The financial services industry is banking on digital transformation

In the financial services community, technology has often served as a catalyst for modernization, in recent years marrying fresh tools with decades-old processes. People can apply for insurance policies over the internet, transfer money via a banking app and reject fraudulent credit card charges with a simple text message. Processes that were once completed over days are now executed on the go.

On Monday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella joined some of technology’s most respected forward-thinkers, and leaders from the financial services industry, at the FinTech Ideas Festival to explore how new technologies like the cloud, artificial intelligence and blockchain are driving industry-wide digital transformation, and bringing with them profound change and significant benefits.

Hosted by the Financial Services Roundtable, the inaugural event in San Francisco highlights innovative ideas and early adopters at the intersection of technology and financial services, including breakthrough cloud innovations that are enabling Microsoft customers to achieve amazing results:

• MetLife is using Microsoft Azure to run complex actuarial simulation models, delivering high-quality actuarial insights with incredible speed to decision makers around the globe, resulting in an improved customer experience and business decision making process, with an expected 45-55 percent savings on infrastructure costs.

• Société Générale is using Microsoft Azure’s high-performance computing capabilities to power the credit value adjustment (CVA) intraday calculation, a critical front-office function, enabling cost-effective, almost limitless on-demand computing power.

• Bank of America Merrill Lynch is working with Microsoft Treasury to use Azure Blockchain as a Service to transform and automate the processes for standby letters of credit, reducing process time from 3-5 weeks to 3-5 days, taking the error rate down to zero percent and significantly reducing the cost to pennies on the dollar.

• Temenos is bringing banking services to 10 million people in remote areas of the globe, using Azure, with full mobility and at a vastly reduced cost, in just two years.

The financial services industry is banking on digital transformation to enable institutions to interact with consumers in new and exciting ways; empower professionals with new insights and tools; help businesses operate more efficiently; and open new opportunities never thought possible. To learn more about the FinTech Ideas Festival, visit the event website.

Photo: Ajaypal “Ajay” Banga, CEO of MasterCard, with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at the FinTech Ideas Festival on Monday, Jan. 9, 2017.