ONLY recently, traditional commercial banks have faced increasing competition from various sectors, such as neobanks and fintechs, to name two, that provide great customer experience, reliable money movement and attractive pricing.
In that specialized space, Intellect Global Transaction Banking (iGTB) has rolled out its artificial intelligence (AI)-driven platform, which embeds financial products and services directly within their client bank’s ecosystem as they serve their customers.
In a roundtable media briefing in Makati, Manish Maakan, iGTB chief executive, introduced his company’s platform eMACH.ai, which could help financial institutions design and deploy integrated, future-ready technology solutions for a global competitive edge.
Integrated capabilities are the keywords, and Maakan expounded on it at length: “We’ve got the full kernel. We can orchestrate and manage any consumer needs. Or any corporate requirement, for that matter, and be able to deliver on a single platform. On the contrary, most other platforms are built in silos.”
The AI difference
Artificial intelligence is the crucial driver that allows eMach.ai to deliver top performance. “The advent of AI is so strong right now we have embedded AI through the entire life cycle to be able to orchestrate and automate processes and reduce cost,” Maakan said. “Or give customer insights to any of the value chain members. And by bringing all of these together, we have built the differentiating technology.”
The AI-driven technology has made impressive breakthroughs in operational efficiency, so both bank and customers reap benefits, including making money. Maakan illustrated, “For example, to process any trade loan. Today it costs $100. Just by implanting our automation platform, the cost can be brought down to $10. That’s the scale of efficiency that’s possible, and, at the same time, the bank will be able to use it to do the Know Your Customer (KYC check), do the fraud checks, do the local regulatory evaluation, do a policy assessment, and still be able to approve a trade loan.”
Maakan, however, cautioned that such efficiencies come with a price. “To attain such efficiencies, banks must first hurdle some challenges, including regulatory compliance, ” he said. “In countries like the Philippines, the regulators are much harsher on the banks as opposed to fintechs. Then after some time, they hit a certain scale where they start going into next-level regulations; they just get straddled by regulators.”
The iGTB executive said: “For fintechs, if they just show remittance is moving and they’re not managing deposits for a bank, they can get by with a lot of stuff. Fintechs usually stay away from taking deposits, but as soon as a fintech starts managing deposits, the regulators get involved because there’s liability for the regulators. They have to underwrite those deposits. So certain things come into play, and if a fintech company wants to go that direction, then it has to apply for digital banking licenses (subject to regulatory supervision).”
“In this sense, regulators are actually working for the security of consumers,” Maakan added. “Consider that they have to manage such a large, diverse ecosystem. Our advice to banks is not to count them as challenges. They should rather scale up at some level.”
Global best practices,
local talent
Localize for skill, not for scale. Maakan emphasized that, “We are building a local innovation hub over here in the Philippines. Local Filipinos have already been hired over here. We will be looking at expanding and building a local delivery center development center over here.”
“Find the right technology partner who can take you through the life cycle,” Maakan advised. “Keep consuming what you have. So, you modernize the first piece of your business and get returns on it. The second piece of your business gets returns and then the life cycle demands more modernization. I think banks need progressive leadership that takes the view of transforming the market.”
“In our journey, we are now looking at distribution partnerships. We’re working along with Accenture to be able to scale,” Maakan said. “We’re working with AWS on the cloud. So, getting these partnerships for scale is very important. We need global partnerships, and we need local partnerships, as well.”
iGTB’s top executive is applying a strong philosophy that brings global best practices, along with local color in place as well. A winning move that is guiding the expansion of his company’s presence in the Philippines.
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