"by 2030 banking will be proactive"-W/Monika Kashyap (HSBC) EP132

Tamil: In 2030, how do you think the commercial banking is going to move, change and shift sort of what are we to expect in the power of AI?

Monika Kashyap: It is actually augmented intelligence. So AI is there to augment humans to make us better decision makers if we can somehow add empathy to our processes. And that's where we would be the winner. By 2030 in my view, banking will be more proactive and predictive.

Tamil: Welcome back to the CX Insider podcast. I'm your host Tamil. Today I'm joined by my co host Greg.

Greg: Hello.

Tamil: And a very special guest, head of decisioning and Omnichannel at HSBC uk Monica Kashap.

Monika Kashyap: Hi.

Tamil: Tell us a little bit about your career and what excites you about working in commercial banking.

Monika Kashyap: Thank you Tamil and Greg for inviting me today. Uh, very excited. So I would like to say that uh, my career is at an intersection of uh, data, customer experience and um, banking for the last 25 years now. So I have been working um, in customer decisioning and omnichannel and I've worked with different sectors. Before this I was in telecoms, um, banking and also a little bit of insurance and media. So with that background I uh, was also a consultant consultant for 15 years and pre Covid, as you would remember, traveling four days a week um, at different locations around the world um, as a consultant but again same space omnichannel decisioning. So with that experience now I am at HSBC in commercial banking, uh, leading the decisioning team um, for over a three years period now. So what excites me me about commercial banking is the paradigm shift that it has from a very transactional led approach to a very customer centric approach. And I think this shift in the customer's mindset uh, is also affected business banking. People are thinking a lot about the experience and the bank uh, as a whole in general. So that's my, my brief summary.

Greg: Awesome. Um, I guess Monica, one question I guess I want to kick off with which is maybe quite a big question, which is what do you think in your experience what do you think is a major uh, driver for uh, let's say a UK business or a business from anywhere to pick one commercial banking provider like HSBC or someone else for example, what do you think are is the one or like say multiple drivers?

Monika Kashyap: Yeah, I think there are three key drivers in my view. One is trust. Your customers want to see that they can trust you as a bank. Second is that they derive meaningful insights from the bank. It's no longer just like transactional. I was saying what is in there? What's the value the bank is providing? And third is the relationship quality. Uh, if I have a problem, my bank should be able to solve it for me. And that goes a long way for the business customers as well. Um, they have their businesses running. They could be large corporates, they could be SMEs, they could be MME's or small businesses, even sole traders and private company owners. So they need that assurance that when they are expanding their businesses, whether it's in the UK or overseas, they have that support system. So banks should enhance that experience and not hinder that. So that support and relationship weighs a, uh, long way for deciding what bank to choose.

Tamil: M. No, I think that's brilliant. I think, yeah, your bank, it is really important that your bank should be able to solve your issues. Oftentimes I've had problems and I'm like, I really need help right now. And it's important to have that support in your bank.

Monika Kashyap: It's no longer. You remember the high stress street bank concepts. Even with retail, where are they? People are always on online and on mobile and most of us are now banking using apps, uh, even in commercial banking. So I think that experience is so key. Um, and that experience is coming from those three value drivers I mentioned.

Greg: Yep. Yeah, everyone's busier than ever. So, yeah, it just means M, that yeah, doing things on the go is the way.

Tamil: Yeah, for sure. And I think that sort of leads onto. My next question is how do banks like HSBC continue to drive customer engagement, um, in both business and the retail sector, especially with how big AI is Now?

