NAB Digital Next
Snapshot series - current and emerging digital trends
In this snapshot episode of NAB Digital Next, host Brad Carr, NAB’s Executive Innovation & Partnerships speaks with Jonathan Adams, NAB’s Executive Transaction Banking Product to get his impressions on the some of the major current and emerging digital trends
The conversation covers: • Gen AI with an efficiency or productivity context • Climate transition and how NAB is helping customers to navigate changes • How to enable safer experiences to combat fraud and scams for customers • Connected eco-systems including open banking and consumer data right
Stay tuned over the next four weeks as Brad delves more into these topics with experts in these fields for a special weekly ‘snapshot series’.
Listen to the full episode on SoundCloud, Spotify or Apple Podcast.
- Duration:
- 9m
- Broadcast on:
- 15 Aug 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
(upbeat music) - Welcome to Knapp Digital Next. And it's a bit of a different episode today. We're gonna give you a quick snapshot of what we have coming over the next few weeks. I'm Brad Carr of the Knapp Intimation and Partnerships team. With me today is John Adams, our Executive for Transaction Banking Product. John and I are at Knapp headquarters today on the lands of the Wurundshari people. Although John, we've each been on the road a bit lately. We've been in Perth, we're shortly next week and are being Adelaide. Having some great discussions with our clients on the same set of topics that we're gonna cover here. So John, welcome. You joined me earlier in the year here on Knapp Digital Next when we spoke with Brett Turner of Trevada. It's great to have you back. It's good to be here and thanks for having me back. Well, John, I'm gonna map out the discussions that we're gonna have at Knapp Digital Next over the coming weeks and where we're gonna explore the major currents and emerging trends. Really keen to get your impressions across some of those. We are gonna keep releasing episodes on Thursdays, but we're now actually gonna go weekly. And over the next four weeks, we're gonna look at what I think are really the four major current trends. Firstly, Gen AI, but specifically Gen AI, I think really with an efficiency or productivity context. We're seeing both in the way that we're approaching it here at Knapp, but also with other firms across the world, really a focus at the moment in the here and now is on internal use cases and getting greater efficiencies. Secondly, climate transition and really big priority for us has been around how we help our customers navigate through that transition, how we help give them the tools in managing their emissions, but also in understanding supply chain impacts. Thirdly, how we combat fraud and scams. In a couple of obsessions recently, I've talked about this as being the great security disruption, really an unparalleled fraud and scam epidemic, and questions of how we can help to enable safer experiences for our customers. Fourthly, connected ecosystems, including things like open banking and the consumer data right as we have it in Australia, across the Tasmanian New Zealand, they're now legislating their version of that also. And I'm probably stressed that digital identity is one that I really see sitting across those last two, both the safer experiences and combating scams, but also how we face interconnected ecosystems. John, I think those are the four big topics really in the here and now. They're also the four topics that our innovation team is working on and delivering proof of concepts on trial and testing at the moment. But what excites you across those topics? - Look, I mean, as a payment nerd, I think the fourth one, the connected ecosystems, is super exciting, very relevant to payments, the real-time payment system, the open banking environments, and things like digital identity in Australia, that's correct ID. I'm massive enablers for us to really open that space up. So that's an area that particularly as a payments person interests me. And I think we're gonna see some real innovation come to market in the next year or so. Let's serve exciting. I think the combating fraud and scams is one that, like you just said, it's one of the greatest challenges of our time, actually, and there's this interesting paradigm where the more we digitize and innovate, actually in some ways, the more we open up avenues for risk. And so as a payments professional, we really do think super carefully on how we design products and services with that in mind. And so I think less so seeing that as something exciting, but seeing it as something that we must lead into, we must address to protect citizens across the world. - It's good bit of framing and exciting is probably the wrong adjective for fraud and scams, but I am excited where we can be bringing new solutions for how we can help our customers to have safer experiences in their interactions, whether it's social or whether it's in e-commerce, and where we can show up and help them in different walks of life. We talked about each of these with our clients in Perth, and we had some great questions, particularly around gen AI, deep fakes, scams, digital ID. I think that's indicative of the added emphasis that both we and our clients are putting on security, the environment of emerging threats, resilience and continuity in the face of these sort of threat vectors. Is that something you'd agree? - 100%, and I think the fact is it's grown so significantly that nearly everyone is touched by it. Whether it's you and your personal life, or you know someone close to you who's been affected by a fraud and scams kind of event, but also as businesses, they're experiencing this too. So business email compromises is far too common. And so across the board, people are reading about these things. There's the events that happened in Hong Kong with the deep fakes. And I think