Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to HSBC Global Viewpoint, the podcast series that brings together business leaders and industry experts to explore the latest global insights, trends, and opportunities.
Speaker: Make sure you're subscribed to stay up to date with new episodes.
Speaker: Thanks for listening.
Speaker: And now onto today's show.
Speaker: Welcome to TMI's TreasuryCast and HSBC's Cyboss Spotlight.
Speaker: I'm Eleanor Hill, Editor of TMI, and I'm delighted to be working with HSBC to bring you an in-depth look at the events from this year's Cyboss.
Speaker: Throughout this series, we will explore the critical topics on the Cyboss 2023 agenda that will shape our industry in the next decade, including sustainability, digital acceleration, and technological innovation.
Speaker: We'll examine the opportunities and the challenges in the areas of payments, securities, cash management and trade.
Speaker: In the studio today to talk about some of the hottest trends in the payment space, we have two special guests in the form of Mark Evans, Global Head of Cross-Border and Cross-Currency Payments Global Payment Solutions,
Speaker: known as GPS, from HSBC, and Lewis Sun, Global Head of Domestic and Emerging Payments, GPS, also HSBC.
Speaker: So welcome both of you.
Speaker: It's great to have you here to talk about the latest developments in payments, and there's an awful lot happening.
Speaker: So we've got tons to squeeze into this podcast, but it would be good to kick off with maybe a bit of a step back
Speaker: A look at why it's actually crucial to have innovation in payments and why is it so important to actually get payments right?
Speaker: Mark, maybe you could start us off on that one.
Speaker: Yeah, thank you, Eleanor.
Speaker: And thank you for having Lewis and I here today.
Speaker: For GPS here at HSBC, we think about payments as being the most frequent touchpoint that we have with our clients.
Speaker: And so getting payments right for them is really central to their business success.
Speaker: And you're right, there's lots happening in the payments domain from rapidly changing client expectations with retail-like experiences,
Speaker: and increasingly higher expectations in terms of digitization, the speed and immediacy of payments, the ease of access and the ease of use.
Speaker: Technology is also advancing rapidly and technology together with software is really changing how we're seeing payments being originated by our clients.
Speaker: And it's those same advances that are making it possible for us to deliver on those expectations as well.
Speaker: And then thirdly, regulatory policy or progressive regulatory policy, I should say, has really allowed new models to emerge.
Speaker: and also new operators to enter in the payment space, making it super interesting.
Speaker: So I think it's clear that the payments has evolved from what was traditionally seen as a post-contract settlement exercise.
Speaker: Now it's much more strategic and much more integral to our clients and they're progressively leaning towards digital operating models.
Speaker: And we've seen a proliferation of clients who are digitally native emerge in recent times, who would demand digital payment services.
Speaker: to power their business models, but also we're seeing what you might describe as traditional companies also shifting to more digitally orientated models to help them drive efficiency and really to help them to compete.
Speaker: Yeah, it's all changing and so rapidly, Mark, as well, isn't it?
Speaker: I think, you know, obviously with the pandemic, we had a lot of that switch towards the digital business models and the direct-to-consumer models.
Speaker: But if I think back to when I started writing about Treasury, that was 15 years ago, payments was kind of just bubbling along.
Speaker: But like you say, all the technology, all of those different players that have come in, it's happened a lot.
Speaker: so quickly in the last decade or so and lots to catch up on and lots of opportunities.
Speaker: But Lewis, what would you add to that?
Speaker: Totally, I agree with you.
Speaker: I think, you know, we have seen a paradigm shift in the payment space, right?
Speaker: If we look at the context of the payment conversation, probably five, 10 years ago, it will be more around, you know, agree on the cut of time, agree on the common file format, agree on the day-end reconciliation format.
Speaker: And nowadays that has evolved into 24 by 7.
Speaker: instant reconciliation, good credit confirmation to get a finality like the beneficiary has already received the money so that you can continue with the next business step, right, in the digital economy.
