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The rapid transformation of customer behavior and digital technologies has driven considerable change in Asia’s banking sector. Innovation alone is no longer enough – banks need to collaborate.

By Smita Gupta, Senior Director, APAC, Finastra

Consumers and corporates are looking for more flexibility and personalization from their banking experiences and banks can’t afford, and should not have, to do it alone. Adopting an inclusive Open Banking platform-based approach is not only more efficient, but more cost-effective and innovative in the long-term. It’s time to collaborate; «collaboration» is the new «innovation.»

The power of collaboration

Today’s interconnected digital landscape is driving significant change in today’s banking business model. Banks are realizing that the tightly controlled, proprietary operations and legacy systems they once ran don’t, and will not, work anymore; and to remain competitive in this new open marketplace, collaboration with new partners is imperative.

So, why is the market so perfectly primed for collaboration right now? With the rise of open APIs, it has become increasingly easy to partner with agile third-parties like fintechs and technology companies. Banks can now take advantage of cutting-edge technologies and methodologies without the expense and resources needed to develop them in-house.

Banks which want to embrace a platform-based banking model need to break the barriers of traditional thinking and adopt a new mindset to survive in a collaborative economy.

An Open Banking race to meet customer needs

Asia-Pacific is getting ready to win the race in Open Banking. The latest Finastra Open Banking Readiness Index, which measured 146 banks across 14 Asia-Pacific markets on their progress towards Open Banking readiness, showed that Asia Pacific is set to leapfrog some of its Western counterparts in embracing a more open and inclusive banking system.

The index measures banks’ open banking readiness across five dimensions: