What if banks could cater to your entire family's needs with the same precision and care they offer individual clients? This episode of The MoneyPot promises to reveal just that as we bring you an enlightening conversation with Eyal Gilad from Amdocs. Discover how Amdocs, originally rooted in telecommunications, has made a groundbreaking leap into financial services, with a new focus on family banking. Eyal shares the secrets behind their success, including leveraging their cutting-edge charging capabilities to revolutionize customer segmentation and create personalized banking experiences for multi-generational households. You'll learn how these innovative strategies are not only breaking traditional banking barriers but also significantly enhancing customer loyalty.
In this packed episode, we also broaden our horizon to explore the latest trends and challenges in the banking industry. We'll delve into financial literacy initiatives and certification processes that different banks are implementing across the globe, from Canada and Europe to the Philippines. Our guest, Eyal, sheds light on exciting projects and the cultural and regulatory hurdles they face. Plus, get an insider's view on how Amdocs is investing in no-code and low-code solutions to empower business departments to swiftly launch new products, bypassing the heavy reliance on IT. We wrap up by discussing the integration of legacy technology with modern solutions to boost efficiency and drive innovation in the banking sector. This is a must-listen episode for anyone interested in the future of family banking and beyond!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Rachel Morrissey (00:05):
Welcome to the Money Pot.
My name is Rachel Morrissey.
I am one of the hosts of ourillustrious podcast here at
Money 2020.
And we are here today with AyalGilad and he's with A and we
are going to be talking todayabout kind of the transition
(00:27):
that Amdocs has taken and theirshift to kind of family banking.
So first of all, let's juststart with the baseline.
Tell me a little bit more aboutAmdocs and where you guys
started.
Eyal Gilad (00:40):
So we are by far the market leader in
telecommunication systemenabling, supporting customers
and operating support system fornetworks.
Around 20 years ago we startedour diversification journey into
other industries.
We selected financial servicesas this segment, so we started
(01:03):
with choosing part of ourtechnology enablers.
To accelerate this journey, weidentified the need in banks to
support charging capabilities.
That we are very strong at feecalculation, interest
calculation and took it fromthere forward.
Rachel Morrissey (01:21):
Okay, so let's talk a little bit about where
you are today.
So talk about family banking,and does Amdoc serve any other
segments?
Eyal Gilad (01:31):
Yes, absolutely.
I mean family banking is justone use case that we are very
proud of, but obviously justrepresents our belief that the
banks can benefit a lot fromtreating differently their
target market, segmenting it ina wiser way, providing to each
(01:53):
market segment the desiredexperience that this segment is
looking for, instead of justtrying to look at the retail as
one holistic target.
So we have also other use caseswhich are quite interesting,
but we will, yes, focus onfamily first.
Rachel Morrissey (02:09):
Yeah, so let's talk a little about that.
You just said you segment it ina different way.
You guys come in with kind offresh eyes and think about it a
little bit differently.
So when you came into banking,how did you guys do it that you
thought there might be adifferent way to look at this?
Eyal Gilad (02:26):
Yes, there was.
Our biggest challenge, comingfrom other industry, is to come
and break the barriers thattraditional banks are looking at
.
So when we came and askedlegitimate questions things that
are already commoditized inother industry and the banking
experts are coming to tell us,okay, yes, but in banking we
(02:48):
cannot do it, either because oftechnology barriers or because
of regulation barriers, and weare coming and asking the
questions differently.
We believe that, despite theknown limitation, there is a way
to provide better experiencefor banks, for banks to be more
creative in achieving theirgoals, to come with new
(03:10):
commercial models, monetizebetter.
This is why we're here.
We believe this is our missionto help the banks achieve it.
Rachel Morrissey (03:17):
Interesting.
Okay, so when we are talkingabout family banking, that has a
lot of different connotationsdepending on what geography
you're in.
In the US, we don't even callabout family banking.
That has a lot of differentconnotations depending on kind
of what geography you're in.
In the US, we don't even callit family banking.
I'm not even sure that we havea term like that.
That feels very much on thisside of the pond, and so I'm a
little bit curious, like whenyou are doing that, what are you
(03:42):
looking at as?
How are you guys definingfamily banking?
Eyal Gilad (03:46):
We're looking at it from two dimensions.
First of all, we are comingfrom the direction of the
customer.
So we're looking into and we'reinterviewing a lot of customers
what is their expectation fromthe bank, how they can be served
better from the bank, how themulti-generational household can
be better served, feel morecherished by the bank that he
was loyal to for the last tensof years.
(04:09):
So this is one dimension thatwe are interviewing customers
and building our targetedexperience based upon the
customer expectations.