Monika Kashyap: Banks use both business rules and AI setup to guide, um, the customers. The decisioning, as we call it, is a very broad term. So it can have very static rules where businesses decide what do I want to offer to a customer. It could be things like call routing when a customer calls us, it could be problem solving, um, with a call center agent. Nowadays we use AI for our, um, channels like chatbots. They have evolved so much from the past as you may have had some brilliant stories in the past and how airlines are giving refund to the customers and chatbots. So I think the bigger thing that you asked me is that balance of control, ah, and the trust that the customers have put in the bank. So while we have to make sure the controls are in place, we also don't want to hinder, um, the actual flow and the process. So all customers want is simplicity. And that's so key in this world. We have made ourselves so complex. So even in our banking processes the simplicity is key uh, for the stakeholders, whether they are our internal or external. Now I would like to say for us particularly we use data and human intelligence at the same time. Um, the AI can do the routing, it can do some intelligent stuff, but we also have a human in the loop always. And that's how we are different uh, to some of the other banks.

Tamil: That's important because sometimes it really feels like you just talking to a robot half the time. It's good to know that there's an actual person behind it.

Monika Kashyap: So yeah, just on that. So any tools that we use, uh, in banking generally with all good banks, we give you a prompt that this is responded by an AI. So you know, you know.

Tamil: Yeah.

Monika Kashyap: And then it is also about transparency which is a big thing. And we should be able to explain if you are giving a decision whether it is about their credit score or whether it's about a mortgage application or is it about any home loan or anything else. We should be able to explain to our customers why we have reached to that conclusion and what factors we have taken into account. And the good thing is um, we now also have our expert relationship, uh, managers who will come into the play. And it's also not about just high value customers, but at some times it is important to have that connection with your clients. And that's where when AI is doing all the job, when all the repetitive tasks are done by AI then it makes life easier for our arms to take that information which is led by insights and data and present it in a way um, that it adds value and it makes customer journey so easy for our customers.

Tamil: Yeah.

Greg: And I guess combining the last couple of questions is um, like you said, you've had experience working with all the major banks in your career and B2B and B2C banking, um, what do you feel is maybe a major difference or differences perhaps between what customers expect in terms of the CX between the B2B banking space versus let's say a B2B and it could be tech related, it could be service.

Monika Kashyap: Yeah. I would like to say, Greg, the underlying principles are the same.

Greg: Mhm.

Monika Kashyap: Okay. So all businesses and consumers, they look for three things. Simplicity, as I was saying before.

Greg: Mhm.

Monika Kashyap: Speed and relevance. You may give me a best offer in the world, but if I'm in my life cycle, in my journey with the bank, I'm not that stage yet. It's no relevance to me. I will not take that. Right. So you may have a credit card with an excellent balance transfer and excellent, excellent APR rate. Right. Which is very good. But if I'm already having five credit cards and I'm already paying my balances every day, why would I even care? So that relevancy and simplicity and speed of the process is key for all. However, the complexity in B2B is more. And the reason for that is there are multiple stakeholders when you are talking B2B so it's not like you're convincing one person. You have a uh, financial controller, you may have the secretary, you may have the primary and secondary users, you may have a decision makers, directors of the company and so on. And then they also have their employees who have different demands and needs. So the complexity of a B2B setup is more. The other bit is the life cycle, um, the completion cycle is quite huge when it comes to certain processes. So B2B will have their own engagement and they will take longer to complete certain things. And then what I would say is the important bit, whether you are dealing with B2B or B2C customers is to remove friction from the process. And that's where most of the banks are having acceleration programs. They look at um, lot of focus groups, what customers want, what they need and if you understand their needs and, and you are proactive about it, um, that's where the success is. Um, just because a customer is coming to you with a complaint, um, and you resolve it doesn't make you the best bank. So I think the challenges are multifold. But the good news is with AI driven initiatives and um, the insights that we have, um, things are getting better. People are understanding the value propositions that are given by the banks the moment. And customers can make an informed decision. Yeah, they can do lots of comparison between the banks, um, at this stage what to go for.

Greg: And swapping between banks over the years, naturally because of government organizations getting involved, etcetera, has become an easier process because that used to be historically.

Monika Kashyap: Yeah, take X pounds and switch to me.

Greg: Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh for sure, yeah. And it used to be, honestly in the banking sector this is before your time because you are the youngest. But the um, it used to be very difficult on a personal banking level and especially on a B2B banking level to switch banks is really notoriously very difficult.

