Most EMEA banks fret they would cease to exist unless they digitize fast

DUBAI: About 75 percent of banks in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) expect tech giants such as Google and Amazon to dominate the banking industry in five years’ time and 69 percent believe they will lose market share within two years unless they digitize fast, a report said.
The report from cloud banking platform Mambu and The Financial Times Focus polled more than 500 senior banking executives globally for insights into their perception of the banking industry now and in the future.
Elliott Limb, chief customer officer at Mambu, reportedly said that the past 18 months have shown banks just how important it is for them to have a robust and agile digital banking offering.
About 60 per cent of banks in EMEA region fear they will cease to exist completely in the next five to 10 years unless they make significant changes to their business models, the Mambu report found.
“With 53 per cent of those surveyed admitting they’re at risk of missing digital transformation targets, it’s time the industry took note of the financial ‘evolvers’ that are leading the charge in this space,” Limb said.
The report said only 25 per cent of EMEA-based banks expect to significantly increase spending on Big Data in the next three years compared with 40 per cent of banks in the Asia Pacific. Similarly, about 36 per cent of banks in EMEA will invest significantly in artificial intelligence compared with 50 per cent of banks in Latin America.
Meanwhile, 19 per cent of EMEA-based banks are focused on blockchain investment compared with 30 per cent of banks in North America, the report found.
Nearly 60 per cent of EMEA-based banks said the pandemic has accelerated their move from brick-and-mortar branches to online services, according to Mambu.