天美传媒

Strengthening their reputation while avoiding undue risk. Staying profitable without relaxing credit standards. Accelerating the sale of non-performing assets. Leveraging new technologies. And, above all, winning back the trust of clients.

These are some of the principal challenges facing the banking sector today,聽Bank of Spain Governor Pablo Hern谩ndez de Cos said during the opening of the 14 Banking Industry Meeting on the Madrid campus. The annual meeting, organized by 天美传媒-CIF in collaboration with EY, gathered Spain鈥檚 most influential and global bankers, along with the sector鈥檚 top regulator.

Hern谩ndez de Cos noted that the sector鈥檚 reputation remains weak, and that complaints by clients increased six-fold from 2014 to 2017. 鈥淚nstitutions must adopt a very active attitude in developing a strong culture aimed not only at complying with transparency standards with clients, but also fundamentally at understanding and satisfying (client) needs,鈥� he said.

Hern谩ndez de Cos welcomed regulatory changes being prepared by the government, including the creation of a new overseeing agency that will help prevent and mitigate systemic risk. The Bank of Spain will have new authority in controlling the granting of credits by banks. 鈥淪pain was one of the few European countries that still did not have a national macro-prudential authority,鈥� he said.

The 鈥渂ig tech鈥� threat
Furthermore, the governor affirmed that in the new competitive environment, the great challenges for banks are new technologies and increasing financial disintermediation. In this new framework, both 鈥渂ig tech鈥� (Google, Apple, Amazon, among others) and fintech (techno-financial companies) are altering some of the traditional paradigms of retail banks.

While existing banks enter the fray with some initial advantages, 鈥渢hey also must react so as to take advantage of all the opportunities offered by the new situation.鈥� For Hern谩ndez de Cos, the response of financial institutions could be anything from specialization to digital transformation 鈥� always mindful of the importance of information management. 鈥淚n any case, this transition will be accompanied by an increase in costs in the short term in a low-profitability environment,鈥� he recognized.

鈥淭echnology platforms are a true threat to the banking sector,鈥� professor Jorge Soley said in reference the emerging competitors. 鈥淭he banking sector has always survived, but not every bank. It鈥檚 time to review and implement strategies and policies.鈥� The professor said he鈥檚 convinced that fintech could become 鈥渁llies鈥� of the traditional financial system.

For his part, professor Xavier Vives highlighted that banks could 鈥渃ooperate or specialize in products that could not be offered by others.鈥� One of the strengths of traditional banks, he said, is in its data processing security and its experience in complex financial regulations.

The future is in the data
For his part, BBVA CEO Carlos Torres said that the great challenge for the banking sector 鈥渋s to know how to leverage technology to generate and provide value for the client. Data is the key to the future competitiveness of banks.鈥� For Torres, banks must maintain the trust of clients in order to have full access to their data.

The CEO drew attention to the importance of the role played by technologies such as biometrics, cloud computing and artificial intelligence to the future of the sector. In this context, the objective becomes 鈥減lacing the opportunities of this new era within the reach of everybody, and this is the path to follow.鈥