Fintech Revolution and Open Banking – Perspective from a challenger bank

As part of the ongoing seminar series at PHBS-UK, the China Construction Bank (CCB) executives had the pleasure of having Mr Henry Yuhang Qi, angel investor and Chief Product Officer at Sync.Money to speak to them about the Fintech Revolution and Open Banking. As an angel investor, Mr Qi has portfolios in multiple UK based fintech companies. He has gained intensive insights and knowledge in Foreign Exchange, Challenger Banking models and Open-Banking usage by liaising with regulatory bodies and leading industry FinTechs, and individuals within the field. Henry holds a bachelor degree in mathematics from the University of Exeter. He is now leading the product team for a disruptive UK NeoBank who is combining the best functionalities of “Challenger Banks” with innovative Open Banking and Cashback features. - Sync.Money.

Mr Qi spoke extensively about the emerging trends and Fintechs in the financial industry in sectors like payments, foreign exchange, insurance, lending, wealth management, deposits, and investments. He also focused on the competition that Fintechs face from other industries such as social media, the telcos, mobile wallets, and in particular, the competing force from retail stores such as Tesco Bank, M&S Bank, John Lewis Finance, amongst many others. To highlight his point, Mr Qi took the CCB executives through a case study on the formation and development of Tesco Bank.

Next, Mr Qi discussed with the executives the evolution in banking landscapes focusing on customer satisfaction and emerging challengers like Monzo and Transferwise. He talked extensively on the rapidly growing user base in these challenger banks who had received more than a billion in funding. He also focused on the reasons why these banks are succeeding and increasing in popularity over the traditional brick and mortar banks. Amongst the many reasons he listed, the customer experience in the form of instant notification, online budgeting and numerous security layers - was the emergent reason. This is of particular interest to the executives because it helps them understand why challenger banks are succeeding.

In the second half of his talk, Mr Qi talked about open banking. In particular, he focused on the crucial role of the regulatory environment of traditional banking, as well as the payment services directive 2 (PSD2) and how it affects open banking. Mr Qi also discussed the various applications of open banking, namely how it affects credit scoring, money management, payment, cash management, and wealth management. In the final part of his talk, Mr Qi discussed with the executives about the various risks associated with a FinTech and bank partnerships. He did that by means of looking through a series of case studies – Loot Financial, Connected Money, World First.

Mr Qi was an enthusiastic and dynamic speaker who engaged in a number of in-depth discussions with the CCB executives during his talk. The executives asked numerous questions and raised many ideas with Mr Qi. It was a thoroughly enriching and engaging talk where the CCB executives learned a lot from Mr Qi.