On the other hand, we'relooking at the banks themselves
what they are trying to achieveand obviously they're trying to
get a higher level of customerloyalty to make sure that they
are having a smoother path intothe retention of their existing
(04:32):
customer base, as well as makingsure that the younger
generation will stick with thebank following their parents,
grandparents.
Rachel Morrissey (04:40):
So basically, you're building in customer
loyalty.
You get them young, you keepthem in so as they gain and they
grow their own bank accounts,they grow their own families.
This keeps on extending overgenerations.
I mean that's a great loyalty.
Eyal Gilad (04:57):
This is the basic.
There's more sophisticationbehind it, but, yes, this is the
higher purpose.
Rachel Morrissey (05:01):
Okay, so what would be in the suite of these
tools?
Eyal Gilad (05:05):
It's all based upon very rich data repositories.
Obviously we are creating themodels because we're coming with
other industry that is sotrivial to treat the customer as
a holistic unit and to try toleverage on it, try to monetize
on it, injecting the uniquenessof the banking industry into it,
trying to inject kids'education, trying to inject
(05:29):
transparency between thehousehold members, trying to put
controls measure in some handsstrict on the other hand, create
the desired level oftransparency between the
household.
All those things contribute toa lot of variety of use cases
that the family members findvery appreciative.
Rachel Morrissey (05:50):
So I know that you said that you found they
find them appreciative.
You've also talked about you'retalking to customers all of the
time, trying to figure out whattheir use cases are.
So where is the need for afamily banking account?
Where is that driven from?
What are the problems thatyou're helping customers solve?
Eyal Gilad (06:11):
When we interview a customer, they find that with
each interaction in the bank, itdoesn't matter where the
constraint is coming from.
They are being treated as a newcustomer, either it's for a new
banking product or when theyare trying to get a service, or
when they are trying to open anew account.
And we are trying to smoothenthese processes.
(06:33):
We believe that it's mandatory.
And we are trying to smoothenthese processes.
We believe that it's mandatoryAlso for the sake of securing
that the household business willexpand with the bank, but also
that the overall experience willbe much nicer and smoother.
Rachel Morrissey (06:46):
So you're finding that over time, every
time a new generation would comein, it didn't matter how long
your family had banked there, itdidn't matter what kind of
history they had with therelationships Because in the US
I mean we don't really think ofI mean people most likely bank
where their parents banked.
They most likely get an accountwhere their parents got an
account.
Maybe they branch out and theygo get another account in
(07:07):
someplace else or maybe they goget financial services from
someplace else, but that initialbank account is almost always
tied to where their familybanked, because it's familiar,
it's easy, right.
So I'm assuming that's verysimilar here.
But you're saying that everytime they went in it didn't
matter that they were tradedlike they were brand new, not
(07:28):
like an extension of a customerbase that already existed look
in today's world, when movinginto branchless yeah environment
, I'm not so sure that thehabits that you mentioned are
going to keep happening.
Eyal Gilad (07:43):
It's not that you're going to the branch and you're
going to the rep that you walkedin for the last 20 years and
he's helping you to open thekids account.
Today is different yeah in thedigital world, you need to have
the right enablers to allowonboarding the kids, other
(08:05):
products that you are interestedto acquire in a smoother way
and to make sure that also theyounger generation will will
stick with it.
Rachel Morrissey (08:09):
So what tools are you guys implementing for
the financial education of thesekids?
Because that was one of thecustomer wants right, A
checklist that you were meeting.
So in those tools, how are youapproaching the education of the
next generation?
Eyal Gilad (08:25):
Well, we have a set of.
First of all, I will appreciateif whoever listens to us right
now will come to our booth, andwe have some very nice demos to
demonstrate everything.
But we are working with um, notjust uh technology designers we
have a unit in the companywhich are coming from a
psychology background and theydeveloped a set of flows which
(08:51):
allows families basically, onone hand, to force their kids to
behave in a certain manner, tolearn the responsibilities of
savings, of spending, trying tominimize the effect of the kids
feeling that their parents arewatching every step that they're
(09:12):
doing, on one hand, but, on theother hand, making sure that we
are directing them to behave ina responsible manner and based
upon the parents' guidelines.
Rachel Morrissey (09:26):
So you're assisting the parents in giving
the guidance to the kids.
Are there any literacy lessonsimplemented in?
Are there tests workshops?
There's a couple of instanceswhere there's places that will
lock the account unless the kidhas completed his financial quiz
(09:46):
for the week.
Are these the kind of ways thatyou're encouraging it?
Eyal Gilad (09:53):
This is one of the ways.
Yes, we have some kind of acertification process.
We're trying to make itsmoother again in.
Every bank chooses differentpaths but, yes, for some cases,
we have some kind of acertification process that the
kids needs to go to in order toget some kind of a coins, in
order to be able to open and getauthorization for other
activities.
