This year’s 

SunTec Confluence was online. The last event was in 2019, when

the event was held in Dubai at the prestigious Palazzo Versace with keynote
speakers including Chris Skinner:
SunTec Confluence is an annual symposium which brings together the world’s
leading technology executives and investment experts to debate current
trends and to discuss how organisations can leverage technology to deliver
more value to their customers.

This year marked the event’s tenth anniversary and the focus was on
customer-centricity, accelerated digitisation, hyper-personalisation and the
environment.

The event took place during the same week as Collision 2020 and Fintech
Week Tel Aviv which raised the bar higher than normal.

Value Creation in a Turbulent World

Nanda Kumar, Chief Executive Officer of SunTec, kicked off the event with a
fireside chat alongside Tony Zerucha, Managing Editor of Bankless Times.
They discussed how the COVID pandemic had accelerated digital
transformation. And regulation.
Kumar shared his philosophy with viewers during the chat: “You have to
create more value than what you consume. And everyone who is in touch with
your business has to receive value from their contact.” He went on to explain
how this fundamental philosophy was particularly apt during the turbulent
times of the last 12 months. 
Kumar has some excellent examples about customer-centric business
models. Apple is a company he particularly admires. He is also focused on
setting short and medium term digital transformation goals, which he
explained in more detail during the chat.

The New Goal Post for Digital Transformation – Customer Experience

Transformation
An early session on the changing goalposts of digital transformation explored
the challenges faced by many traditional financial institutions. How they are
seeking to put the customer at the heart of digital transformation.

The panel was made up of James Fowle, Executive General Manager at the

Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Steven Reiter, Lead – Business
Consulting Practice for Financial Services at EY, and Soneel Raj, Global
Head of Banking, Strategy and Solutions at Cognizant. Satish Chandran,
President and Global Head – Demand Fulfilment Group, SunTec Business
Solutions, moderated the panel.
The speakers all agreed that a top-down approach and commitment to cultural
change throughout a company was a key component of successful digital
transformation.

Reiter underlined the importance of compliance in the U.S. under the new
Biden administration and highlighted that regulators are often more sensitive
to GDPR and customer data than customers themselves.1
Fowle commented how the last year had accelerated digital transformation for
the bank’s staff and employees. Customers who were resistant to change
historically, have now learnt to interact digitally with financial institutions. “This
virtual contact is here to stay. Customers will stay in the digital world they
have embraced.“2
Raj commented how banks in the U.S. have realised how most of their
customers have not visited their retail branches in over 10 months. And on the
back of that revelation he suggested that banks need to ask themselves the
following question: “Am I spending where I will have direct client impact?” It’s
all about the experience your client will be delivered. The skills we need now
to create this personalisation. Raj concluded by asking whether we have the
employees to do it?
Creating the Cognitive Bank
The IBM Break-out session started with a small video explaining IBM’s
LinuxONE enterprise platform. Likhit Wagle, General Manager, Global
Banking Industry at IBM kicked off the discussion by explaining how banks
had performed during the pandemic.
Despite the doomy post-pandemic predictions, economies in Asia are
bouncing back and U.S. investment banks have recorded hugely impressive
results in 2020 and this year so far.

Europe’s growth rate was described as showing ‘’pedestrian growth’’, banks

were already struggling in Europe before 2020. The atmosphere in Europe will
be more challenging than in other parts of the world during the next 12 – 24
months.
The panel went on to discuss the success of FinTech companies like Stripe,
PayPal and Square, whose market capitalisations have all moved above that
of incumbent financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs. Their success can
be boiled down to 3 main ingredients: convenience, complete service and
instant fulfilment.
In order to stay ahead of the game, banks need to switch their focus to front-
office customer interactions and aim to match the higher expectations set by
Amazon and other Big Tech firms.

What Does a Conscious, Creative, Connected Future Look Like?

Mark Stevenson, Advisor, Author and reluctant Futurist, concluded the
SunTec Confluence event.
“Real change is afoot. The dose of reality we have all received has just
exacerbated what we already knew before COVID.”
Great companies can thrive in a crisis, Stevenson argued, but only if they ask
themselves the right questions. Are we being good ancestors? How can we
use technology to solve the pressing issues of our time?

Stevenson concluded by talking about the 17 Sustainable Development Goals

(SDGs) we all heard about in January. He challenges the audience to ask
themselves where they will invest.3
“Technology is not the answer, Technology is part of the question. Given
these tools you will be given by companies like SunTec, what will you do with
them?”
“It’s time to be conscious, it’s time to be creative, it’s time to be connected.”
Although COVID did not lead to a bank crisis like we saw in 2008, something
resonated from the SunTec event. It won’t surprise you to learn, that the
successful bank of the future will follow Amazon and Apple’s lead to ensure
customers receive a hyper-personalised experience where all their needs are
met.

Sources:
1,2Disruption Banking
3Disruption Banking