Incumbents vs. Challengers: Is There Still a Technology Gap?

Episode notes

In this episode of Deciphered, Adam Davis, expert associate partner at Bain & Company, is joined by Wendy Redshaw, Chief Digital Information Officer at NatWest, and Jason Maude, chief technology advocate of Starling Bank, to discuss if there is still a technology gap between incumbents vs challengers. Timestamps: 04:15 Incumbents vs Challengers - is there still a technology gap? 05:24 How would you explain the technology gap previously between large tier 1s and neobanks? 09:57 What are the key differences between a challenger stack and an incumbent stack? 12:31 How have Starling maintained a simple / flexible architecture through the launch of new products and the scaling of your customer base? 15:24 Occasional vs repeatable releases 16:02 Centralisation efforts that have happened with NatWest’s tech estate over recent times 19:36 Is the money banks spend on IT transformation programmes worth it? 21:33 Do you believe the combination of ML / AI and Generative AI, alongside exclusive Cloud deployment, will level the playing field? 25:15 What underpins the culture you want to see at your organizations, and how do you encourage it?

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