Other banks would like toimplement something more
(10:17):
different nicer less of a testtesting the kids.
Rachel Morrissey (10:21):
So what are the kind of ideas that these
other banks have?
What are you working with rightnow?
Eyal Gilad (10:27):
We're working with a few banks in North America, two
of the leading banks in Canadaand some very interesting use
cases.
Two of the leading banks inCanada and some very interesting
use cases.
We have two European customerswhich bought into this concept.
By the way, in each one of thegeographies there are other,
different constraints, eithertechnology constraints or
(10:47):
regulatory constraints, that weneed to overcome and we are,
together with the bank, workingto make sure that we are in
compliance with all thoselimitations.
And we have one very interestingcustomer in the Philippines
that in this geography thisconcept of family first is
totally neglected, that theyfound it extremely innovative
(11:08):
and believe that this would givethem the edge in the market.
So also in the Philippines wehave a very interesting project
running right now.
Rachel Morrissey (11:14):
Why did they believe it would give them an
edge in the market?
What is it about the culture?
Eyal Gilad (11:19):
I'm not sure it's the culture or it's a local
limitation or the risk profileof the household over there, but
overall I think that they feltthat currently they reached some
kind of a glass ceiling thatthis concept will allow them to
break.
Rachel Morrissey (11:36):
So when you're looking at family banking and
you're serving all thesedifferent geographies, are you
finding certain kinds ofproducts are more popular in
certain areas?
Are there cultural differencesor is it simply generational
differences?
How are you thinking about that?
Eyal Gilad (11:52):
Every geography is a different challenge, obviously.
Yes, there is a cultural elementthat we always need to look
into.
There is a regulatorychallenges that we need to take
into consideration.
Most importantly, by the end ofthe day, it's the business
vision of the bank.
It's about the creativity.
It's about the commitment forinnovation.
It's about about the commitmentto break the current barriers
(12:16):
that they have.
We are doing our best.
I mean the innovation officersalways are bought into it.
The ideas the head of retailsalways bought into it.
Some of them are verytraditional and all the time
focusing on the barriers.
The other ones are more open toengaging in dialogue.
How can we help them break theinternal and external barriers?
(12:39):
Those are the type of customerswe are engaging with.
Rachel Morrissey (12:45):
So what is next for MDocs?
What are you guys thinkingabout?
Eyal Gilad (12:50):
um, besides obviously focusing on our
strengths, which is to provideexperience system in all
channels, across all channels,we are investing a lot in what
we're calling a no code banking,which is fundamentally putting
the right abstractions on top ofthe core banking systems to
(13:11):
allow the business departmentsof each bank to remove their
technology department from thecritical path of fulfilling
business initiatives.
So we call it no-code banking.
In some cases it's absolutely100% no-code.
In some other cases we'recoming with technology of
low-code and in some other caseswith minimal coding.
(13:34):
But whatever we do is committedto the vision of putting the
right enablers to allow thebusiness to achieve faster
time-to-market with a morecreative product definition,
service definition operations.
Rachel Morrissey (13:48):
So what would be the difference between a
no-code and a low-code?
Eyal Gilad (13:52):
No-code is a fully configurable technology
environment.
Basically, we are empowering.
Rachel Morrissey (13:59):
Configurable by the bank?
Yes, by the bank's business.
Eyal Gilad (14:04):
If a business owner would like to go to market with
a new product, we're allowingthem, basically without any
intervention of the technologydepartment, to implement a new
product, to experiment with it,eventually to launch it to
market.
There is always someinvolvement of technology but
still, relatively to the currentenvironment that we see, in a
(14:26):
lot of cases new productintroduction takes 18 months.
We are aiming to cut it and weare achieving cutting it to days
.
So this is for the no-code, Forthe low-code is enablers.
In some cases you need to code,you need to implement some
business logic.
(14:46):
And for this.
We're coming with a set ofrule-based mechanism.
You don't need programmers, youdon't need highly educated IT
professionals.
You still can define thebusiness rules by yourself and
go to market.
Together with the introductionof such business rules.
Rachel Morrissey (15:07):
So what kind of banks are being customers for
, like no-code or low-code?
Who are you serving with those?
Eyal Gilad (15:14):
Serving all the leading banks in all geographies
.
In some cases, some banks findit hard to believe that it's
possible.
In some other cases, banks arecommitted to this change and
they are going all the way withus.
Rachel Morrissey (15:30):
I would wonder a little bit about the legacy
technology and how no code canbe combined with some of the
legacy tech, the tech stacksthat many of the banks find
themselves encumbered by, and sohow does that even begin to
work?
