Big interview
Right: The new CIO/ CTO ensures he spends time with frontline staff to appreciate and learn from their experiences.
Below: Hussain believes his roles will help Metro Bank to successfully blend technology with customer service.
me,” he says hypothetically, “and say ‘we can do this for you, we can do that for you’. And then I can say to them, ‘I want technology that is conversational, I want technology that has human interaction, as well as automation’”. The point, stresses Hussain, is that he can act as a “change agent” between the bank and external partners, which among other things means that new projects can be implemented much more quickly. In fact, the advantages of this approach are clear in practice at the Metro Bank call centre, where partnerships with fintechs have allowed staff to process customer queries much faster. One example is PolyAI, a computer-powered voice assistant that can answer complex requests automatically, all in a range of different accents.
PolyAI entered the Metro Bank fold through an innovation lab called Magic Makers – and it’s far from the only fintech to do so. With Hussain again facilitating conversations, this is obvious across the bank’s operations. Surfly, for instance, is an online platform that allows customers and staff to safely share their screens, ensuring issues can be pinpointed and resolved promptly. Solidatus, for its part, maps and tracks data flows across the organisation, creating a digital blueprint and helping far-flung processes work smoothly
together. Beyond the specialisation of these smaller players, Hussain arguably prefers them on principle too. “‘We are really good at one thing that we do really well,’” is how he characterises their attitude, adding they may be more conscious of integration or GDPR challenges than larger competitors.
Hire aspirations
Hussain is relatively new to his dual role at Metro Bank. When we spoke, he’d been in his CIO/CTO job for less than a year. Yet, you get the feeling he has a robust vision for where he wants to take his employer. In part, that involves expanding Magic Makers: last year, three more fintechs were swept up alongside Surfly and the rest, including a cloud-based queueing platform and a real-time rewards scheme for current account holders. He is also taking his endless rounds of conversations even further afield. “I want to grow talent,” he explains. “So I’m going to look for 16-to-18 year olds, those who are non-graduates, who may be really clever with technology. They don’t know what their career options are. They’ve not been to university, so they don’t have lots of avenues – but I’m going to look to try and find them.” Known as ‘academy apprentices’, Hussain hopes to secure five wizkids in the scheme’s first year, parked alongside a similar scheme for even younger children. Especially for a relatively small institution like Metro Bank, Hussain is convinced that these innovative hiring processes, guiding bubbling talent towards a dynamic career in tech, is an ideal way of standing out – hardly immaterial when one recent poll found that 58% of insiders claimed they were struggling to hire qualified tech workers. In a broader sense, meanwhile, programmes like academy apprentices could eventually ensure that Hussain’s thoughtful blend of talking and tech endures when he finally leaves Metro Bank. As he puts it: “If I build a really capable and confident team, and a pipeline to keep the talent coming into our organisation, I think I’d be really proud when I go somewhere else one day.” Fair enough – though considering how busy Hussain has been already in his double role, don’t expect his departure anytime soon. ●
10 Future Banking /
www.nsbanking.com
Metro Bank
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