Banking on digital opportunity amid the pandemic and beyond

In recent years, the financial services industry has experienced digital disruption, particularly with the advent of new technologies that change how customers access services. Nowadays, there is also a new generation of digital natives with different banking and financial service customer experience expectations.

In the Philippines, for instance, there has been an apparent increase in the usage of digital banking services, particularly at the height of the pandemic restrictions imposed last year. Due to limited mobility, the country’s National QR Code Standard (QR Ph) usage grew by at least 5,678 percent in transactions last December 2020—this was a year after it was launched— providing touchless convenience between businesses and their customers according to Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). 

The central bank also noted that the combined volume of electronic transfers via PesoNet and InstaPay had hit 107 million. The value of these transactions reached P1.5 trillion in the first quarter of 2021.

The rise of digital banks and other digital payment platforms also contributed to the industry’s fast digital transformation, pushing the economy to eventually transition from a cash-heavy to cash-light environment in the next couple of years. 

The rise of FinTech

Banks and insurers are also competing with new non-bank start-up technology firms offering highly agile FinTech, InsurTech, among other solutions. They can develop and deploy new connected financial solutions free from traditional legacy systems and constraints at speed. 

This agility, combined with their collective focus and willingness to experiment, enables them to increase their market share. The challenge for local banks and other financial service institutions (FSIs) is to ensure that their business is agile enough to compete. 

Ensuring Agility

For Fujitsu Philippines, banks and FSIs need the agility to be present whenever and wherever their customers need access to their services. The significance of this agility is centered on pace, productivity, innovation, and flexibility. These concepts are now the critical goals for most traditional financial service providers. 

“That is why the term agile is not new to banks and FSIs. However, they are at different stages in their leap to achieving agility. And those reaping its benefits are the ones working in collaboration with experienced technology partners,” said Raul “Cricket” Santiago, the president and CEO of Fujitsu Philippines.

For banks and FSIs in the country, Fujitsu said that their technology partner must help provide best-in-class work and service desk offerings, including collaboration, assist in the introduction and embedding of new technologies, support for DevOps and agile platforms integration, has new technologies and POCs for technology such as blockchain, and has technical-know-how on global Hybrid IT landscapes with flexible contracts as a Managed Service Provider.

With its expertise and decades of local presence, Fujitsu Philippines can provide all these requirements to help banks and FSIs become more agile. With its Fujitsu Cloud solution offerings, it assists financial service organizations in transforming digitally and focusing on designing and delivering innovative services and seamless experiences that modern customers demand.

To learn more about Fujitsu Philippines, Inc., visit its website at https://www.fujitsu.com/ph/.