Prof Michael King, co-Director of the Scotiabank Digital Banking Lab at Ivey Business School, delivered a plenary talk at the SWIFT Business Forum Canada 2017 in Toronto on March 22, 2017. His talk “Better Together: Is FinTech a disruptor or an enabler?” provided the standing-room only audience of 325 financial market participants with a view on five topics:
- A framework for thinking about FinTech
- An analysis of whether FinTech is a disruptor or an enabler for the industry
- A view on how Canadian banks are collaborating with start-ups
- A discussion of how FinTechs –both start-ups and other technology companies -- are partnering or pivoting their businesses to work with incumbents
- An update on the modernization of the $8.9 trillion Canadian payments industry
A copy of Prof. King’s presentation is available here.
Following the talk, Prof. King moderated a 45-minute panel on “Banks and their vision of the future” featuring four banking experts:
- Andre Salve, Managing Director, North American Emerging Markets and Partnerships, BMO Financial Group
- Rania Llewellyn, Senior Vice President – Global Transaction Banking Products and Services, Scotiabank
- Alec Morley, Chief Executive Officer, UGO Mobile Solutions LP and Senior Vice President, TD Bank
- Todd Roberts, Senior Vice President - Enterprise Innovation, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce
The panel discussion covered a range of issues that are summarized in the following points:
- The future of the payments business is about data and customer analytics, not necessarily the underlying payments themselves.
- The customer experience and their needs has to be the driver for FinTech innovation and investment; start-ups providing a solution for a problem that does not exist will not be successful.
- Be prepared for the process of digital transformation to take longer than you think; this is a longer term process.
- Collaboration across stakeholders may take longer than going it alone, but is ultimately the only successful strategy due to the importance network effects in payments.
- FinTech is causing a paradigm shift in bank business models and requires new ways of working, such as agile teams, innovation labs, diverse teams, and partnerships.
A copy of the SWIFT Business Forum Canada 2017 program is available here.
The Scotiabank Digital Banking Lab’s next event will be the Scotiabank Speaker Series on June 1st featuring Dino Trevisani, President of IBM Canada.
If you would like to have Prof King present at your event, please contact him at mking@ivey.ca