Banks are trying to strike back at FinTechs using the same advanced technologies. This was mostly visible in the areas of reducing time to onboard customers, making payments ubiquitous and economical, innovative integrations in terms of points of origination of business, enablement of payments in many more channels as well as intelligent and frictionless interactions with banks. They have moved one step closer to providing Banking services outside of traditional comfort zones.
Towards the end of the year, post-Chat GPT being available and the recent release of Google Gemini, digital advancements of all business will explode. This will be much more in banking. This is for 2 reasons:
- Banking is about information processing.
- In the last few years banks have been spending a lot in getting the information ready for processing.
Potential areas one can see excitements are:
- Availability of sophisticated products and services which were provided earlier only to ultra-high net worth segments will be available for retail.
- Extreme interconnections amongst customers, merchants, intermediaries and governments further reducing friction in transactions
- Reduction in systemic risk on account of ability to address complex problems through use of more machines, data algorithms to interact with each other and humans.
As per a recent report by International Data Corp. (IDC), the global artificial intelligence expenditure is expected to grow to $166 billion by the end of 2023. From Conversational AI in the BFSI sector to open networks, technology has made a huge impact and opened a range of opportunities for 2024 and ahead.
As we venture into 2024, I’m excited to witness the journey driven by AI Trust, Risk and Security Management (AI TRiSM) which will shape the future of technology-driven banking for the world. These developments will have a huge impact on the IT industry as:
Industry Cloud Platforms and Intelligent Applications will evolve and continue to serve as the foundation of seamless banking experience to the customers. The implementation of Generative AI will continue to benefit banks in areas such as fraud detection, risk management and especially enhancing the customer experience. Another crucial development I foresee will be embracing sustainable technology by tech giants and major corporations. Augmented connected workforce with democratization of Generative AI will empower and unleash the creative potential of employees for better collaboration.
Locations of resources – human, financial, data will no longer matter. Extreme collaborations will not only be facilitated by technology but technology creations will be active participants leading to improved customer experience and business outcomes.
Extreme automations with high cost of implementations will become much more affordable due to the active participation of algorithms in the analysis stage itself. The laborious process of analysing, designing, developing and testing of automation tasks will be taken up by machines. These changes may not all happen in 2024, but 2024 could be a watershed year in which algorithms will be entrusted with decisions
- Industry cloud platforms – As per a recent report, the worldwide investment on cloud infrastructure by organisations is expected to top $1 trillion for the first time in 2024. Security and data being the primary area of concern for every industry, cloud infrastructure is the next step to boost innovations worldwide.
- Any of these changes in revolutionary and improved digital interactions with the help of advanced algorithms like LLM, Computer Vision and big data wouldn’t have been possible without the elastic scalability being provided by Cloud computing. They ensure that anything which is built can scale, can get distribute, can be available any time and is available with best economies – no lumpy costs of capital investments and no long implementation cycles.
- Generative AI – 2024 will witness the technical experimentation of Generative AI into strategic initiatives. As per a Forbes article, 60% of employees will use their own AI platforms to perform day to day tasks. Adding to this, 85% of organisations will start implementing AI with open source networks to increase efficiency. Hallucination insurance which covers risk related issues to AI will be a big money market in 2024.
- Use of generative AI is now at an embryonic stage. It looks very very promising. All roles will get revolutionised with the use of Gen AI. The competition there is heating up with at least 4 credible alternatives emerging. The use cases will also mature with more success with low risk less invasive uses. One can expect some serious use of GenAI with a sizable chunk of personalised financial advice being provided by algorithms which speak in Morgan Freeman or Amitabh Bachan’s voice.
- Global Capability Centers (GCC) – The number of glocal GCCs supporting sustainability surged from 17% in 2021 to 47% in 2023. In India, the GCC industry contributes to $33.8 billion in revenue and the number will shoot to $60-$85 billion by 2025. Technological advancements in Metaverse and Blockchain which are still under development will also contribute to support GCCs digital transformation.
The GCCs and role of India in digital advancements of the world will undergo a sea change. The domain knowledge will be the next one to be available everywhere. This will ensure that services from India will be economically competitive not only in the lower half of the pyramid. 2024 may see teams in GCCs taking over many more functions, thanks not only to the younger STEM fed workforce but equally to Gen AI and other algorithms trained by local business leaders. Don’t be surprised if there are new European or American digital banks who are 100% run from other locations of which a significant part will be played by machines. Exciting times ahead. Right time to be a banking technologist.”
About the Author
As an Executive Director at Maveric, Muralee helms the creation of productized solutions that enables Industry-leading CXOs to solve complex challenges across CX, Digital Ops, Connected Core, and Regulatory Compliance. With 24 years of tech leadership experience across Tesco, Altisource, and start-ups like Analyttica Datalabs and Clairvolex IP, Muralee’s contributions have transformed some of the world’s largest mortgage servicing platforms and e-commerce destinations.
This article was originally published in CXO Today.
