Speaker Interview- Peter Rossiter

Q- In relation to your current role, how would you describe an ideal Agile Bank that is ready for the “New Normal”?

I’m not sure we can accurately determine what the ‘New Normal’ will be let alone be fully ready for it. However, I’d describe an Agile Bank as one that is ready for the unexpected and can adapt quickly.
In practice, this means being able to divert product and technology resources to new challenges, in a safe and well governed way. For us at Starling Bank, we could very quickly, and I mean days rather than weeks or months, address emerging requirements in a COVID-19 world such as launching a carer card for shielding customers to give to helpers to shop for them, or to develop an automated loan origination and fulfilment platform to get much needed credit to small businesses under the Bounce Back Loan Scheme.

Q-Do you think the Open Banking paradigm serves as a balance between maintaining regulatory compliance and customer experience?

Broadly yes, but it’s still the early days of the Open Banking journey and it’s clear regulators would like to see greater adoption. As these helpful cases are emerging in facilitating credit affordability models, there still remain a few challenges, which include - legacy technology challenges, and in some cases cultural challenges, to seamlessly offering own and 3rd party services on the same platforms.
However, it becomes very interesting when other industries realise the potential of open banking solutions to embed financial services into their own customer journeys. This can be accommodated under Banking as a Service models from digital banks such as Starling.

Q- What are the vital elements that organisations need to put in place to ensure they are ever-ready for an unpredictable world?

I’d consider this under three headings, at least with respect to regulated financial services firms. These include - technology, governance and purpose.
The technology must be truly agile, meaning you can refocus engineering resources to new challenges and build functionality incrementally and frequently.
Secondly, governance must both meet regulatory expectations and be agile enough to consider new or amended products in a robustly controlled way.
Thirdly, whilst the products and services may be adapted to changing needs, there should be a strong set of underlying values to support the core vision and mission of the firm.

Q-The world as we know has become more technologically advanced, how can Bank’s cushion the effects of cyber threats while leveraging technologies to meet the needs of their customers?

Cyber threats remain a prevalent risk that must be managed with comprehensive preventative and detective controls and robust governance that goes well beyond the IT function.
For banks, this goes beyond securing customers’ money and data through technology but also actively engaging with and educating customers in relation to identifying scams and frauds, understanding how their data is being processed; managing their data consents and so on.

Q-Within your organisation, can you highlight 3 key steps that have been taken to ensure you remain an Agile Bank?

Starling is founded on agile principles and if I was to highlight 3 key steps to maintaining these, they would be keeping as much of the technology as possible under your own control, maintaining a sense of pace and ensuring very active engagement between the various functions that make up the bank.

Q-.Delegates are certainly getting ready to attend this conference, would you like to give any advice to them?

Enjoy it, ask questions and challenge the speakers.