Tamil: I feel like it's so easy now, like I can like this.

Monika Kashyap: And that's why it's not only about products and services, not about pricing anymore, it's about what value, what customer experience the bank is giving you. And I think the biggest thing is Being on the app and how quickly my query can be resolved. Right. That would be a deciding factor for many youngsters. They don't have patience, do they?

Tamil: That is so true. I need answers right now, right here, right now, at the second.

Greg: It's your focus group, Monica. Yeah. Um, but yeah, and going back to something just very quickly. Actually, just before, um, we actually started, uh, the podcast, we were talking about how at the end of all of this, whether it's B2B B2C still just people, it's still us, it's human beings running businesses every day. And we do have a similar level of expectation, don't we? Around.

Monika Kashyap: And also, you know, if you have a problem, you would rather pick up the phone, talk to someone, say, how do I do this?

Greg: Mhm.

Monika Kashyap: Right. But I do understand the Internet savvy youngsters might say, I just want, I don't want to talk to anyone. I just want to put a query in the chat box and get my arm there. Right. So, so that's where businesses need to understand the client needs. And your segments are different. You may have young entrepreneurs, you may have startups, um, you may have uh, people who are um, strong lenders themselves. Right. So your needs of your clients will determine where you would be and assessing those needs in advance is the key.

Tamil: Up to my next question.

Greg: Yeah, yeah.

Tamil: So how do you keep a consistent brand voice throughout all your channels while also balancing omnichannel and obviously like data governance?

Monika Kashyap: Yeah. So I think the underlying principle is to have a governance framework and once you have that framework in place, you can decide how do I want to take this forward. So brand voice for us is very consultative, it's empathetic, very important and it's helpful across all our channels. So whether a customer is coming to us through inbound channels, which is our web channels, through their online banking logged in experience, or whether they are, um, we are reaching them out through a proactive email, SMS push. We need to have a tone of voice and nowadays which should be consultative and it should be helpful uh, to our customers. And that's the touch points these days are so important. People do not have five hours to be on web and online and looking at the things that you have to offer as a bank. So understanding what is the next best opportunity and the next best action for my customer is the key. And that uh, comes from the insights that we have around the customer. So we as banks historically hold a lot of data about our customers. Right. And then there's an element of data privacy and there's a GDPR and all of that good stuff which comes in that governance framework. Right. How do we contact our customers? Have they given us marketing? M Go ahead. Have they said no to certain things? Have they said no to market research and so on. So all these are ah the factors and traditionally as banks we have done lots of broadcast messages to our customers right. Sending, bombarding them with multiple emails how many times a week. But I think this is what banks are understanding now. It's not about giving them offers and telling about the good products and services. Hey look at my shiny product. It's about where the customer is in their life cycle, whether it is a B2B or B2C and then understanding those needs and then proactively engaging with the customers with prompts and nudges. So I always say it should be an interjection and not an interruption for the customer. So whether we are in whatever channel at this point, um, so some things go quite well in app whereas some things are quite good when you prompt them. So for example if I forget to do my tax return yeah I will get an automated email from my accountant that your self assessment is due and that's quite important and so many companies do that. Right. So I'm just giving a very basic example. So reminding your customers and alerting them at the right time is very important and that's where there is a value of in moment nudges at times when you are in a journey M whether you're buying a product online, whether you're browsing something on the bank website side and so on. So I think that has helped customer value to a great extent.

Greg: Yeah I guess the end result of that is you're just creating a deeper connection with the customer between yourselves as a brand and the customer because you're more useful to them proactively or reactively and therefore you have greater meaning in their life and you are meeting their needs better like you say than just offering products or services or better rates. It's actually a deeper connection. Well maybe a follow up question uh from that is uh we talked about lots of different channels of customer engagement and obviously for yourself uh, you've got experience I guess working on all of those and the data that you get from those uh, what would you say maybe the biggest challenges with managing an omnichannel strategy? Perhaps in B2B M more uh specifically but um, ah managing that omnichannel where you have new channels popping up, you have technologies like AI ah now coming in chatbots and things that we Talked about. Yeah. What are the maybe biggest challenges? And if you want to talk about maybe how you overcome some of those, that would also be really cool.

