Big interview
Digitalising the world’s bank
In 2021, HSBC embarked on an ambitious scheme of digitalisation, spending billions to
transform a range of client functions. As one the largest fi nanciers on earth, with customers and staff scattered the world over, embracing the immense power of new technology surely makes sense. And as the bank’s Group CIO explains, revamped platforms have the opportunity to take HSBC to even dizzier heights, in fi elds as varied as customer onboarding and cybersecurity. Andrea Valentino chats to Steve Van Wyk to learn more.
I
n 2001, passengers leaving Heathrow would have noticed something different as they prepared to board their flights. Rather than the empty jet bridges they were accustomed to, they would instead have noticed adverts for what would soon become known as ‘the world’s local bank’. And just as it invented the concept of jet-bridge advertising, HSBC would soon go on to perfect it, with the bank’s witty slogans and sly corporate allusions becoming as central to the airport experience as bad coffee or an overpriced sandwich. HSBC may have abandoned the ‘local bank’ motto back in 2016. But the catchphrase – to say nothing of its vital importance in places of comings and goings – seems equally relevant today. This, after all, really is one of the planet’s foremost global
institutions, the world’s seventh and Europe’s first, with assets worth almost $3trn and a network of offices spanning 63 nations and territories. Nor is HSBC finished yet. Fitting for a bank born in Hong Kong and made in London, HSBC now aims to develop what Group CIO Steve Van Wyk calls a “global experience” built around new technology, an initial investment valued at $6bn. Yet for all the bank’s heft, none of this is easy, something Van Wyk himself surely understands. From supporting customers to fighting fraud, he has plenty on his desk. And that’s before you consider Van Wyk’s deeper role, beyond IT, working with fellow executives and distant departments to hit HSBC’s broader targets. Spend long talking to the CIO, however, and you get the feeling that his
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Future Banking /
www.nsbanking.com
Novikov Aleksey/
Shutterstock.com
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