Snowflake's Geoff Soon: «Rapid Rise for Challenger Banks in 2021»
Snowflake, which saw massive growth in 2020, is expanding rapidly in the Asia Pacific region, supported by sector-wide trends, its South Asia managing director told finews.asia.
«Singapore and ASEAN are incredibly exciting markets for us as we anticipate that there will be even more organizations adopting cloud for their digital transformation efforts because of the extensive digital penetration in the region,» Geoff Soon, Snowflake's Singapore-based South Asia managing director, said in an interview.
«As more and more traditional FSIs move to transform and digitize their operations, we have seen the uptake of Snowflake in the insurance and banking sector in both Singapore and ANZ,» Soon said, adding that many fintech companies in Singapore have come on board recently, including private capital markets platform iSTOX.
Renowned Clients
The U.S. data cloud company made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange in September 2020, which was the largest ever by a software company. Its clients include Capital One, Allianz, Axa, Western Union and Funding Societies.
Soon cited several trends that are driving the adoption of data cloud solutions in the region, including the growing demand for digital-first experiences, which was prompted by the sudden drop in face-to-face business activity in 2020.
Digital-First Experience
«Increasing numbers of banking customers are now looking for a simple-to-use, reliable digital-first experience. They want similar levels of service regardless of the communication channel or device they are using,» he said.
«For this reason, challenger banks and fintechs will be well-placed to win an increasing share of the financial services market. Expect their rise to be rapid in 2021 and beyond,» Soon added.
Embrace of Cloud
Soon highlighted the increasing use of cloud platforms by enterprises to deliver more personalized customer experiences and compete with the rapidly evolving fintech firms gaining traction in the market.
The embrace of cloud platforms by financial services firms will also facilitate the sharing of data, both across organizations and with trusted third parties, Soon added.
Data Democratization
Going forward, Soon expects data to be increasingly democratized, as recent improvements in analytics and reporting tools mean that it is now possible for virtually anyone within a business to undertake queries and generate reports.
Companies will also increasingly use data to meet growing business demands for richer insights into customer behavior, he said.