What are you guys doing thatenables it to kind of converge
(15:52):
with those?
Eyal Gilad (15:54):
So I believe that each bank is in a certain
journey, or in the midst of ajourney of modernizing their
legacy course.
Each one of them is taking adifferent path.
We believe that one of thesecured ways to achieve it,
effective ways to achieve it, isby hollowing the core, moving
some capabilities which arecurrently part of the core
(16:17):
banking, legacy core bankingsystems into the northbound,
creating some kind ofabstraction layer on top of the
core banking systems in order toachieve those tasks.
Generally speaking, as much aswe will be able to take the
legacy core constraints out ofthe critical path of
introduction of new services,new products, we believe that
(16:39):
the banks will benefit the most.
Rachel Morrissey (16:42):
Well, obviously, I mean, I think that
the fact that they don't have tohave the same level of tech
professionals to kind ofimplement this, this could be
when you've done this right.
What departments are youlooking at or what are you
working with to kind ofimplement a no code?
Eyal Gilad (17:02):
It's always a combination of the business
departments together with thetechnology departments and the
technology departments.
Rachel Morrissey (17:08):
Every and the technology departments are like
this is great, let's do this.
Eyal Gilad (17:13):
Yes, they're fully brought in Again.
Some of them are more skepticalthan others.
A lot of them are committed toachieve.
I mean they are being alsomeasured based upon certain KPIs
and SLAs official, unofficialthey have with their business
departments.
They would like to cut the timeto market.
They would like to be moreflexible.
(17:33):
They would like to serve theirinternal customers better.
As long as we are finding suchpartners, I think that we can
jointly success in the journey.
Rachel Morrissey (17:42):
And what did you say was the cut in time to
market?
You said it was normally 18months.
And now it's what?
Eyal Gilad (17:48):
A matter of days, weeks Depends upon the case.
A matter of?
Rachel Morrissey (17:50):
days to weeks for new products to be
implemented.
Eyal Gilad (17:54):
By the way, when you're saying products, one of
the things you're asking whatyou see going forward is also
depends upon the geography,depends upon the limitation of
the regulator, but we are seeinga lot of trends to start to
sell also non-banking products,so we are allowing banks to open
themselves into generatingrevenues by becoming a
(18:15):
marketplace also for non-bankingproducts and the bundle of
banking products together withthe non-banking products.
We believe it's a hugedifferentiator for a bank.
Rachel Morrissey (18:26):
What kind of products are banks putting
inside that aren't bankingproducts?
Eyal Gilad (18:32):
Look in the retail space.
My bank is selling meeverything Solar panels,
television, laptops, whatever Iwant.
My bank's selling me.
Your bank is selling you solarpanels, yeah, but this is in the
geography that I'm living in,but I know that it's not allowed
in other geographies, but itdepends.
But the more interesting usecases that we feel are going to
create differentiation is, forexample, in the small-medium
(18:54):
businesses domain, the SMB space.
Yeah, so we have a dedicatedoffering for SMBs in which new
small businesses coming for thebanks for a loan, the bank can
offering basically almost thefull technology enabler stack to
open his business bundle.
With such a loan you can sellhim the IT services, the cloud
(19:17):
storage space cyber security,the relevant application for his
area of expertise, and the bankis in the unique position to
offer it first as part of thepackage.
Some banks are currentlyworking with us to implement
such creative models.
Rachel Morrissey (19:34):
That's very interesting because it does make
the bank more than a typicalfinancial partner.
I mean, it'd be almost likeyour one-stop shop, banking your
business center, Yep.
But again, some banks arelimited.
It'd be almost like yourone-stop shop banking your
business center, yep.
Eyal Gilad (19:48):
But again, some banks are limited.
Yeah, some other geographiesare slowly moving to this
direction, together with openbanking.
Rachel Morrissey (19:57):
Yeah, creativities, that's very
fascinating.
So just this, we don't havetime for much more.
Just one final question,because you've been here at
Money 2020.
You said you have a booth, sohow are you enjoying your
experience here at Money 2020Europe?
Eyal Gilad (20:15):
I love it.
There's tons of energy in here.
To be honest, I returned nowfrom Bangkok for the same event.
The level of energy in here ismuch, much, much higher.
Rachel Morrissey (20:25):
Really.
Eyal Gilad (20:26):
I love it.
I love to meet people that I'mmeeting on a regular basis in
those events.
I love the partnership spiritthose events are coming with.
So it's allowing a lot ofconversation, creative, new
commercial models for us as acompany, as a unit.
Rachel Morrissey (20:42):
So I love it.
Is there a favoriteconversation you've run into
here?
Eyal Gilad (20:46):
It's not a keynote.
It's not like you're not there,but some partnership and some
potential customers.
