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Read original →Infrastructure at the Core: What Role Banks Will Play in Five Years
Banks are transforming into infrastructure hubs with service ecosystems. Discover how BaaS, telecom integration, and Open API will define the role of banks in 5 years.
AI summary
Banks are transforming from traditional financial institutions into infrastructure ecosystems that combine financial and non-financial services. Key growth drivers include integration with telecom operators, the use of predictive analytics, and the transition to a Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) model. The future of banks lies in their role as providers of financial infrastructure for other market players while complying with regulatory requirements for data protection.
Ecosystems—integrated offerings of non-financial and financial services—are becoming a key growth driver and the foundation of competition for banks. Investment in an ecosystem should be viewed not as an expense, but as a growth opportunity. It's a strategic decision aimed at increasing customer loyalty and lifetime value (LTV). The notion that non-financial business accounts for 20% of transactions and is growing faster than banking confirms that banks need to move beyond traditional services. Moreover, synergies with mobile operators (the MTS and VympelCom cases in Russia) and leveraging the operator's customer base are significant for banking business growth.
An excellent example is the focus on using predictive data to identify customer needs and build specific product offerings. Integration with mobile services (Mobile Virtual Network Operator, MVNO) is a powerful tool for customer analysis and cross-selling. The ability to offer users banking services at the moment they're interacting with telecom services blurs the line between industries and makes the proposition more natural and unobtrusive. Furthermore, an open interaction model (API integration) and BaaS represent the future foundation—the idea being that a bank should not only integrate external services but also become a provider of financial functions for others (e-commerce, fintech). This ensures flexibility and helps avoid monopolization within the ecosystem itself.
The shift to BaaS/Open API is an inevitable future. It democratizes financial services and allows banks to earn not only from customer commissions but also from providing infrastructure to other players. The mention of white label services for RBC and Ozon confirms that major banks are already positioning themselves as infrastructure hubs. The point about regulation and the need for transparency and oversight by the Central Bank is extremely important. For users, the main risk of ecosystems is data privacy and tied lending. The regulator must ensure a level playing field and protect consumers from excessive use of their data.