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Banks can reap $200 billion more in revenue by servicing the financially excluded, EY’s Liew Nam Soon says in an interview with finews.asia.

Nam Soon, in your new role, transitioning from being the managing partner for financial services in Asean to the broader Asean markets as a whole, can you share more about what your new function entails?

My new role focuses on EY’s business performance and client service, which is key to EY achieving greater impact and distinctiveness in the industry. We are on-point to work closely with our clients, understand their business priorities and challenges, so that we are able to bring the best of our capabilities to them as their ‹trusted advisors›.

I will work with the different industry teams within the firm to further enhance our distinctiveness in the market and help our clients to achieve sustainable growth while navigating disruption in their respective industries.

What does that mean in terms of your strategic priorities for the firm and industry as a whole?

Against a backdrop of digitalization and hyper-connectivity, disruption creates convergence nodes between previously separate industries. The world as a whole, including Asean, is facing a lot disruption. This is wide across all of the different industry verticals and include telecommunications, media, technology, financial services, healthcare, logistics, infrastructure and resources.

«In the emerging markets, there is a big push for financial inclusion»

What this means in business terms is a push for industry convergence and less silo approaches. Additionally in the emerging markets, there is a big push for financial inclusion involving digital as there is still a large population of consumer, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) who are financially excluded or do not have access to proper healthcare, resources and infrastructural support.

In fact, our recent EY study on ‹Financial Inclusion› states that there is a revenue potential of up to $200 billion for banks through increased servicing of the financially excluded. Our strategic priorities are therefore around helping clients manage disruption in relation to industry convergence and integration as well as better leverage resulting opportunities to achieve sustainable growth.