We had a very, very interestingconversation that hopefully
will yield fruitful partnershipgoing forward.
Rachel Morrissey (20:57):
Oh, that's great Congratulations.
I hope Knock on wood.
Anyway, thank you so much forjoining us here today.
Thank you, rachel, I reallyappreciate it and to all of our
listeners.
You can find us wherever youlisten to your podcasts or you
can go to the Money 2020 websiteand we are there at
money2020.com and feel free, ifyou'd like to be on the podcast,
(21:21):
to let us know.
At podcast at money2020.com,Send us a story idea.
We love to talk to our FinTechfriends.
Thank you.
Welcome to the Money Pot.
My name is Rachel Morrissey.
I am one of the hosts of ourillustrious podcast here at
Money 2020.
And we are here today with AyalGilad and he's with A and we
are going to be talking todayabout kind of the transition
(00:27):
that Amdocs has taken and theirshift to kind of family banking.
So first of all, let's juststart with the baseline.
Tell me a little bit more aboutAmdocs and where you guys
started.
Eyal Gilad (00:40):
So we are by far the market leader in
telecommunication systemenabling, supporting customers
and operating support system fornetworks.
Around 20 years ago we startedour diversification journey into
other industries.
We selected financial servicesas this segment, so we started
(01:03):
with choosing part of ourtechnology enablers.
To accelerate this journey, weidentified the need in banks to
support charging capabilities.
That we are very strong at feecalculation, interest
calculation and took it fromthere forward.
Rachel Morrissey (01:21):
Okay, so let's talk a little bit about where
you are today.
So talk about family banking,and does Amdoc serve any other
segments?
Eyal Gilad (01:31):
Yes, absolutely.
I mean family banking is justone use case that we are very
proud of, but obviously justrepresents our belief that the
banks can benefit a lot fromtreating differently their
target market, segmenting it ina wiser way, providing to each
(01:53):
market segment the desiredexperience that this segment is
looking for, instead of justtrying to look at the retail as
one holistic target.
So we have also other use caseswhich are quite interesting,
but we will, yes, focus onfamily first.
Rachel Morrissey (02:09):
Yeah, so let's talk a little about that.
You just said you segment it ina different way.
You guys come in with kind offresh eyes and think about it a
little bit differently.
So when you came into banking,how did you guys do it that you
thought there might be adifferent way to look at this?
Eyal Gilad (02:26):
Yes, there was.
Our biggest challenge, comingfrom other industry, is to come
and break the barriers thattraditional banks are looking at
.
So when we came and askedlegitimate questions things that
are already commoditized inother industry and the banking
experts are coming to tell us,okay, yes, but in banking we
(02:48):
cannot do it, either because oftechnology barriers or because
of regulation barriers, and weare coming and asking the
questions differently.
We believe that, despite theknown limitation, there is a way
to provide better experiencefor banks, for banks to be more
creative in achieving theirgoals, to come with new
(03:10):
commercial models, monetizebetter.
This is why we're here.
We believe this is our missionto help the banks achieve it.
Rachel Morrissey (03:17):
Interesting.
Okay, so when we are talkingabout family banking, that has a
lot of different connotationsdepending on what geography
you're in.
In the US, we don't even callabout family banking.
That has a lot of differentconnotations depending on kind
of what geography you're in.
In the US, we don't even callit family banking.
I'm not even sure that we havea term like that.
That feels very much on thisside of the pond, and so I'm a
little bit curious, like whenyou are doing that, what are you
(03:42):
looking at as?
How are you guys definingfamily banking?
Eyal Gilad (03:46):
We're looking at it from two dimensions.
First of all, we are comingfrom the direction of the
customer.
So we're looking into and we'reinterviewing a lot of customers
what is their expectation fromthe bank, how they can be served
better from the bank, how themulti-generational household can
be better served, feel morecherished by the bank that he
was loyal to for the last tensof years.
(04:09):
So this is one dimension thatwe are interviewing customers
and building our targetedexperience based upon the
customer expectations.
On the other hand, we'relooking at the banks themselves
what they are trying to achieveand obviously they're trying to
get a higher level of customerloyalty to make sure that they
are having a smoother path intothe retention of their existing
(04:32):
customer base, as well as makingsure that the younger
generation will stick with thebank following their parents,
grandparents.
Rachel Morrissey (04:40):
So basically, you're building in customer
loyalty.
You get them young, you keepthem in so as they gain and they
grow their own bank accounts,they grow their own families.
This keeps on extending overgenerations.
I mean that's a great loyalty.
Eyal Gilad (04:57):
This is the basic.
There's more sophisticationbehind it, but, yes, this is the
higher purpose.
