Gartner has identified four main types of fintech partnerships that financial services leaders may explore: investment, experiment, operation and bet. Leaders should consider partnership types based on the type of innovation they need from fintechs, as well as the relative maturity of the technology that leaders are exploring. To do this, leaders should determine whether they are trying to address a discrete, current issue within the firm, or if they are trying to address a more nebulous, future-facing issue. This will determine the level of innovation that they need from a fintech partner. Subsequently, leaders need to identify whether the issue would be best-served by adopting a well-developed technology solution or by making a riskier bet on an emerging technology with the potential for a more transformative outcome. This will determine the maturity level of the solution that you require from a fintech firm.

Financial services leaders must begin to consider meeting environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals as part of their customer and talent acquisition, customer retention, and product strategies. These goals are quickly becoming part of how employees choose a workplace, how shareholders choose an investment and how customers choose a financial services institution. ESG driven products and services can help reduce reputational, operational and strategic risks for the organization. Moreover, they are also an emerging opportunity to differentiate and drive revenue growth. Including these considerations in business strategies will enable organizations to differentiate and have an impact in the future.

Crypto and digital assets offer an emerging opportunity for insurance companies to rethink the way they approach digital product development, customer engagement and risk management. Here are three ways in which insurance companies may explore this space:

1. Serving as crypto-market underwriters — While they must be extremely careful, insurers can underwrite crypto-related risks in two ways: underwriting crypto assets and underwriting crypto business.
2. Supporting crypto transactions — This opportunity involves accepting crypto as a payment form, potentially accepting cryptocurrencies/stable coins, central bank digital currencies (CBDC) for a range of policies. In cases where insurers are underwriting crypto assets, accepting premium payments in the risk currency eliminates foreign exchange volatility.
3. Investing in crypto/NFTs and other digital assets — Despite its volatility, institutional investors have started to look at investing in crypto. The situation could evolve very quickly as regulators provide more clarity and as institutional capability and infrastructure start getting built.

As we move into the future, innovative financial services firms will need to invest in digital platforms and ecosystems. These systems will create a more seamless experience for customers across their financial lives and open up new revenue creation opportunities for banks. Building a successful ecosystem requires financial services leaders to elevate the digital ecosystem discussion within the organization, extend product and service delivery outside traditional bank boundaries and be on a constant look out for external partners active in this space.

Financial services leaders can use the power of their transactional data to drive products and services that deliver tangible value to their customers in three main areas:

1. Provide customers with visibility into their transactional data and related activities. For instance, BMO AI Cash Flow Prediction analyzes historical transactions and balances to establish patterns that can predict a customer’s future cash shortfalls.
2. Provide customers with options for taking action, hence changing their behavior and their decision-making process. For instance, Aegon Life’s animated video summaries use behavioral science and picture frames hanging in a home to present customers with a personalized illustration of their pension fund, the evolution of the fund, tax implications and next steps using real-time data.
3. Provide customers with the ability to delegate some decision-making authority to the provider. For instance, CommBank iQ, a joint venture between Commonwealth Bank and Quantium provides enterprises with decision and prediction tools based on anonymized transaction data captured via Commonwealth’s processing capabilities.