This year’s Future of Financial Services, New Zealand event in Auckland highlighted some interesting differences in New Zealand’s approach to financial services innovation. Sandstone Technology Chief Customer Officer Jennifer Harris and Chief Product Officer Michelle Yu report back with some key observations. 

Generation Z, today’s tweens, teens and twenty-somethings, is coming into its own. You’d think our first cohort of true digital natives would be the least vulnerable to cyber scammers. But surprisingly, research from around the world shows they are the most likely to succumb to digital financial fraud. 

According to Sandstone Technology’s Chief Customer Officer Jennifer Harris, 2024 will bring a return to ‘normality’ – or the closest we’re likely to get, post pandemic. Jen and colleague Michelle Yu, Chief Product Officer, came together to discuss the question: ‘what does 2024 have in store for financial services organisations?’ Below, we cover regulatory changes, Gen AI, cybersecurity threats and more.

The pandemic, economic volatility, social and behavioural change, followed by corresponding waves of tech advances - all have had tremendous impacts on financial institutions. With the final weeks of 2023 fast approaching, we look back at the trends that have been re-shaping the finance sector and continue to drive its evolution. 

Institutions within the customer owned banking sector are often viewed as followers rather than innovators. There’s a belief that smaller, community-focused providers are not having as significant an impact on consumers as their bigger, publicly-traded counterparts. But these kinds of assumptions couldn’t be further from the truth. 

Why do so many financial institutions aspire to 100% configurable technology? In our experience, it’s the appeal of maintaining ownership over their platform and the promise of cost savings. But going down that path may actually end up costing more and putting an unbearable maintenance burden on the business.

Last month, Sandstone Technology attended the Future of Financial Services conference in Sydney, staged annually by FST Events. The theme was a compelling one: ‘Pioneering Purpose Driven Innovation and Sustainability to Reshape the Future of Financial Services’.

As digital natives enter the ranks of customers in their droves and challenger banks emerge with ever more attractive offerings, many financial institutions are facing a hard truth: they can’t bank on loyalty if their customer experience is sub-par. We outline some of the new digital experience imperatives in the battle to stop attrition. 

No business today can afford to take their customers for granted. Customer experience has become one of the great differentiators, and leading organisations in the financial sector are already lifting their game.

Banking technology is always on the move. The annual Banking Transformation Summit (BTS) is an opportunity to get some well-rounded perspective on innovation in the marketplace and current thinking at financial institutions across the UK.