Rachel Morrissey (05:01):
Okay, so what would be in the suite of these
tools?
Eyal Gilad (05:05):
It's all based upon very rich data repositories.
Obviously we are creating themodels because we're coming with
other industry that is sotrivial to treat the customer as
a holistic unit and to try toleverage on it, try to monetize
on it, injecting the uniquenessof the banking industry into it,
trying to inject kids'education, trying to inject
(05:29):
transparency between thehousehold members, trying to put
controls measure in some handsstrict on the other hand, create
the desired level oftransparency between the
household.
All those things contribute toa lot of variety of use cases
that the family members findvery appreciative.
Rachel Morrissey (05:50):
So I know that you said that you found they
find them appreciative.
You've also talked about you'retalking to customers all of the
time, trying to figure out whattheir use cases are.
So where is the need for afamily banking account?
Where is that driven from?
What are the problems thatyou're helping customers solve?
Eyal Gilad (06:11):
When we interview a customer, they find that with
each interaction in the bank, itdoesn't matter where the
constraint is coming from.
They are being treated as a newcustomer, either it's for a new
banking product or when theyare trying to get a service, or
when they are trying to open anew account.
And we are trying to smoothenthese processes.
(06:33):
We believe that it's mandatory.
And we are trying to smoothenthese processes.
We believe that it's mandatoryAlso for the sake of securing
that the household business willexpand with the bank, but also
that the overall experience willbe much nicer and smoother.
Rachel Morrissey (06:46):
So you're finding that over time, every
time a new generation would comein, it didn't matter how long
your family had banked there, itdidn't matter what kind of
history they had with therelationships Because in the US
I mean we don't really think ofI mean people most likely bank
where their parents banked.
They most likely get an accountwhere their parents got an
account.
Maybe they branch out and theygo get another account in
(07:07):
someplace else or maybe they goget financial services from
someplace else, but that initialbank account is almost always
tied to where their familybanked, because it's familiar,
it's easy, right.
So I'm assuming that's verysimilar here.
But you're saying that everytime they went in it didn't
matter that they were tradedlike they were brand new, not
(07:28):
like an extension of a customerbase that already existed look
in today's world, when movinginto branchless yeah environment
, I'm not so sure that thehabits that you mentioned are
going to keep happening.
Eyal Gilad (07:43):
It's not that you're going to the branch and you're
going to the rep that you walkedin for the last 20 years and
he's helping you to open thekids account.
Today is different yeah in thedigital world, you need to have
the right enablers to allowonboarding the kids, other
(08:05):
products that you are interestedto acquire in a smoother way
and to make sure that also theyounger generation will will
stick with it.
Rachel Morrissey (08:09):
So what tools are you guys implementing for
the financial education of thesekids?
Because that was one of thecustomer wants right, A
checklist that you were meeting.
So in those tools, how are youapproaching the education of the
next generation?
Eyal Gilad (08:25):
Well, we have a set of.
First of all, I will appreciateif whoever listens to us right
now will come to our booth, andwe have some very nice demos to
demonstrate everything.
But we are working with um, notjust uh technology designers we
have a unit in the companywhich are coming from a
psychology background and theydeveloped a set of flows which
(08:51):
allows families basically, onone hand, to force their kids to
behave in a certain manner, tolearn the responsibilities of
savings, of spending, trying tominimize the effect of the kids
feeling that their parents arewatching every step that they're
(09:12):
doing, on one hand, but, on theother hand, making sure that we
are directing them to behave ina responsible manner and based
upon the parents' guidelines.
Rachel Morrissey (09:26):
So you're assisting the parents in giving
the guidance to the kids.
Are there any literacy lessonsimplemented in?
Are there tests workshops?
There's a couple of instanceswhere there's places that will
lock the account unless the kidhas completed his financial quiz
(09:46):
for the week.
Are these the kind of ways thatyou're encouraging it?
Eyal Gilad (09:53):
This is one of the ways.
Yes, we have some kind of acertification process.
We're trying to make itsmoother again in.
Every bank chooses differentpaths but, yes, for some cases,
we have some kind of acertification process that the
kids needs to go to in order toget some kind of a coins, in
order to be able to open and getauthorization for other
activities.
Other banks would like toimplement something more
(10:17):
different nicer less of a testtesting the kids.
Rachel Morrissey (10:21):
So what are the kind of ideas that these
other banks have?
What are you working with rightnow?
Eyal Gilad (10:27):
We're working with a few banks in North America, two
of the leading banks in Canadaand some very interesting use
cases.
Two of the leading banks inCanada and some very interesting
use cases.
We have two European customerswhich bought into this concept.
