves, and settlement. For banks, this shift demands agility and foresight.

Those that adapt early will be better placed to manage liquidity across multiple currencies, build settlement networks beyond traditional hubs, and guide clients through a more complex risk landscape. Success will depend not only on infrastructure and product innovation, but also on the ability to maintain trust as the foundations of global finance evolve.

The dollar will remain central to the international system for years to come, yet it will increasingly share space with other currencies. Banks that position themselves as reliable partners in this transition will help define how the next era of global finance takes shape.

Open Banking Shaping a New Era of Finance

When regulators in the United Kingdom introduced open banking rules in 2016, few predicted how quickly they would ripple across global finance. What began as a compliance exercise, where banks were required to provide third-party providers with access to customer account data through secure application programming interfaces (APIs), has evolved into one of the most significant shifts in modern banking. The UK’s Open Banking Implementation Entity, created by the Competition and Markets Authority, gave practical force to these reforms, while the European Union’s Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2) established a continental framework. Together they redefined data as a transferable asset, controlled by consumers rather than institutions. For the first time, individuals could decide how and with whom their financial information was shared, unlocking the possibility of greater competition and innovation.

By mid-2023, more than 8.5 million individuals and small businesses in the UK were using open banking-powered services ranging from account aggregation to payment initiation. That figure represents a sharp increase from the early years of the framework and demonstrates that adoption has shifted from niche fintech users to the mainstream. Open banking tools are now embedded into everyday consumer experiences such as personal finance apps, SME lending platforms, and new payment solutions. The UK market has become a benchmark for how quickly usage can scale once trust and infrastructure are in place. The pace of adoption also signals that consumers and businesses are increasingly comfortable with the idea of third-party access to financial data, provided the experience is secure and delivers tangible value.

Beyond the UK, the economic potential of open data ecosystems is even more striking. A study by McKinsey estimated that fully developed frameworks could unlock USD 1.3 trillion in annual economic value across banking and adjacent sectors such as insurance, retail, and telecommunications. What makes this projection noteworthy is not only the scale of the figure but also the

breadth of the opportunity it envisions. It suggests that open banking is merely the entry point to a much larger transformation where data flows freely under consumer control between industries. In that future, financial services could be bundled seamlessly into retail purchases, integrated into healthcare offerings, or embedded into energy and telecom billing systems. For banks, this means reframing open banking from a regulatory challenge into a strategic pathway for growth and diversification.

The expansion of open finance is no longer confined to Europe. In Brazil, the Central Bank has launched an “Open Finance” initiative that requires institutions to share data across services such as payments, credit, and customer information, under a regulated framework overseen by Banco Central do Brasil. Australia has taken an even broader approach through the Consumer Data Right (CDR), established by legislation in 2019. The framework gives consumers the legal right to instruct data holders to share their information with accredited third parties. Over time, the scheme has expanded from banking into sectors such as energy and telecommunications, supported by enforceable data standards and strong privacy protections.

What unites these developments is a recognition that data portability is becoming a competitive necessity. Banks that once viewed open banking as a box-ticking exercise are beginning to see it as a chance to generate new revenue streams, improve customer engagement, and extend their role in the wider digital economy. Fintechs, meanwhile, are using access to real-time data to build lending platforms, wealth management tools, and payment solutions that rival incumbents. As the OECD has observed, data portability is now “central to creating fairer, more efficient markets” where consumers can switch providers with minimal friction. In this sense, open banking is no longer a story of regulatory compliance but of competitive transformation, reshaping finance into a more interconnected, data-driven ecosystem.

Phase One – APIs as Access

The first stage of open banking revolved around APIs. At a basic level, these interfaces allowed third-party providers to connect with bank

systems to retrieve account data or initiate payments once a customer had given consent. While simple in concept, this shift represented a profound change in how financial information could move between institutions and service providers.

In the United Kingdom, the effects are visible in payments adoption. According to TrueLayer, there are now more than 25 million Pay by Bank transactions every month, an increase of around 80 percent year on year. Nearly nine million individuals are active monthly users, showing that open banking payments are not only scaling quickly but also becoming a familiar part of everyday commerce. This momentum underscores how APIs have created an alternative to card networks, offering merchants lower costs and faster settlement while giving consumers a more secure, streamlined option.