Monika Kashyap: Yeah. So if I be very upfront about it, the biggest challenge and people might say oh no, we are great in that is the integration. Is the integration of all these channels and systems love that.

Greg: Yeah.

Monika Kashyap: And it's a legacy problem. It's not a problem of today. Right. This is the problem. We are in a habit of working in silo systems. Right. Marketing will have their own channels and talking to the customers. And then you will have lovely products and then you will have product owners doing their own thing. Then you will have uh, propositions coming up with new initiatives. Then you will have innovation banking doing great stuff.

Greg: Stuff.

Monika Kashyap: Oh we did this focus group and this is the best thing to do. And then you will have your CEO coming up with a strategy. We need to focus on growth. And then you will have somewhere, somebody head of somewhere in the call center will say I am not getting service demand met. The customers are complaining about service. So if you see we have, like I was saying, we have got a lot of data, a lot of systems but in order to deliver a safe, seamless omnichannel experience, we do not have a well integrated system. Right. Um, and to be honest there are challenges and all the banks are working towards it. What is changing now is making that autonomous and towards agentic AI. So I think companies are understanding how they can join things. M not making it just integration but just making it more autonomous. So um, the focus, the high value stuff, we can leave it with our relationship managers with our RMs to do strategic stuff, um, to plan a uh, financial advice for our customers. But anything which is more system led where we can get more insights, we can rely on agentic AI. I think that's one of the big things. Things which I see that many good banks are investing into. Um, so yeah, I think that's where.

Greg: Yeah, really on that I guess to expand briefly when, when you're referring to the, the big challenge being integration, that's not just a single uh, dynamic thing, is it? That's technical. It's process and it's human. It's people. So it's not just a. Ah, no, let's just integrate everyone. Let's all just start talking because that's maybe the people element but you've still got the process. Like you said, the process could be the flow of data into the business into like a central area where you can analyze it maybe using AI but You've also just got the actual technical challenge that then comes with that which is.

Monika Kashyap: So you touched on this which we normally as we say business operating model.

Greg: Yeah, there you go.

Monika Kashyap: The technology, the people and the uh, and the business so all coming together saying okay, this is what my objective is, this is how I'm going to achieve it, this is my business operations model and this is how I'm going to deliver across multiple channels. So um, yes, I'm not just talking about tech. There is another layer of it on top of these three which is being ethical and being compliant. So a, as a bank we have to find, follow all the regulations and controls which is great. And at the same time we have to make sure are we meeting mitigating the risk that we have perceived. And finally are uh, we ethical? Yes, we may have figured out a best operating model and we may have invested in the right technology. We may also have got buy in from our stakeholders. But are we doing the right thing? And um, there's a whole AI ethical framework that we can talk about. There's a whole data ethical uh framework that we can talk about. But those are the topics maybe for the next.

Greg: Yeah, cut to part two when Monica comes on in 12 months time or something. Yeah, yeah, that's cool. Okay, that's good. You are right though. That is a big, big can of worms to open up and start talking about.

Tamil: So um, I guess which leads to. It kind of is hard to think of it this way but I'm sure you have really insightful answer for me. But in 2030 it seems so far away but it's only like five, four years away from now.

Greg: Seems like it definitely should be further away than it is.

Tamil: So crazy. I feel like, sorry not to go off track but you know when we're entering from 1990 to 2000s it was like oh my God, the world's gonna end. But it was fine.

Monika Kashyap: 2K.

Greg: Yeah, yeah. And nothing happened.

Tamil: Maybe you'll like reassure everyone who's watching in 2030 how do you think the commercial banking is going to move, change and shift sort of what are we to expect in the year 2030?

