Banks are changing the way they operate in order to adapt faster to the onslaught of fintechs in the region, according to Standard Chartered’s group chief information officer, Michael Gorriz, who says that “agile development” is the new norm.
“The change within the banking sector has never been so fast or speedy than it is today,” Gorriz said at the RISE Conference in Hong Kong. He added that in the past, banks took a “waterfall” approach whereby tech development projects were discussed and only adopted a year later.
The agile approach refers to a specific type of rapid application development which is often implemented using a “scrum” methodology – a “flexible, holistic product development strategy whereby the team works as a unit to reach a common goal”.
The waterfall, or linear approach to software development involves going through various silos and stages for approvals.
Gorriz said that accelerator labs are a key part of Standard Chartered’s agile development strategy, as the bank opens up for collaborations with fintechs and banks, to trial their solutions and integration processes.
When asked if this sandbox approach will be a silver bullet for tech development, he said: “Let’s see if this is successful in the coming years.”
Standard Chartered is not the only bank to adopt such a framework. HSBC said it will deliver the majority of its tech projects using the agile method by the end of 2017.
And, many banks have turned to innovation labs in order to keep an eye on the fintech space in the region. Major players including DBS, Citibank, Credit Suisse and UBS have chosen to set up their innovation labs in Singapore, while Commonwealth Bank of Australia opened its innovation lab in Hong Kong. Standard Chartered has a testing kitchen for fintechs in both Singapore and Hong Kong, while HSBC established an innovation hub in Singapore in 2015 before opening another one in Hong Kong with ASTRI a year later.
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