Across the European Union, regulators have tracked a steady transition from older, less secure data-sharing methods toward regulated API channels. The European Commission’s PSD2 review found that most account-servicing institutions now rely on APIs rather than screen scraping to provide access for third-party providers. While interface quality and performance continue to vary, the report noted clear convergence around regulated API access as the standard model for the region. This evolution demonstrates that open banking has delivered on its original regulatory promise: creating a safer, more controlled framework for data sharing while enabling new services.

The United States offers a contrasting picture. Without a PSD2-style mandate, open banking has developed through private agreements and market demand. Plaid, one of the country’s leading providers, connects to over 12,000 financial institutions and powers more than 8,000 fintech applications, including digital wallets, personal finance apps, and lending platforms. This market-driven model shows that adoption can grow at scale even without regulatory compulsion, although the absence of a uniform framework has raised debates over consumer protection and data standardisation.

Despite these advances, the limitations of the first phase soon became evident. Many APIs offered only read access, which constrained the scope of innovation. Standards varied widely between markets, complicating cross-border adoption. Legacy IT systems slowed response times and limited reliability. Banks also wrestled with questions about monetisation, unsure how to turn mandated data sharing into sustainable revenue streams. These challenges explain why open banking in its early form delivered primarily incremental improvements — better interfaces for aggregation and faster payments — rather than transformative change.

Still, the first phase laid the groundwork for what came next. By proving that regulated data sharing could work securely at scale, APIs created the foundation for embedded finance and open data ecosystems that extend far beyond banking.

Embedded Finance – Open Banking’s Natural Extension

If open banking unlocked the vault of financial data, embedded finance has put that data to work in entirely new contexts. Embedded finance refers to the seamless integration of services such as payments, lending, savings, and insurance into nonfinancial platforms. Instead of leaving a shopping site to log into a bank, customers can access credit at checkout, pay directly from their bank account, or insure a purchase within the same digital journey. The infrastructure created by open banking APIs has

become the foundation that makes these models viable.

For businesses outside traditional finance, the attraction is clear. Embedding financial services deepens customer engagement, increases conversion, and creates new revenue streams. For consumers, it reduces friction by making financial transactions almost invisible within the platforms they already use. Accenture estimates that embedded finance for small and medium-sized enterprises could create up to USD 92 billion in additional revenue by 2025, particularly in lending, payments, and risk management. This projection highlights how embedded finance is shifting from niche experiments to mainstream opportunities.

Examples of embedded finance are visible worldwide. In Southeast Asia, ride-hailing giant Grab has built a comprehensive financial services arm, offering digital wallets, micro-lending, and insurance through its superapp. These services rely on consent-driven data portability similar to open banking. The region’s structural conditions, which include a large underbanked population and high mobile penetration, make it a natural proving ground. According to a joint study by Google, Temasek, and Bain & Company, Southeast Asia’s digital financial services market could generate over USD 180 billion in annual revenues by 2030, with embedded models playing a central role in meeting consumer demand.

In North America, Shopify shows how non-financial companies can extend into banking. Through its platform, merchants can access Shopify Capital, which uses transaction data to underwrite loans and cash advances. The process is invisible to merchants, who receive offers within the same dashboard they already use to manage their business. In Europe, Klarna adds open banking settlements for 18 million consumers and 32,000 retailers, allowing consumers in the UK to pay directly from their bank account via “Pay Now,” bypassing debit cards and reducing reliance on card networks.

For banks, embedded finance is both a challenge and an opportunity. On one hand, non-bank platforms increasingly capture the customer relationship, pushing banks into the background as service providers. On the other hand, banks that partner effectively with fintechs and platforms can monetise their APIs, extend their reach, and remain central to customer journeys that were once outside their domain. The OECD has highlighted that frameworks enabling data portability and interoperability will be critical to ensuring these partnerships scale in ways that benefit both consumers and institutions.