Monika Kashyap: By 2030 in my view banking will be more proactive and predictive. Uh we will be learning from customer behaviors online and offline real time understanding their needs and proactively giving them the suggestions or um, telling them what to do next. So it won't be like customer has to walk into a branch or go uh, to an ah, RM for advice. So I think there will be an element of hyper personalization, when AI will automate most of the processes as we were talking about. So let's say there is an application process for business banking, so all of that can be automated. And I believe there would be tasks and routines that will surface which are different from today. Things will be simplified because we will know how to harness AI to its true power. And I think that that's where the banks who embrace this now will have that success story for 2030. And that's what. Where banks will be trusted partners because they will have the use of AI. There will be a lot of use of generative AI as well, the topic that is used so often. So as of now, as banks, we are very conservative. We have to go through a lot of RC and legal stuff before we promote anything to our customers. And I think that's where the automation, which I call it as autonomous AI, would be a, um, total shift by 2030.

Tamil: See, so nothing scary, just exciting things coming our way.

Monika Kashyap: It's not scary. I remember a few weeks back, um, there was a podcast by, uh, in the. In the Diary of a CEO.

Tamil: I love that podcast.

Greg: Stephen Bartlett.

Monika Kashyap: Yeah, this one I'm talking about Jeffrey Hinton.

Greg: Okay. Yeah.

Monika Kashyap: He said, he was asked, do you think AI will take over the world and the jobs and so on. And he said, uh, well, one thing that AI cannot take over, not exact words, is physical and manual jobs. So if you want to safeguard yourself, go become a plumber.

Greg: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Monika Kashyap: So, um, if it doesn't work in five years, we know where to go. So having said that, I think the point is AI can aid a lot of things in coming future. It's us, how we harness that information and then how we use them. Use, um, AI to assist us rather than give all the power and control to AI. It's really cool.

Greg: Yeah, well, you're touching on such a good point there about what will be and won't be replaced by AI. And I think we've talked about this on a couple of occasions on the podcast and obviously, but we've seen a lot of people say, you know, humans continuously evolve. We go through major changes with technology and things like that, but we evolve and we evolve with the technology. And a kai is hard to necessarily predict exactly where we'll be by 2030, but what you've touched on, I think it's exactly right. We will be more autonomous. There'll be more of it in you use. Humans will still be needed. We'll still be around. We'll still need people doing Customer service. We'll still need plumbers, we'll still need podcast hosts. We'll still need podcast hosts and you

Monika Kashyap: know, more of them.

Greg: Yeah, exactly. And I totally agree with you. I think that what you said is really important actually is the future to us is exciting around that and it's exciting for. It should be. I feel like it should be felt to be exciting for everyone. Whether you're a consumer of banking services or you work in the tech space, hopefully the future will be, you know, better than it is today.

Monika Kashyap: Yeah. So I think just on that, I would say that AI, ah, people always say artificial intelligence.

Greg: Yeah.

Monika Kashyap: For me, if you get the true power of AI, it is actually augmented intelligence.

Greg: Mhm.

Monika Kashyap: So AI is there to augment humans to make us better decision makers, to make us better versions of ourselves. Obviously I can't type 100 papers right in, in 50 seconds or in one hour for that matter. So it's just understanding how we utilize something. You remember the dot com boom, how things were and well, I don't remember

Tamil: it,

Monika Kashyap: but now it's part of our lives.

Greg: Yeah.

Monika Kashyap: Google how to query things and forgetting of all of that, now it's different enemies. So I'm saying every era has its challenges and we learn how to come out of it, emerge out of it successfully. Um, so yeah, I think our future is bright. Definitely there would be a lot of proactive and empathy. I think if we can somehow add empathy to our processes and that's where we would be the winner, um, among our competition.

Greg: Can't have too much empathy. Like that's something that like you said, we need a lot more of in day to day. Yeah. And um, maybe the final question I would have then is, is if you again, if you're projecting out into the future, do you think AI will become more invisible within day to day?

