Banking platformification – aggregating fintechs and financial services within a trusted financial ecosystem – presents a solution to the challenge of meeting the individual needs and goals of millions of customers.

This is according to Idrees Kolabhai, MD for Africa at Finastra, who was speaking ahead of a Finastra roundtable on building retail banking personalisation and financial empowerment for Africa.

Kolabhai said recent ground-breaking ethnographic research carried out on behalf of Finastra had uncovered how individual consumers around the world really feel about money, and the relationship they would like to have with their banks. 

Finastra notes that contrary to popular belief, most of the consumers did not strive for general wealth, but instead had specific financial goals for specific things – such as a market stall or personal security in a gated community. Most of them used multiple banks for various purposes – for example, a traditional bank for saving and long-term investments, and a challenger bank for convenience of day to day transactions.

“Traditionally, banks have looked for mass adoption of new products, but now we are finding that there are so many different types of consumers with so many different needs and aspirations, all at different stages of their lives, and they increasingly expect personalisation,” he says. 

"There are so many different types of consumers with so many different needs and aspirations, all at different stages of their lives, and they increasingly expect personalisation."

Idrees Kolabhai, Finastra.

Kolabhai says the research underlined changing expectations of what banks should be able to deliver. 

“People still need to know their money is safe and secure, but now they also want to understand the value they are getting. In a market in which many consumer services are free, people are questioning why they are paying for certain banking services when they don’t see value.”

The research titled 'The Journey to Financial Empowerment' set out to look beyond masses of people and demographics, to understand the aspirations of individual consumers around the world – particularly among those who have been financially excluded – to understand what financial empowerment means to them.

“The findings make us rethink our assumptions about people and the categories we put them in,” Kolabhai says.

While most banks are striving to deliver personalised services, it is increasingly challenging to deliver universal banking services. This is paving the way for platformification – utility-type environments in which traditional banks partner with a variety of fintechs and other service providers to meet the various financial needs of consumers, using the platforms and technologies they prefer. 

“Finastra’s FusionFabric.cloud platform is underpinning moves towards banking platformification by fostering open collaboration within an ecosystem of development partners.”

Finastra, in partnership with ITWeb, will host a retail banking roundtable discussion on 27 May to reveal the global and regional findings of the Journey to Financial Empowerment study, and address how retail banks can build banking personalisation and financial empowerment for Africa.