Embedded finance therefore represents the natural evolution of open banking. Where APIs created new ways to move data and initiate transactions, embedded models demonstrate how those capabilities can be woven directly into commerce, mobility, and lifestyle platforms. The result is not simply more efficient financial services but a broader reshaping of how finance integrates into daily life.

Open Data Economy – The Expansion to Finance and Beyond

Open banking began with account and payment data, but momentum is now shifting toward open finance and, ultimately, open data ecosystems that extend well beyond banking. The principle is simple: if consumers can control and share their financial information securely, then the same logic can apply to pensions, investments, insurance, utilities, and even healthcare. Moving in this direction requires policy support, technological infrastructure, and consumer trust, but the long-term implications could reshape entire industries.

In Europe, policymakers are already advancing this agenda. The European Commission’s Framework for Financial Data Access is a legislative

proposal designed to enable consumers and businesses to share financial data across a wider set of services than under current open banking rules. It sets out common standards and governance arrangements intended to make data sharing secure, transparent, and predictable. This is more than a technical extension of PSD2; it represents a strategic effort to integrate financial services into the European Union’s broader digital strategy. By aligning open finance with digital identity, cybersecurity, and consumer rights, the Commission is seeking to ensure that data portability becomes a pillar of Europe’s digital economy.

Australia provides one of the clearest examples of how open data can function in practice. The Consumer Data Right (CDR), launched in 2019, gives Australians the legal right to share their data between accredited providers. The framework began with banking, but has since expanded into energy and is moving toward telecommunications. This cross-sector model shows how data portability can extend competition and innovation across different parts of the economy. Early evidence suggests the CDR is already stimulating new products, such as bundled services that link energy usage with financial management tools. Australia’s approach is often cited as a case study for regulators elsewhere because it demonstrates how consumer-controlled data can be implemented across multiple sectors in a phased but coordinated way.

India is another market demonstrating the potential of open data ecosystems. Its Account Aggregator Framework, established under the oversight of the Reserve Bank of India, allows consumers and businesses to share their financial information securely using

licensed intermediaries. Data moves only with explicit consent, and users can revoke access at any time. The framework has scaled quickly, with millions of accounts now linked across banks, insurers, and investment firms. India’s model is particularly important because it shows how emerging markets, with large underbanked populations, can leapfrog directly into open finance by building consent-based infrastructure from the start.

Global policy organisations are reinforcing these national efforts. The OECD has argued that data portability is becoming central to building more efficient and competitive markets. The World Economic Forum has stressed that interoperability in digital finance is no longer optional but foundational, since seamless data flows are essential if global finance is to become resilient, innovative, and accessible. Together, these perspectives underscore that the shift from open banking to open data is not only about enabling new apps but about laying the foundation for a data-driven economy where consumers have more control and markets become more dynamic.

Of course, the transition brings challenges. Expanding the scope of data sharing raises complex questions about privacy, interoperability, and the cost of compliance for smaller firms. Regulators must balance innovation with protection, ensuring that consumers are empowered without being exposed to new forms of risk. Yet the overall trajectory is clear. What began as a regulatory effort to increase competition in payments is rapidly evolving into a global movement to rewire digital economies around consumer-controlled data.

Global Contrasts – Models in Motion

Although the concept of open banking was pioneered in the United Kingdom and the European Union, approaches now taking shape across the globe reveal strikingly different models. Each reflects its own regulatory philosophy, market conditions, and priorities for innovation.

Brazil has taken strong regulatory steps with its Open Finance agenda. The Open Finance Brasil initiative, led by the Central Bank of Brazil, is designed to foster competition and improve consumer financial products by enabling secure data sharing across financial institutions. The framework goes beyond payments and deposits to cover insurance, investments, and pensions, positioning Brazil as one of the most comprehensive open finance regimes outside Europe.

Saudi Arabia is also moving rapidly. The Saudi Central Bank launched an Open Banking Lab in 2023 to provide fintechs and banks with a testing environment to build and certify services under the country’s Open Banking Framework. This initiative is part of the Kingdom’s broader Vision 2030 program to modernise financial services. More recently, regulators issued a second release of the framework focused on Payment Initiation Services, creating technical standards and governance requirements to ensure secure adoption across the market (Open Banking Expo).

