Nimish Panchmatia: «We Learned to Fail Fast»
DBS’s learned hard, fast and early the ropes to becoming a truly tech-enabled firm, said Hong Kong transaction banking head Nimish Panchmatia in a conversation with finews.asia, who believes the first-mover efforts have created a significant gap with competitors.
«We really believe we are a tech company providing financial services,» said DBS’s Nimish Panchmatia during a virtual discussion yesterday.
With the commoditization of traditional financial products and services in the pre-digital era being so dependent on pricing with limited differentiation, banks are increasingly positioning themselves technology firms to brace for a future more dependent on qualitative factors like user experience, connectivity and functionalities. But Panchmatia said that DBS has made tangible progress to legitimately laying such claims – rather than just adopting the tagline without substantiation.
«We embarked on a journey of wanting to be 26,000-person startup five years ago,» he added, highlighting that tech employees form the largest block of the bank’s workforce. «We believe in experimentation. We learned to fail fast and learned fast from [these failures].»
Cultural First-Mover
More than just infrastructure and the deployment of resources, Panchmatia underlined DBS’s multi-year cultural transformation as a real driver of tech adoption, brushing off the traditional stereotypes applicable that have impeded progress elsewhere in the banking industry such as reluctance to change or fear of failure.
«For companies that haven’t been through this journey, I think, there’s going to be a level of urgency for them,» commented Panchmatia, also the former tech and ops head for Hong Kong and China at DBS.
«We started early and we’ve seen great results. We are already adopting new technologies that other financial institutions are evaluating and will probably keep evaluating for years to come.»
Engineering Sales
One key example of cultural change was the bank’s acknowledgment of the need to create and breed employees that are capable of merging front and back office skills – a position DBS calls ‘engineering sales’. The role requires an understanding of how to meet financial needs through technological means to generate business.
«These are people who have a very good understanding of sales, customer and journey but are also [sufficiently] technically-minded to have a decent discussion with a chief technology officer of a company together with their treasury heads and finance heads,» he explained.
Virtual Banks: «It Does Not Make Us Nervous»
On the newly licensed virtual banks looking to serve the same small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) segment, Panchmatia said DBS felt little pressure, stressing that technology was no advantage for the fresh entrants and that the bank was even more advanced in certain areas. But where the bank has a strong advantage is in their experience and understanding of SME clients.
«Our digital offering does not start with technology. It starts with the journey of the customer and what pain points the customer wants to solve. Once we truly understand that, then we go apply our technology,» he said.
«I'd say that the challenge that the other virtual banks are coming in terms of the SME space is that the in-depth understanding isn’t there.»
Big Enough to Share
Despite his confidence that DBS will outdo the likes of traditional banks and emerging fintechs, Panchmatia noted that the SME space was big enough for market share to be passed around, especially in Hong Kong where there are new opportunities to tap into the broader Greater Bay Area market.
More important than just resolving paint points, Panchmatia highlighted the need to do so «in a sustainable way for the bank and for the client».
In response to growing digital banking needs in Hong Kong, DBS recently launched a new SME platform with comprehensive trade finance and FX services. Clients can open business accounts remotely in as little as three working days.
