“The current situation enhances a wider adoption of digital channels by financial institutions.”

Interview to Smart Payments News.

ebankIT, the Portuguese fintech considered by KPMG as one of the “10 emerging stars” in the global market, is growing and will be soon moving to Porto Office Park (POP) - an office that shall welcome the employees that the company is currently recruiting. In an interview with SmartPayments News, Renato Oliveira - ebankIT CEO - reviews the first years of activity and explains why it is increasingly important to create a better, faster, and more streamlined customer experience.

What is your assessment for ebankIT first years of activity?

It has been very positive. ebankIT was created by a group of financial experts, with extensive experience in digital transformation banking projects. It is the basis of what we are today and our product; an omnichannel platform for bank or credit union digital transformation, encompassing all channels and putting the customer at the center of the digital business.

We have grown annually, both in terms of the volume of business and the regions and geographies of operation. For example, reinforcing our presence in important markets such as North America, where we already had partnerships with leading integrating companies both in the United States of America and Canada. We feel in these six years we have been built several highly innovative solutions that greatly improve customer experience. All this success is only possible with an exceptionally professional and talented team, willing to continuously always innovate and meet the needs of customers.

How many employees do you currently have? Are you planning to recruit this year?

Currently, we have more than 70 full-time employees, and we are in the process of hiring another 20 by the end of the year. We are currently looking for software development professionals - Mobile Developers and .NET Developers. Also, our brand-new headquarters office is in its final preparatory stage, and we intend to move in by the end of the summer.

You were already considered one of the “10 emerging stars” in the global market by KPMG. How important are recognitions like these?

The recognition proves that our daily work and efforts serve a purpose. In addition to this KPMG recognition, which we are very proud of, and which helped us in the global projection of the ebankIT brand, we were recognized by OVUM as one of the main players in the banks and credit unions digital transformation and innovation in Europe and North American market. We also received the BEST OF SHOW award at one of the biggest international events for fintechs, Finovate Fall 2019, in New York. This award distinguished the robustness and flexibility of ebankIT's omnichannel platform. We aim for the excellence of these and other industry awards. It is what motivates us and gives us more strength to continue to create, develop, and innovate.

Could COVID-19 and the consequent confinement act as a catalyst for the digitalization of companies?

Without a doubt! Under the circumstances, all the traditional business and management processes become digital. Most companies had teams working remotely, now much of that work is delivered through digital platforms. If there was already a demand for digital performance this reality that we are experiencing now encourages a wider and faster adoption of digital channels by the financial institutions, our target market. At ebankIT, we already had all the systems ready for full remote working and our product is focused on the financial institutions' digital transformation processes, enabling their customers to carry out most financial transactions remotely and easily. We are seeing great demand for our products.

The Government recently published the regulation for Technological Free Zones creation. Is this good news for fintechs and companies like yours? What opportunities this regulation creates?

For national fintechs, it is excellent news! With these Technological Free Zones, companies can now test innovative and disruptive technologies without any security and privacy concerns for the citizens. More radical ideas will start to emerge because there is now a space-delimited and safe for everyone where it is possible to test solutions in real environments.

How can technologies such as automation, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence create value for financial services?

Technological evolution continues at a pace. Each day a different application or feature appears. We can speculate on the banking services evolution in a few years, but the reality is that the focus will be increasingly placed on the consumer/customer experience, with digital channels gaining primacy, reserving face-to-face relationships for premium situations. As an example, go to the bank to open or close an account will not be required. The emerging technologies transform and create value for financial services because they offer security, quality, and speed in response. Anything that makes the customer experience more pleasant, quick and convenient, and that allows the release of teams of operators to manage the relationship with customers, adds value and has a high potential for the transformation of the traditional banking activity.

This digitization and automation of processes bring security concerns, especially when it comes to financial services, right? Will we be able to audit the decisions of the robots?

Yes, when we talk about the digital transformation in financial services, security becomes a major concern and focus of attention. At ebankIT, we place the platform security always at the forefront since its development and deployment - at all architectural levels.

One of the areas in which ebankIT has bet the most is onboarding solutions. What are the main advantages?

More than ever, it is important to be able to respond to requests simply and digitally, ensuring that people are familiar with the platform from the first contact and do not give up. Our mobile application offers a simple and user-friendly interface that allows potential bank customers to create a digital account or subscribe to a new banking product in simple steps without ever leaving the application. It is a quick and simple process and if for some reason, there is a need to interrupt, you can always return at any time without losing any information already filled out. The application that users are using for their initial registration is the same that they will, in the future, use for any service or banking product, thus becoming accustomed to their entire interface.

Has your Smart Assistant solution, which allows you to search for bank transactions on smartphones and smartwatches through your voice, already been adopted by many institutions?

Voice recognition has been growing and it is becoming a new way of interacting with our bank through smartphone and smartwatch. It has been one of the development fields in which ebankIT has joined efforts to maintain quality and timeliness of the service. This Smart Assistance initiative is part of the Research and Development area that creates new features and models to present to our customers and allow them to be ahead of the competition. We have several customers interested in Smart Assistance features, not yet launched to the public.