Big interview
digitalisation Embracing
Every bank is rushing to embrace the latest technology – but few have such a storied history at being fi rst as BNP Paribas. From its origins in the 19th century, the French multinational has always been willing to experiment with what’s new. Not that the path to a digital tomorrow is totally clear. Getting customers and staff comfortable with new systems is one challenge, as is the perennial struggle of keeping clients and their information safe. Andrea Valentino chats to Bernard Gavgani, the group CIO at BNP Paribas, to learn more.
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n the shadow of Napoleon and in an age of absolutism, BNP Paribas was born as something new. Known in the 1820s as the Société Générale de Belgique, this predecessor of the modern giant combined retail banking and shareholdings in companies for the first time, thereby inventing mixed banking. It didn’t stop there. Though it’s passed through many mergers and countless names, the French multinational has always been in search of what’s new. In the 1890s, the three banks that would one day form BNP funded vast new railway projects in China. In the 1960s, it promoted innovative bank cards – and even advertised specifically for women. To put it another way, this is an institution that’s always faced the future with pride. And given how
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quickly finance is advancing, that’s just as well. Think about it: this is a world where digitalisation is expected to jump by 16.5% every year to 2025, and an industry where AI-oriented fintech will grow by over 20%. That’s doubly true, of course, in the wake of the pandemic. With many millions of customers trapped at home for over a year, 2021 could be the moment that remote banking finally enters the mainstream. That’s certainly what banks themselves have found. At Goldman Sachs, for example, 25% more customers are now using the bank’s institutional platform than before coronavirus. Across the sector generally, this figure climbs to over a third. Naturally, the path towards an efficient and profitable digital future is far from smooth. From security worries to training staff, there’s a
Future Banking /
www.nsbanking.com
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