Monika Kashyap: I think it will be mostly behind the scenes and it will step forward when we want it to step forward. So lot of room routing and routine queries can be handled by AI very well. Um, it will augment our RMS and our agents and it will aid that process a lot. It will become a norm right. Right now it's a lot of hype and people don't understand what we use and what we don't use. Um, so I think it will be very promotional thing. Uh, it people will use it as BAU and it will be able to guide humans about the next opportunities as well. And then the control, I don't think control can ever be gone from us in that respect. Um, there will always be a human touch in our interactions and that's where the value is and that's where AI doesn't have what we humans have, which is emotional intelligence.

Greg: Mhm. Awesome. Well, um, if I can just. A huge thank you, I think, really for, for uh, coming on the podcast and sharing your ideas and insights. It's been really interesting speaking to you on camera, off camera and stuff like that. It's really cool to understand, you know, and learn from you. So thank you for your time and hit the quick fire questions and things like that we're doing next.

Tamil: M Quick five questions.

Greg: Are you ready?

Monika Kashyap: Yes, I'm ready.

Tamil: Okay.

Monika Kashyap: No notes, no.

Tamil: Before a major meeting, you're closing down a client. Tea or coffee?

Monika Kashyap: I'm a coffee person.

Tamil: Really?

Monika Kashyap: I like a lovely strong barista coffee. Um, not the ones from the vending machine.

Tamil: If you weren't working in banking, what industry would you work in?

Monika Kashyap: You would be surprised with my answer. If I was not in banking, I would be in army.

Greg: Really?

Tamil: Really? Yeah.

Greg: Ah, interesting. Did you ever explore that? Yeah, it's part of your creation.

Tamil: Army.

Greg: Army, yeah.

Tamil: Oh, wow.

Monika Kashyap: That's why she couldn't get it.

Tamil: I was like, yeah.

Monika Kashyap: So I did a lot of uh, combined cadets.

Greg: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Monika Kashyap: In my college uni. So yeah. Uh, it's just a different path. I like that is playing back a

Tamil: huge like threes from different. Yeah. Yes.

Monika Kashyap: Yeah, yeah. I used to do um, judo in early years as well and then all the cadet stuff and did lots of camps. Uh, and they call it military training, but it's like a soft training.

Greg: Yeah.

Tamil: What are your morning rituals to get in the zone? Obviously you work in a very fast paced environment and you need to kind of be in the zone at all times. So what is that in the zone? What do you do? What's the regimen?

Monika Kashyap: Okay, so for me the most important Thinging is an eight hour sleep.

Tamil: Sleep.

Monika Kashyap: I get very cranky if I don't get sleep. So I try to plan my evening in the way that I get that sleep and so on. Um, my ritual would be I work for multiple markets. Uh, sorry, I said long longer answer. So because I work for global HSBC, uh, so sometimes I have to take calls from 7:00am so and sometimes there are video calls. So you have to be not lazy. Ready? Yeah. So yeah, as the day progresses, I think I get calmer and better. Uh, it's very chaotic in the morning because I don't have enough time to finish things. I do want to try early morning yoga, uh, or something, but I haven't got to that. I'm more of an evening gym person.

Greg: Yeah.

Monika Kashyap: So I think the routine wise, I'm all right. Uh, it's just that when I have meetings, I pivot my schedule accordingly, which I think think it's the flexibility in itself, which. Which is very difficult in this world right now. But I do try to switch off my phone and everything in the evening at certain times, like 7pm I 10.

Tamil: You don't do a doom scroll on TikTok.

Monika Kashyap: Oh, I'm not on TikTok.

Greg: Even more, I gave up myself.

Monika Kashyap: So I may have a login once, but I never. So, yeah, I'm still old school Facebook person and LinkedIn person.

Tamil: Wow.

Monika Kashyap: WhatsApp. You must hate WhatsApp.

Tamil: No, I love WhatsApp.

Monika Kashyap: Okay.

Tamil: I love WhatsApp. Yeah. But, yeah, that's great. Thanks.