'Banks, big tech cos, fintech can collaborate to further financial services'

Banks, big technology companies and fintech can collaborate for better customer acquisition and use analytics for an informed credit decision, Standard Chartered Bank MD Zarin Daruwala said on Tuesday.It is about co-existence that to my mind, will evolve in the next few years, Daruwala said while speaking at a fintech webinar.The payment tech companies and fintech cater to the very low friction customer base and they feel very comfortable using it their services, she said.But having said that, the banks are also upping their ante.

Banks, big technology companies and fintech can collaborate for better customer acquisition and use analytics for an informed credit decision, Standard Chartered Bank MD Zarin Daruwala said on Tuesday.

''It is about co-existence that to my mind, will evolve in the next few years,'' Daruwala said while speaking at a fintech webinar.

The payment tech companies and fintech cater to the very low friction customer base and they feel very comfortable using it (their services), she said.

''But having said that, the banks are also upping their ante. They are using cloud computing in a big way,'' she added.

Daruwala also said banks have been a little late in monetising their huge database, however, they have been catching up fast in the last 2-3 years.

Regarding collaboration with fintech, she said these kinds of tie-ups make sense as the lenders have costs related to compliance and regulatory requirements and they help in reducing that cost.

''Fintechs have niche kinds of products...clearly banks can't do it all. Apart from fintech, there is a new trend of pure digital banks. Our own bank has set up a digital bank in Hong Kong, it is a purely digital bank. ''So, we have a normal Standard Chartered Bank in Hong Kong and we have a digital bank and both the banks compete in the same market,'' Daruwala said at the Global FinTech Fest 2021. Global FinTech Fest 2021 (GFF 2021) hosted by the Fintech Convergence Council (FCC), Payments Council of India (PCI), National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and IAMAI.

She said Standard Chartered Bank has also partnered with a lot of fintech companies that do a lot of analytics and helps it in onboarding new customers.

''I think collaboration is not only for data sourcing of customers, its on various analytics that you can use for...banks also have a database, but have been quite late in using that data. In the last two three years, we have seen banks use their customer data in a very meaningful way,'' she added.

Further, she said there is a clear emerging trend of two sets of customers: There are those who are very digitally savvy, and on the other hand there are customers who understand it but are not comfortable using it.

''So, I think we as banks need to look at how we have to sort of create a system having a self and assistance mode for services. We have recently launched such a platform,'' Daruwala said.

She said there is a lot of wealth among the 40 and 50 plus customers, however, they are not technically savvy. And the assistance based services can help channelise their monies into the financial space for better investment decisions and utilisation.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)