I wrote a few weeks ago about ‘disruption‘ – insofar as the cloud impact on financial services and whether or not just having the cloud was disruptive.
However it seems that this word ‘disruptive’ is now everywhere. I have read no less than half a dozen articles on it this week alone. (For examples go here:
Disruptive Innovation in banking and 3 things that banks should do to protect themselves
Australian Startups eyeing big bank insane profits
Its sort of like when you learn a new word and then you hear that word all the time. So this week I promise to not use that word any more in my Blog and instead concentrate on something that I’m very proud of – two Host to Host solutions that my team and I built at two major Australian Banks.
I learned recently that this years Peter Lee and Associates survey for Transactional Banking in Australia/New Zealand listed those two Host to Host banking products as having the largest number of respondents/deepest penetration in this years survey. 92 Large Corporations responded to the questions about Host to Host, 55 of them (60%) reported using the products that my team designed and built. Of the 55 corporates, 29% reported an excellent experience, 66% reported an above average experience, and only 1 client reported a below average experience (‘rats’ on that point).
Why is this important?
Firstly, the Peter Lee survey is a measure used by all major banks in AU/NZ to evaluate their industry performance against each other in relation to Institutional Banking. Factors such as ‘Lead Bank’, ‘Relationship Strength’ etc. are highly sought after prizes. Peter Lee results are also used in marketing collateral and the like to prove a 3rd party view rather than just a biased view when it comes to RFP’s and the like when demonstrating one’s credentials.
Secondly, in less than 10 years, pitted against larger budgets of some international banks, large technology vendors and the like, our team has created now in 2 major banks arguably the best and most used ‘host to host’ platforms in use in Australia and New Zealand today. We did this with what I would call meagre (but not insubstantial) budgets and naturally a lot of hard work and dedication.
The teams collective innovativeness and experience has paid off twice now. At the start we backed ourselves in by taking a stand in what clients really wanted from a ‘host to host’ platform, and we never sought to just try to ‘buy’ it from a single vendor. In fact, we knew we couldn’t just ‘buy’ what we wanted – it needed to be created by using some best in class component products which were ‘wrapped’ together by a ‘custom’ layer. The first iteration started the journey, and we learned a lot. That product was even mentioned on that Bank’s annual report in 2010 (Page 29, look for ‘WIBS’).
Since that time we continued the journey building on the foundation of ideas that we had originally (again using best in class products wrapped with our custom but new and improved ‘layer’), rebuilding a new Host to Host product based on generic standards but stretching the innovation further (and of course customising to suit the target bank’s Environmental, Governance and Risk standards). At Bank #2 we repaid the original investment in just under 18 months from go live. Relatively unheard of in recent times for product/channel innovation in a big bank.
I had a mantra from day 1 at Bank #2 to drive people to do things differently. If you want the same outcomes, just use the same ingredients and the same recipe. If you want different outcomes you need to change the formula. Same + Same = Same. Same + Different = Different. The approach takes a while though. Old habits die-hard – slowly you can change things until they become the new normal. We wanted a different outcome – the formula works!
Where did the ‘magic’ come from though? Where does it sit now?
It’s in the people. Never underestimate the experience, value, drive and imagination of a tight group of people who understand deeply how to make ‘stuff’ happen – and who aren’t just technocrats – they are both Bankers and technologists.
To those who are or were part of the journey so far – thank you. So much has been done – we have proven ourselves, not once but twice now. Be proud as I am of what we as a collective have done – and look forward to the future.
Until next time,
Leigh
Leigh's Blog 