Encroachment from technology giants such as Google, Microsoft and Facebook poses a growing risk to the traditional banking model. Yet instead of seeing the presence of these hyperscales as a threat, an increasing number of financial institutions are embracing partnership and collaboration as the way forward. According to a KPMG report, (PDF 1.87 MB) 26% of financial institutions are already partnering with one or more technology giants, and an additional 27% report planning to forge such partnerships within the next twelve months. This represents a significant shift for the industry.
Tech giants are coming to financial services delivery from a number of different starting points. Firms like Microsoft, Apple and Google are application- and data-centric, entering into financial cloud computing from a technology and data management perspective. In contrast, ecommerce firms like Amazon and Alibaba have a focus on creating a frictionless customer experience, which drives their interest in financial services such as using customer data to better manage credit risk and working capital.