it's just, it absolutely is off top of minds, both on a personal or their business perspective. And you know, the emergence of this, the rapid emergence of these new technologies, of course, make people uncomfortable, because as we know, change is happening faster and faster, and people feel out of control and it's affecting them day in, day out. So yeah, it's definitely very high on their minds. And as we heard in Perth, Brad, there were lots and lots of questions on it. And people at these big companies are clearly thinking about it. - Yeah, absolutely. So for the next four weeks, we're going to look at these four major current trends, with some of our expert colleagues from across NAB, and we're going to start on that with our chief climate officer, Jackie Fox, talking about the climate transition. Beyond those four weeks, we're going to switch back to normal service on NAB digital next with some terrific guests externally coming in and discussing with us. I'm going to speak firstly with David Birch towards the end of his Australia and New Zealand tour. David together with Victoria Richardson of MECO on the book that Deb co-authored, Money in the Metiverse. And then I'm also going to speak with Stephen Marshall, the former premier of South Australia on his state's highly innovative space and satellite industry. But after that, if we can look a bit further ahead, we're then going to run a further three weeks on the further future emerging tech and innovation trends. If in future a speak, we talk a bit about the here and now is Horizon 1. These are the things that we might see in Horizon 2, or maybe on the cusp of Horizon 3. And in that space, I see the three major ones as being, when gen AI is actually in the hands of the customers, beyond this initial phase of companies like ourselves using this around opportunities for greater efficiencies, when our customers actually have their own AI agents or AI bots. And this is a piece that David Birch talks a lot about. When a customer has their own bot, wanting to be able to make transactions on their behalf, whether it's the simple ones like paying for car parking, or whether it's the complicated ones like when to move money into your retirement savings account, and also when those consumer bots are dealing with merchant bots and what the ecosystem around that looks like. Secondly, the post-smartphone interface, in the same way that we so rapidly became dependent on our smartphones for everything, something else is going to come. And I think it's probably fairly open at the moment as to what exactly that will be. But we can confidently predict that there will be something. And so I think that's the second of our big emerging or future trends. And thirdly is quantum computing. And I see that both in terms of some of the threats to existing encryption, but also some of the opportunities that quantum presents in new ways of modeling, solving different problems, whether that's in an industry like ours around risk modeling, but also some of the opportunities in optimization, whether it's in food and agriculture or any medicine. One of the things that the Australian government announced around the big investment recently in Queensland for quantum is actually as part of running some of the logistics for the 2032 Olympics. So again, John, those are the three emerging ones I see coming, you know, maybe horizon two, maybe horizon three, a bit further around, but it's interesting to see that the early signs of it now, is there's something you find that's most exciting, whether that's the right word or else curious. - Yeah, absolutely. And I kind of see it as a convergence of one and two, so that, you know, AI in the hands of customers and the post-smartphone interface. And you know, I think, what are we, 2024? 20 years ago, I don't think people would imagine that we would be doing banking on our mobile devices. You know, in five years time, maybe, maybe 10, but five years time, I think there'll be a period where we'll look back thinking how archaic it was that we were logging on to a iPhone to do our banking. And in fact, that combination of AI and the, you know, let's say it's an agent who operates on our behalf via voice might be the way we do our banking. You know, we're gonna have far more integration of services, particularly payments and digital identity as an enabler, which is gonna allow people to just get on with their lives. And instead of having to switch into banking apps and things, probably they're just gonna get on and do what they're doing. As you describe, you know, you're driving along, you're hungry, you wanna get a pizza, and you might ask your agent to find the best possible, what's the best rated pizza, and quite fancy a margarita, and it'll order a fee you drop by and it'll be ready to pick up. And so, yeah, I think that's actually just around the corner. It's very real, and it's very exciting, and it should make a big difference to people's lives, 'cause people don't enjoy spending time doing this stuff. They wanna get on with doing things they do enjoy, and if they can find a way of doing that more efficiently in a way that is trusted and safe, then I think the adoption on that will be high. - Yeah, and we're probably at that juncture at the moment where we have the opportunity to be shaping, to make sure that it is safe in the way that we approach this. - John, thanks for joining me. It's been great to have your perspective. I love talking through these topics and helping both our bank and our clients in how we prepare for and how we respond. It's gonna be a lot of fun here on that digital next over the next nine weeks, as well as in person with our clients in Adelaide next week. I really look forward to that also. Thank you. Thanks Brad. So stay tuned, coming up across each of the next nine Thursdays, here on that digital next. Thanks for listening. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)