IBS Journal May 2018
15
to throw away. They want to be able to retain that investment and we want to help them do that by providing a workable presentation to layer on top of it.
IBSJ: How modular is the presentation layer? Can a client change the colours, modify the bubble shapes and such?
JH: Well, changing the shape of the bubbles would be fairly complex, as it’s based on a design code. Yet, it’s not just the bank that can change the interface; the user can customise the UI from within the app. Obviously there will be some banks who will insist on using their colours and keeping it on-brand and that’s easy to deliver. Others might want to open it up to user personalisation and control and, actually, millennials love to have that – it’s something we’ve seen in the popularity of challenger banks. Yet they’re still slightly limited in what they can offer from a cost-effective standpoint, whereas we can offer them something like Gravity and give them a level of customisation.
IBSJ: Do you feel a service like Gravity is well placed to aid banks who perhaps missed the Open Banking boat?
JH: Absolutely. Beyond that I think there’s a broader industry
There’s a broader industry opportunity that banks need to exploit if they want to become the centre of an ecosystem for their consumers
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opportunity that banks need to exploit if they want to become the centre of an ecosystem for their consumers. If you take a third-party opportunity and bring it into the bank, like saving for a holiday or looking for insurance, your bank can become your primary app for your financial life. This is a genuine opportunity for banks to do something quite significant. Of course, the challengers have already identified this possibility, and they have tackled it earlier because they have an innate agility. Now top-line banks are going to make their APIs available to others, but it should also be about whether you become a consumer of APIs as well as a provider of them.
Another issue is that a lot of consumers still have no idea when it comes to what PSD2 and Open Banking are about. They’re feeling a little bit let down by the lack of information. Considering that this is something that has come into force and will have impact they [the banks] are not really taking the issue of education seriously enough.
IBSJ: A left-field question, but do you feel it to be slightly risk-averse for banks to be bolting APIs onto old systems that need to be upgraded?
JH: There are specific challenges for the big Tier 1 banks. They can’t just ditch 20 years of legacy systems and databases. I am of a mind that perhaps they should consider it, because there are some very, very good database solutions out there now. But, that’s why providing this API layer to plaster over the front-end can be so useful.
Part of the issue is that the legacy banking systems do need to be mindful that there are certain APIs that the digital world requires that they don’t yet provide. They must be aware of that and building new APIs. Yet, in the meantime, if you can put something in between it can be a great solution and a way to modernise the data kept locked away in the older systems.
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