The future of retail finance - From growth to sustainable profits

Banks and financial institutions (FIs) have been accelerating their digital transformation as the world navigates through a post-pandemic and tense environment. The industry is focusing on ways to prioritise retail finance in operations. The rise of challenger banks and fintechs, regulatory changes and consumer behaviour shifts have pushed traditional players to modernise their technology architecture and infrastructure. The retail financial services industry has seen an increase in contactless transactions, partnerships with non-traditional players, adoption of internet of things (IoT) and smart devices, use of blockchain, Web 3.0, artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics. As new real-time payment and open banking infrastructure lay the foundation for a shift in consumer behaviour, the move towards cloud has also empowered institutions with greater agility to innovate, and have more scalable, secure and efficient operations. With open application programming interfaces (APIs), data and analytics, FIs are leveraging opportunities to collaborate with fintechs and third-party providers to better meet customer needs at lower cost as well as introduce new products and services. Incumbents have also started issuing digital currencies, while regulators are implementing central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) into their systems. More products and services are now designed around convenience and personalisation. Industry players are also exerting efforts to support underserved consumer segments as well as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). These innovations and developments prove that retail finance will play an even bigger role going forward. The Excellence in Retail Financial Services Convention 2023 captures the essence of the current and future banking and finance space and gathers some of the best minds in the Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa regions. The programme is designed as a day of intense discussions on the key developments in the retail finance sector. The event will be held in Hanoi, Vietnam, one of the fastest growing economies in Southeast Asia and a leading ASEAN country in terms of fintech financing.