Undoubtedly everything in business is happening at a much faster rate today than ever before. Businesses can be started with just a laptop and internet connection. Even moving cities is becoming simpler with the rise of co-living spaces. This shift is being ignited by start-ups, technological advancement and customers wanting better services and experiences.

They have to ask the Big question? How to leverage fintech innovation? What we have seen with the emergence of fintech innovation globally is that collaboration is what defines success. Collaboration does not have to mean competition.

Banks have to deal with a fundamental mindset shift. Prior to the rise in fintech, Banks survived even if they ignored the trends in technology across other industries to ignoring customer experiences and services. Today, they are frantically scrambling to be seen as innovative, digital and listening to the voice of the customer. They now have to deal with the ‘new competitor’ whether it’s a challenger bank or a group of tech savvy friends creating a payments app. New services and products are being successfully funded constantly. Geographic boundaries no longer exist in the fintech world.

Instead of rebuilding technology or further customising solutions, banks can start working collaboratively with the right fintech partner to aid rapid innovation and transformation. The next big question is how? A number of banks have been very successful with starting Innovation Labs, Accelerator Programs, Hackathons and setting aside capital for acquiring start-ups. 

What is important is to set the vision for leveraging Fintech Innovation and not to go overboard with just acquiring fintech partners. To achieve a clear vision and strategy, we have found the following 10 successful ways to be more effective.

10 ways to thrive and answer the Big Question:

1. Hire the right talent and skilled team to lead this partnership.
2. Think about the right products and services you as a bank want to offer your customers.
3. Use design thinking and design sprints to shape the products and services being developed.
4. Do the Business Case to find the right Fintech Partner.
5. Work to deliver an MVP through Agile scrum teams.
6. Use a lean/start-up mindset to the project to enable scalability.
7. Ensure employees are actively engaged into the new culture and ways of working.
8. Embrace success and key learnings.
9. Find a model that eventually can be duplicated across all divisions.
10. Start an Innovation programme across the bank.

These 10 may seem pretty straightforward yet banks globally are either not transforming fast enough, getting caught up in the inability to transform with speed and agility, struggling with internal change, legacy IT systems and the incorrect skill set. Before a bank decides to ask the Big question, they need to first start with looking at the existing skill set. I think it’s time to resurrect what it means to be a high performing organisation.

I am not sure when or why companies buried this concept. Perhaps it was too challenging to look internally and remove the blockers that stop innovation from taking place. Perhaps it’s the culture that does not want to change, or maybe it’s the leadership that have lost focus, energy and passion for making their brand great!

Parachuting new hires into a non-innovative culture will not drive innovation either.
New hires need to be surrounded and supported by the executive team to make a difference.
Egos need to be removed and blockers need to be exited. Tough internal decisions need to made by long established brands to survive.

If you are a senior manager, take a look around your organisation and ask yourself : Am I surrounded by high performers ?
Do we know the latest megatrends?
Do we know how to innovate successfully?
When did we last innovate?
Do we know how to identify the best fintech to partner with us?
How many blockers do we have?

If there are a lot of no’s to these questions then there are other bigger questions your organisation needs to ask.