The Rise of Open Banking
and Sustainable Investment Webinar

Why Should You Watch This On-Demand Webinar?

Do you play a critical role in spearheading innovation in your financial services business? Are you or your team responsible for driving your organizations ESG initiatives? Do you work in the financial services sector?

If you answered yes to any of the questions above, then this on-demand webinar is for you. With innovative technology and sustainable investment taking center stage, staying informed can help you navigate the market with confidence.

Key Takeaways

Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG)

How Can Sustainable Technology Revolutionize the Sector?

Is Open Banking the Future?

Host and Speakers

Chirag Thakral

Head of Banking & Capital Markets at Capgemini Research Institute for Financial Services

Chirag is the Head of Banking & Capital Markets at Capgemini Research Institute for Financial Services. He has over 16 years of experience as a strategy and thought leadership professional with in-depth financial services, professional services, and FinTech industry expertise. He has consistently represented Capgemini as a spokesperson in Banking with clients and leading media houses.

Louisa Harris

Head of Sustainability & Systems Change

Louisa leads Brandpie’s sustainability practice, helping clients to define their role as corporate stewards and unlock their unique potential to create positive impact. She has worked in sustainable business for 13 years, with a background in strategy, non-financial reporting and ESG assurance. Her work currently focuses on transformation, responsible leadership and culture change to influence systems change. She is also a Trustee of Hawkwood: Center for Future Thinking and an academic tutor for the Cambridge Institute for Sustainable Leadership’s courses on Sustainable Business Management and Sustainable Finance.

Gavin Starks

Founder and CEO

Gavin has created over a dozen companies, employing 100’s of people, and delivering $100M’s in measurable impact. He co-chaired the development of the Open Banking Standard, was founding CEO of the Open Data Institute, and has raised over $100M in venture and philanthropic funding. He has mentored, chaired, or been non-exec of over 30 organizations across sectors.

Rachael Kinsella (Host)

Editor in Chief

Rachael has specialized in professional and financial services editorial, business development, marketing and communications since 2003. An enthusiastic advocate of the power of thought leadership, she thrives on the challenge of forming and delivering creative concepts and content from complex data and themes, bringing unique ideas and perspectives to life. Highlights include leading and crafting thought leadership programs for global superbrands, including the flagship financial regulation series at KPMG International and Corporate Financier magazine at the ICAEW Corporate Finance Faculty.

 

What You Will Learn

Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG)

  • Customers want a seamless end-to-end experience across every channel, service, and product. How can financial institutions better align to suit their customer’s needs and meet sustainable objectives?
  • Start-ups and younger companies are thinking outside of the box with sustainable technology, as they lack legacy systems in place from their older contemporaries. How can these older financial institutions move away from their established models and adopt new policies and regulations for younger generations of customers?
  • Financial firms need to balance improving their ESG credentials with the need to survive the impacts of the current situations (COVID-19, global cost of living crisis, Ukraine/Russian war) and manage issues such as credit risk, cost reduction, and consolidation. What policies are currently in place to manage the current issues and better serve customers?

How Can Sustainable Technology Revolutionize the Sector?

  • In our report, “How Sustainable is the Technology Sector?” – we asked the industry what technology was contributing most to sustainability practices. Artificial intelligence makes up 68%, and blockchain 56%. How have these rising technologies affected the way financial institutions operate and service their customers and what can panellists suggest to improve this?
  • What are some of the emerging sustainable technologies in the finance industry?
  • How may fintechs play pivotal roles in the pathway toward a low-carbon sustainable future?
  • Should financial firms re-design their business models to ensure they are environmentally sustainable – what systems do your companies currently have in place?
  • In our recent survey of 200 respondents, the cost makes up 32.29% of challenges for sustainability in financial service companies. What financial resources are available for sustainable infrastructure?

Is Open Banking the Future?

  • By creating complex chains of data access, is open banking more susceptible to corruption and fraudulent activity?
  • When Open Banking legislation was introduced in 2018, the idea was that it would drive innovation and competition in financial services. How have you seen this play out so far in your area of FS? Do you think it is enabling the sector to become more agile and innovative in terms of sustainability?
  • Conversely, what are some of the roadblocks or challenges you are seeing right now?
  • Open banking has implications for energy usage -particularly in creating and storing vast amounts of data. Are we doing enough to make sure open banking really is sustainable?
  • Australia’s approach to open banking has been slightly different from the UK’s. Australia’s legislation aims to roll out open data sharing across a wider range of financial and non-financial sectors, including pensions, insurance, and energy. Do you think the UK (and the rest of the world) should be pursuing this more “joined-up” approach? Why or why not? What specific impact do you think it would have on sustainability?
  • Sustainability isn’t just about ecological concerns – it’s about sustainable social relationships too. Has open banking been successful in improving financial inclusion so far? What could this look like in the future?
  • One of the barriers to sustainable change across sectors is the perception that it incurs high costs. Is this true for open banking? What costs does it incur, or save?
  • One of the barriers to the uptake of open banking is public concern around security and data privacy. What successes have you seen in terms of education initiatives and fostering trust?

Did You Know?

Nearly 50% believe sustainability will drive new customers.

Just over one-third (37%) believed enough was being done, while only 18% believed not enough was being done to finance sustainable development and practices.

57% of financial services professionals believe governments need to do a better job of supporting sustainability initiatives.

36% thought that competitor financial institutions, from banks to hedge funds, lacked the resources to become sustainable and that they are still managing the short-term impacts of COVID-19.

45% of financial services professionals said cost was the biggest barrier to adopting more sustainable strategies.

Source: How Sustainable is Financial Services?, iResearch Services, 2021.

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