Banking Platformization: a Key Talking Point at Comarch-hosted Mobey Forum in Kraków
On May 22–23, Comarch headquarters hosted the Mobey Forum Q2 2024 Kraków Member Meeting. There was excellent knowledge sharing on case studies… and a knight fight.
Mobey Forum is a global, non-profit association that serves as a knowledge-sharing and networking platform for the financial industry. Its members’ meetings are held quarterly in various locations around the world.
The main topic of the member meeting was “Platformization of Banking: APIs, Open Finance, Value-Added Services in Banking and Beyond.” This topic is important these days, as everyone agrees that banks must introduce open platforms and update legacy systems to realize growth strategies in different areas.
During the two days, our guests listened to insightful presentations on digital banking and platform strategies, as well as shared their thoughts within the expert groups about what they can bring to the table in matters of Payments, Digital ID, Digital Wallets, and AI.
Taru Möller from Nordea opened the main event with welcome words as Vice-Chair of Mobey Forum's Board of Directors, then Comarch’s VP and Director at Financial Services Division, Andrzej Przewięźlikowski had an opening keynote about Comarch Financial Services, technology and trends, CSR, and mentioned how important R&D is to maintain flexibility and competitive advantage in the banking industry.
Magdalena Kubisa, Director of Business Development at BLIK, presented the BLIK Payment Revolution in Poland, its success story, and future expansion plans. Next was Anna Grechowicz-Dorosz, who presented the implementation of the Comarch Open Platform in Credit Agricole Bank Polska S.A. and how to combine two separate businesses (banking and leasing) in a comprehensive ecosystem for seamless service integration for Credit Agricole customers.
The first day ended with not one but two fights! The first one was a fantastic Fight Club debate on the topic of embedded services on third-party platforms between Sarah Häger (Enable Banking) and Clemens Müller (George Labs), moderated by Pål Krogdahl (Samlink).
A few hours later, the real fight broke out – this time, it was swords, not just words. That fight was between professional reenactors and was a part of the medieval-themed entertainment that took place in Wierzynek historic restaurant in the heart of Kraków as a part of networking.
On the second day, Alexey Kapustin from Raiffeisen Digital Bank AG told the story of building the new multi-market bank as a Digital Platform in Raiffeisen, how to leverage data with a focus on core customer needs, simplicity, and an independent customer acquisition tool.
Then Erlend Sundvor shared Eika Gruppen's fascinating journey in harmonizing the banking group’s underlying infrastructure to optimize valuable partnerships and build value in standardization for their Norwegian customers. Liisa Kanniainen gave a very insightful presentation about how platformization is currently affecting cash management ecosystems, using Nordea in the Nordics as an example.
Ferenc Joó and Marcin Wąsikowski from UNIQA shared their experience shaping current digital and omnichannel trends in insurance, using the example of one team's cooperation with mBank over the last ten years.
Matteo Bernardoni told the extraordinary story of establishing and developing a bank’s mortgage brokerage at UBS. He presented challenges in defining the customer's need – which is a home, not a loan, as some tend to forget that in the first place. The client-centric approach was the milestone in strategic considerations for all value-added services and creating the marketplace in Switzerland.
The next extremely important point of the member meeting was the session of expert table discussions on embedding on a third-party platform, ingredients of a winning bank platform, use cases of value-added services, and optimization of infrastructure, which were led by Seweryn Bąk, Pål Krogdahl, Cédric Sieber, and Sami Uski, respectively.
Starting the final part of the presentations was Amadeus von Kummer, who presented his points on why SME lending is broken and how digital lending can fix it. The SME segment is underserved by banks, and fintechs do not need to compete in price. Last but not least was the very insightful presentation delivered by Petter Lee-Johannessen, who shared the ins and outs of DNB’s forward-thinking approach to establishing a presence within diverse ecosystems, with examples.
Nicolas Cramer and Clement Müller wrapped up the meeting. They presented key takeaways in an interactive form, in which the present members provided what resonates most in the field of banking platformization. Some of the ideas they proposed were “strategy”, “customer”, “innovation”, or “flexibility”.
“It was a unique experience to host the Mobey Forum Krakow in Comarch HQ. Mobey connects members in insightful discussions on strategies and technologies utilized in digital financial services. Banks and experts have relevant dialogues to ask the most burning questions and to get their strategies challenged. It allows everyone to be inspired and be ahead of coming changes. It’s a fantastic opportunity to meet peers and learn from passionate people”, says Seweryn Bąk, sales director at Comarch, who also led one of the discussions during the expert table sessions.
We are grateful that we could be home to such inspiring discussions and our wonderful guests from the banking industry, even if only for this short time during the Mobey Forum. It was surely a meaningful experience for Comarch, and we hope you enjoyed the meeting as much as we did.
A huge thank you to our organization team & partners at Mobey Forum, see you at the Q3 meeting in Stockholm!