By the way, in each one of thegeographies there are other,
different constraints, eithertechnology constraints or
(10:47):
regulatory constraints, that weneed to overcome and we are,
together with the bank, workingto make sure that we are in
compliance with all thoselimitations.
And we have one very interestingcustomer in the Philippines
that in this geography thisconcept of family first is
totally neglected, that theyfound it extremely innovative
(11:08):
and believe that this would givethem the edge in the market.
So also in the Philippines wehave a very interesting project
running right now.
Rachel Morrissey (11:14):
Why did they believe it would give them an
edge in the market?
What is it about the culture?
Eyal Gilad (11:19):
I'm not sure it's the culture or it's a local
limitation or the risk profileof the household over there, but
overall I think that they feltthat currently they reached some
kind of a glass ceiling thatthis concept will allow them to
break.
Rachel Morrissey (11:36):
So when you're looking at family banking and
you're serving all thesedifferent geographies, are you
finding certain kinds ofproducts are more popular in
certain areas?
Are there cultural differencesor is it simply generational
differences?
How are you thinking about that?
Eyal Gilad (11:52):
Every geography is a different challenge, obviously.
Yes, there is a cultural elementthat we always need to look
into.
There is a regulatorychallenges that we need to take
into consideration.
Most importantly, by the end ofthe day, it's the business
vision of the bank.
It's about the creativity.
It's about the commitment forinnovation.
It's about about the commitmentto break the current barriers
(12:16):
that they have.
We are doing our best.
I mean the innovation officersalways are bought into it.
The ideas the head of retailsalways bought into it.
Some of them are verytraditional and all the time
focusing on the barriers.
The other ones are more open toengaging in dialogue.
How can we help them break theinternal and external barriers?
(12:39):
Those are the type of customerswe are engaging with.
Rachel Morrissey (12:45):
So what is next for MDocs?
What are you guys thinkingabout?
Eyal Gilad (12:50):
um, besides obviously focusing on our
strengths, which is to provideexperience system in all
channels, across all channels,we are investing a lot in what
we're calling a no code banking,which is fundamentally putting
the right abstractions on top ofthe core banking systems to
(13:11):
allow the business departmentsof each bank to remove their
technology department from thecritical path of fulfilling
business initiatives.
So we call it no-code banking.
In some cases it's absolutely100% no-code.
In some other cases we'recoming with technology of
low-code and in some other caseswith minimal coding.
(13:34):
But whatever we do is committedto the vision of putting the
right enablers to allow thebusiness to achieve faster
time-to-market with a morecreative product definition,
service definition operations.
Rachel Morrissey (13:48):
So what would be the difference between a
no-code and a low-code?
Eyal Gilad (13:52):
No-code is a fully configurable technology
environment.
Basically, we are empowering.
Rachel Morrissey (13:59):
Configurable by the bank?
Yes, by the bank's business.
Eyal Gilad (14:04):
If a business owner would like to go to market with
a new product, we're allowingthem, basically without any
intervention of the technologydepartment, to implement a new
product, to experiment with it,eventually to launch it to
market.
There is always someinvolvement of technology but
still, relatively to the currentenvironment that we see, in a
(14:26):
lot of cases new productintroduction takes 18 months.
We are aiming to cut it and weare achieving cutting it to days
.
So this is for the no-code, Forthe low-code is enablers.
In some cases you need to code,you need to implement some
business logic.
(14:46):
And for this.
We're coming with a set ofrule-based mechanism.
You don't need programmers, youdon't need highly educated IT
professionals.
You still can define thebusiness rules by yourself and
go to market.
Together with the introductionof such business rules.
Rachel Morrissey (15:07):
So what kind of banks are being customers for
, like no-code or low-code?
Who are you serving with those?
Eyal Gilad (15:14):
Serving all the leading banks in all geographies
.
In some cases, some banks findit hard to believe that it's
possible.
In some other cases, banks arecommitted to this change and
they are going all the way withus.
Rachel Morrissey (15:30):
I would wonder a little bit about the legacy
technology and how no code canbe combined with some of the
legacy tech, the tech stacksthat many of the banks find
themselves encumbered by, and sohow does that even begin to
work?
What are you guys doing thatenables it to kind of converge
(15:52):
with those?
Eyal Gilad (15:54):
So I believe that each bank is in a certain
journey, or in the midst of ajourney of modernizing their
legacy course.
Each one of them is taking adifferent path.
We believe that one of thesecured ways to achieve it,
effective ways to achieve it, isby hollowing the core, moving
some capabilities which arecurrently part of the core
(16:17):
banking, legacy core bankingsystems into the northbound,
creating some kind ofabstraction layer on top of the
core banking systems in order toachieve those tasks.
Generally speaking, as much aswe will be able to take the
legacy core constraints out ofthe critical path of
introduction of new services,new products, we believe that
(16:39):
the banks will benefit the most.
