Building on our exploration of the future of currency, payments and collaboration as part of the 2015 global Future Agenda programme, we have recently kicked off another deep dive. This is focused on the future of banking – and particularly retail banking. We aim to explore emerging technological, social, business model and regulatory changes and how and where they may most impact the sector over the next decade. With so many potential shifts from block-chain, alternative currencies, AI and rising automation to more peer-to-peer networks, open banking, new organisational structures, personal data managers and enhanced financial inclusion, there are many possible drivers of change. Understanding which ones will have greatest impact, how and where, is of interest to many.

As with our other projects on the future of cities, the future of philanthropy and the future of patient data, we began the discussion with a lead event to share and build on an initial perspective. Keen to ensure we listen to alternative voices in addition to the more established experts, we chose to return to Quito in Ecuador to begin the conversation. In partnership with Asobanca and the support of five regional banks, in July we ran a workshop which brought together 30 leaders from across and around the sector to explore the key shifts taking place, highlight those that will have greatest impact and which will be the source of greatest change in South America. International Banker has now published a summary of the associated insights.

This details four major areas of potential greatest change:

Shift 1: Enhanced Experience

• Powered by technology, data and the crowd, services become better, easier to use, more efficient and centred on individual users. Leaders broaden their service offer as they shift from product profitability to customer value and experience.

Shift 2: Enabling Environment

• Innovation and disruption demands a cultural and operational response to release inertia and create an enabling environment for all participants.

Shift 3: Digitally Disrupted

• Increased digital services provision and connectivity creates new opportunities for services provision and disruption. With it come new challenges.

Shift 4: Connected Success

• As challenges to society increase, achieving lasting inclusive growth requires a shift in the definitions of success, more collaboration and a better balance between short and long-term gain.

We hope that you find this article useful.

Future of Retail Banking

Moving ahead, there is growing interest from several other organisations around the world to explore the topic of the future of retail banking further as a multi-party collaboration. So we are now looking at identifying 8 to 10 key locations for workshops in the second half of 2018 – as well as hosts with whom to take this forward. As with our other deep-dives, each event will bring together around 25 industry leaders, academics, regulators and innovators to challenge the emerging view, add in regional perspectives and identify what, where, how and why key changes will probably play out. All hosts will co-curate the participant invite list, be able to use all insights from their events for thought leadership and PR, will gain access to all views and underlying research from the whole programme and be recognized in the final report.

At the moment, the most likely locations for these discussions include London, New York, Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sao Paolo, Mumbai, Frankfurt and Stockholm – but we are happy to discuss adding in others as suits interest, diaries and hosts. If you are interested in being involved in this programme as a host or co-host, do let us know and we can start to plan the schedule.

As with all Future Agenda programmes, we would like to thank everyone, participants and hosts, for their input to collaborating and building a more informed global view.