On 11 September, Imran Gulamhuseinwala (EY) moderated a panel comprised of Antony Jenkins (10x), Kirsten English (Innovate Finance), Pascale Moreau (Societe Generale) to discuss Technological Disruption and Innoviation in Financial services.
EY hosted The London Women’s Forum Speaker Series event, which was attended by over 60 women in senior positions across financial services. The evening comprised a lively panel discussion on disruption versus innovation in Financial Services, followed by a networking dinner for attendees to connect and share their experiences as leaders in financial services.
The event’s panel was an exciting mix of senior and experienced leaders in the financial services industry, in particular FinTech and Finance Transformation. The discussion was moderated by Imran Gulamhuseinwala, OBE, EY’s Global Head of FinTech. and comprised:
- Antony Jenkins, Founder and CEO of 10x
- Kirsten English, CEO of Style Research, Independent director of Innovate Finance and Independent Trustee at Universities Superannuation
- Pascale Moreau, the Global Deputy Head of Fixed Income & Currencies Sales at Societe Generale.
The discussion opened with a question about what FinTech means.
The panellists explained that FinTech can be described “enabling” technology, for example Peer to Peer lending and crowd funding. FinTech is growing and enabling the financial services sector in the UK. The evolution of technology is making banking better, financial services innovation is already happening, for example Mobile banking. Barriers to entry to deliver complex services have been reduced and low cost computing power is allowing technologies such as machine learning and Artificial Intelligence to take off.
“Banks will not be able to outrun technological disruption or innovation”
Of interest to many audience members, was the impact of FinTech disruption in the wholesale part of financial services.
There was an insightful explanation of the particular areas that have been successful for FinTech such as crowd funding, payments and artificial intelligence in asset management. FinTech has found a niche to provide good value and improve the customer experience – changing the life of customers, providing a cheaper and more transparent service. FinTech is taking a share of the payments market, a landscape that has not changed for many years. For corporates customers, FinTechs are not only offering payments, they are offering advice which is something different
“FinTechs find the niche where there is good value and focus on user experience and interface”
The panellists were asked about their particular organisations and how there were interesting insights into the use of Blockchain to transform internally, partnering with FinTechs to leverage their skills rather than compete with them, the continued development of FinTech companies and the focus on both disruption and enablers. Comments were made as to how difficult it is for established financial services to change and innovate and that the key is how organisations can use customer data which is currently limited by existing bank technology and that new technologies will begin a transformation in banking.
“Banks have progressed over 20 years, the key the key for progressing further is the ease of use in terms of services, focusing on customer satisfaction”
Following the panel discussion, a Q&A session was held. Attendees raised a range of questions, including how to use innovation in the regulatory space, the issue of gender balance in the tech industry, how can companies make sure employees embrace new concepts and what should we be doing now to educate children in technology.
There was very positive feedback from attendees:
- “It was a really good evening I thought the mix of speakers was excellent combine that with the view and fabulous food and it couldn’t be faulted.”
- “I just wanted to say congratulations on hosting such a wonderful event last night. Everyone I spoke to had nothing but great feedback.”
- “It was a great event. Really good panel discussion and a fabulous dinner. Great atmosphere.“