Rachel Morrissey (16:42):
Well, obviously, I mean, I think that
the fact that they don't have tohave the same level of tech
professionals to kind ofimplement this, this could be
when you've done this right.
What departments are youlooking at or what are you
working with to kind ofimplement a no code?
Eyal Gilad (17:02):
It's always a combination of the business
departments together with thetechnology departments and the
technology departments.
Rachel Morrissey (17:08):
Every and the technology departments are like
this is great, let's do this.
Eyal Gilad (17:13):
Yes, they're fully brought in Again.
Some of them are more skepticalthan others.
A lot of them are committed toachieve.
I mean they are being alsomeasured based upon certain KPIs
and SLAs official, unofficialthey have with their business
departments.
They would like to cut the timeto market.
They would like to be moreflexible.
(17:33):
They would like to serve theirinternal customers better.
As long as we are finding suchpartners, I think that we can
jointly success in the journey.
Rachel Morrissey (17:42):
And what did you say was the cut in time to
market?
You said it was normally 18months.
And now it's what?
Eyal Gilad (17:48):
A matter of days, weeks Depends upon the case.
A matter of?
Rachel Morrissey (17:50):
days to weeks for new products to be
implemented.
Eyal Gilad (17:54):
By the way, when you're saying products, one of
the things you're asking whatyou see going forward is also
depends upon the geography,depends upon the limitation of
the regulator, but we are seeinga lot of trends to start to
sell also non-banking products,so we are allowing banks to open
themselves into generatingrevenues by becoming a
(18:15):
marketplace also for non-bankingproducts and the bundle of
banking products together withthe non-banking products.
We believe it's a hugedifferentiator for a bank.
Rachel Morrissey (18:26):
What kind of products are banks putting
inside that aren't bankingproducts?
Eyal Gilad (18:32):
Look in the retail space.
My bank is selling meeverything Solar panels,
television, laptops, whatever Iwant.
My bank's selling me.
Your bank is selling you solarpanels, yeah, but this is in the
geography that I'm living in,but I know that it's not allowed
in other geographies, but itdepends.
But the more interesting usecases that we feel are going to
create differentiation is, forexample, in the small-medium
(18:54):
businesses domain, the SMB space.
Yeah, so we have a dedicatedoffering for SMBs in which new
small businesses coming for thebanks for a loan, the bank can
offering basically almost thefull technology enabler stack to
open his business bundle.
With such a loan you can sellhim the IT services, the cloud
(19:17):
storage space cyber security,the relevant application for his
area of expertise, and the bankis in the unique position to
offer it first as part of thepackage.
Some banks are currentlyworking with us to implement
such creative models.
Rachel Morrissey (19:34):
That's very interesting because it does make
the bank more than a typicalfinancial partner.
I mean, it'd be almost likeyour one-stop shop, banking your
business center, Yep.
But again, some banks arelimited.
It'd be almost like yourone-stop shop banking your
business center, yep.
Eyal Gilad (19:48):
But again, some banks are limited.
Yeah, some other geographiesare slowly moving to this
direction, together with openbanking.
Rachel Morrissey (19:57):
Yeah, creativities, that's very
fascinating.
So just this, we don't havetime for much more.
Just one final question,because you've been here at
Money 2020.
You said you have a booth, sohow are you enjoying your
experience here at Money 2020Europe?
Eyal Gilad (20:15):
I love it.
There's tons of energy in here.
To be honest, I returned nowfrom Bangkok for the same event.
The level of energy in here ismuch, much, much higher.
Rachel Morrissey (20:25):
Really.
Eyal Gilad (20:26):
I love it.
I love to meet people that I'mmeeting on a regular basis in
those events.
I love the partnership spiritthose events are coming with.
So it's allowing a lot ofconversation, creative, new
commercial models for us as acompany, as a unit.
Rachel Morrissey (20:42):
So I love it.
Is there a favoriteconversation you've run into
here?
Eyal Gilad (20:46):
It's not a keynote.
It's not like you're not there,but some partnership and some
potential customers.
We had a very, very interestingconversation that hopefully
will yield fruitful partnershipgoing forward.
Rachel Morrissey (20:57):
Oh, that's great Congratulations.
I hope Knock on wood.
Anyway, thank you so much forjoining us here today.
Thank you, rachel, I reallyappreciate it and to all of our
listeners.
You can find us wherever youlisten to your podcasts or you
can go to the Money 2020 websiteand we are there at
money2020.com and feel free, ifyou'd like to be on the podcast,
(21:21):
to let us know.
At podcast at money2020.com,Send us a story idea.
We love to talk to our FinTechfriends.
Thank you.
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