In June 2024, Visa Consulting & Analytics partnered with Tink to launch a new report: Commercialising Open Finance: The state of play, the direction of travel, and best practices from around the world.
Payments Cards & Mobile caught up with Claudio Di Nella Head of Visa Consulting & Analytics in Europe, for an update on the Open Finance opportunity, how banks should approach it, and the type of support his team typically delivers.
Before we get into details, can you give us a quick overview of Visa Consulting & Analytics, your credentials, and the scope of services you provide?
We are a team of more than 1,300 payments consultants, digital marketing specialists, data scientists, and economists.
We exist to help Visa clients to differentiate, grow, and outperform the market. We offer a full spectrum of advisory services, from market entry analysis to implementation support.
And our biggest differentiator is our analytical skills and access to VisaNet data, which gives us a truly unique vantage point – enabling us to anticipate trends, provide insights, and benchmark the performance of any aspect of a Visa client’s business.
What’s your interest in Open Banking, and why did you publish the report?
We believe that, in many ways, the future of financial services is predicated on Open Banking and open data.
We see it as a commercial opportunity for any bank, irrespective of its circumstances. And we believe there is clear potential for value creation and competitive differentiation for banks who take an active role in its evolution.
The reason we published the report is to re-surface the topic. Initially, many European banks treated Open Banking as a compliance obligation, but it should be seen as much more than that.
We want to draw attention to the momentum that’s been building, and get it high on the strategic agenda for all out clients– because we believe that’s where it deserves to be.
What would you say to banks to encourage them to treat it as a commercial opportunity?
I believe it’s the next logical phase in the advancement of what I’d call data-driven banking.
For a consumer to access financial services, it’s no longer necessary for them to visit a bank’s branch, website or mobile app. Instead, financial services are being woven into the fabric of people’s daily lives – and served up to them seamlessly at the time and place they are most needed.
So, Open Banking represents a huge strategic opportunity. It enables banks to offer services in a much more relevant and contextual way.
It also expands the reach of a bank’s services and channels. So, the opportunity for revenue generation should dwarf any concerns about revenue leakage.
What are your top recommendations for a bank that’s starting to consider the commercialisation of Open Banking?
Focus on your core strengths.
For example, if mortgages are the thing you are best known for, then specialise on it. Use Open Banking to enhance your service and the quality of the customer experience.
Also consider how you could use Open Banking to cross-sell and up-sell other related services – which might be your own services, or might be a partner’s services.
So, with our mortgages example, those ancillary services could include insurance, moving services, surveys, utilities, and anything else connected to moving house.
Don’t try to do everything. Don’t take a “me too” approach. And don’t stray outside of your area of expertise. Also, remember there is a vibrant ecosystem of potential partners out there, so use them to craft and hone a proposition that plays to your existing strengths.
And what type of support do you typically provide to banks that are making this journey?
Like any other assignment, we can help with anything from ideation, to strategic planning, to implementation support.
And, like any other assignment, what sets us apart is the quality of insights we provide: we can see who a bank’s customers really are, the lives they lead, and the things they value; we can also pinpoint a bank’s unique strengths, the ways in which they outperform the market, and their vulnerabilities.
Based on these insights, we can help to craft the ideal proposition. And, if the client wants us to, we can also bring together a set of Visa solutions – which, in the case of Open Banking, could include solutions from our partners at Tink.
The report, Commercialising Open Finance: The state of play, the direction of travel, and best practices from around the world, can be downloaded HERE
The post Commercialising Open Finance – a perspective from Visa Consulting & Analytics appeared first on Payments Cards & Mobile.