Nigeria has also moved ahead, becoming the first African country to issue operational guidelines for open banking in 2023. The framework sets out consent and governance standards designed to promote financial inclusion, although implementation is still in its early stages. Nigeria’s approach illustrates how African regulators are beginning to formalise data-sharing systems as part of wider efforts to expand access to finance.

Other regions continue to follow different models. India’s consentbased Account Aggregator framework, described earlier, is scaling quickly, while Australia’s Consumer Data Right demonstrates how cross-sector portability can extend financial innovation into energy and telecommunications. The United States remains market-led, with firms like Plaid driving adoption in the absence of a unified federal framework, even as regulators draft new rules to establish clearer standards.

Taken together, these examples underline that there is no single model for open banking. Brazil highlights the potential of regulation-driven frameworks in emerging markets, Saudi Arabia shows how open banking can be tied to national development strategies, and Nigeria demonstrates how African regulators are beginning to formalise data-sharing systems. Meanwhile, advanced economies such as India, Australia, and the United States illustrate the different ways technology, regulation, and market forces can combine. What unites them all is the recognition that consumer-controlled data is becoming a strategic asset, and that the coming decade will be defined by how effectively each region harnesses it.

Bank–Fintech Collaboration – Essential Partnerships

A defining feature of open banking’s evolution has been the recognition that collaboration between banks and fintechs is not optional but essential. Banks bring scale, regulatory experience, and consumer trust, while fintechs offer agility, customer-centric design, and innovative technology. When these strengths are combined, new services can be delivered more quickly and with greater impact than either side could achieve alone.

Partnerships are particularly important because open banking requires the cooperation of multiple stakeholders. Standardised APIs, secure data sharing, and consent management all depend on coordination across institutions. For banks, collaborating with fintechs allows them to expand their capabilities and remain relevant in a rapidly changing market. For fintechs, partnerships with established financial institutions provide access to large customer bases and the credibility that comes with regulatory oversight.

Open banking ecosystems thrive when banks and fintechs work together to create value for consumers and businesses. Institutions that treat fintechs purely as competitors risk being left behind, while those that embrace partnerships are better positioned to deliver secure, innovative, and inclusive financial services.

Challenges – Risks on the Road Ahead

As open banking expands into open finance and open data, its promise is accompanied by a set of formidable challenges. These issues vary by region but share common themes: interoperability, cybersecurity, consumer trust, and regulatory consistency.

Interoperability remains a primary obstacle. Different markets have developed their own technical standards, which makes it difficult for providers to scale across borders. The European Commission’s review of PSD2 notes variability in interfaces and implementation quality across the Union, and points to the need for clearer, more consistent access arrangements if the objectives of competition and innovation are to be fully realized.

Cybersecurity and data privacy require constant vigilance. By design, open banking increases the number of participants in the financial ecosystem, which expands the potential attack surface. Central banks and supervisory authorities continue to emphasise strong authentication, data minimisation, and third-party risk controls as core requirements. Smaller fintechs may find it harder to meet the same security standards as large banks, which can create uneven risk profiles across the ecosystem.

Consumer trust underpins adoption. Even when security protocols are robust, customers may hesitate to share their financial data if they are unsure how it will be used or who is liable when things go wrong. Recent UK SME research shows that awareness does not always translate into confidence, and concerns about security and dispute resolution remain adoption barriers that the industry must address through clearer consent flows and consistent user experiences.

Regulatory alignment is still uneven. Europe is moving toward a broader open finance framework, while the United States remains market-led as regulators work to finalise national rules. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has proposed a Personal Financial Data Rights rule to standardise access and permissions; until this rule is final, banks and fintechs must rely on a patchwork of bilateral agreements.

Despite these challenges, momentum continues to build. Addressing interoperability, cybersecurity, and trust at scale will determine whether open banking fulfils its potential as the foundation for a more inclusive and innovative financial system.