| |OCTOBER 20228CIOReviewWHY DOES THE WORLD STILL NEED BANKS?By Pranjal Kothari, Chief Digital Officer ­Vorstand, Sparkasse BremenWe see an interesting phenomenon unfolding in the banking world in Germany (and more widely, Europe): The long-term underlying trend of accelerating change, now made more complex by sudden increase in volatility, at a time bank balance sheets are especially vulnerable. Accelerating Change Leads to Little ChangeThe last decade has seen a massive change in the competitive environment for banks: new technologies that enable new competitors and products on an almost weekly basis; easy funding leading to a mushrooming of fintechs, insurtechs, and proptechs; the big techs increasingly encroaching into the financial services world; the eroding of traditional business models as customers get more choices. This challenging new world was complicated further by the reluctance of banks and banking regulators alike to really embrace the change. The lack of bold visions, an alarming disregard for changing customer needs, slow and cumbersome processes, and an inflated and sticky cost base made the change difficult. Obviously, the pain was not intense enough to drive real change in the business models. There was a lot of window dressing about customer centricity, digitisation, automation, and a lot of announced investments, fintech partnerships, and corporate ventures, but ultimately most of them remained at the edges of the core business. Pranjal KothariIN MY OPINION
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