Speaker: And also, you know, request to pay features, QR code being embedded.
Speaker: So these are all, you know, new developments in the space.
Speaker: Therefore, it is really important for us to understand how this can actually be embedded into client's business model.
Speaker: Especially post-COVID, a lot of companies actually realized going digital is no longer optional, it's a business imperative.
Speaker: Probably the only point I want to add is really with this backdrop, it's extremely important to also take care of robustness and resilience.
Speaker: So capacity, latency, TPS are the common sort of issues we have seen.
Speaker: And we need to really invest into this space and ensure
Speaker: Basically, the digital payment systems can run smoothly without any issues.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: That is bringing that investment.
Speaker: It's bringing knowledge together and bringing people together to make sure that it all happens.
Speaker: And one of the things, the challenges around payments is that they obviously don't exist in a silo, particularly when you've got cross-border trade, you've got effects associated with your payments as well.
Speaker: There's a lot going on.
Speaker: How does HSBC's GPS business actually ensure that its offerings and teams integrate with other areas?
Speaker: So those I mentioned, trade and FX, and across all the major geographies.
Speaker: And maybe you can give us a flavour of how important the bank's network is to ensuring payments are delivered consistently and seamlessly, which is ultimately what clients are looking for, Lewis.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: No, thank you, Eleanor.
Speaker: I think that's a great question, right?
Speaker: So essentially our clients always demand a holistic working capital solution rather than buying single product.
Speaker: Therefore it's really critical that we will work with our partners to deliver the full package to our clients, right?
Speaker: That's when the collaboration is really critically important for us.
Speaker: And we need to do this actually beyond just one single location, given many of our clients are actually operating
Speaker: across multiple locations and they're demanding for consistent service and engagement models.
Speaker: So one initiative I'm leading globally is the collaboration between payments and trades.
Speaker: So these are two critical components of clients working capital solutions.
Speaker: So the idea is basically to offer end-to-end solution that covers the full spectrum of working capital.
Speaker: We have done a lot of things to ensure this collaboration will result in a really consistent offering across both divisions, right?
Speaker: So to avoid a fragmented or siloed offering to our clients.
Speaker: So on the sales side, we started to really bring up the frontline colleagues with knowledge across both areas so that they can actually comfortably present end-to-end solutions to our customers, right?
Speaker: And on the product side, we also acknowledge the needs like payable solutions and payable financing solutions shouldn't ride on two different systems, shouldn't follow two different interfaces, right?
Speaker: It should be always consistent.
Speaker: And our system investment needs to always bear that in mind so that from a customer point of view, they don't say payables as two different practices.
Speaker: They will always say this as one single offering to clients.
Speaker: Same thing on the receivable side, right?
Speaker: We have resellables management system and resellables financing needs to actually work hands-in-hand with our RMS resellable management system instead of following two different practices.
Speaker: That will be a trouble for clients to actually do integration.
Speaker: And across two functions, we can also create some real business synergies.
Speaker: Our reconciliation solutions can actually help our financing department to do their collections.
Speaker: And that's internal value added we can work on.
Speaker: Great stuff.
Speaker: So lots going on there, Lewis, from your side.
Speaker: Mark, what would you add to that?
Speaker: Thanks, Eleanor.
Speaker: Yeah, lots going on in Lewis's world and equally on my side, an awful lot going on too.
Speaker: But just for a moment, I'm going to step back a little bit and talk about the role that GPS Global Payment Solutions plays in this space for the HSBC group, because I think it will answer and bring the question to life.
Speaker: So the solutions that we do provide across the organisation, these solutions,
Speaker: We provide these geographically, but also across the different clients that the bank serves.
Speaker: And that goes right down to retail banking, comes through the commercial bank and into corporate, global banking and institutional clients.
Speaker: And we do that
Speaker: using wherever possible common technology assets and service assets.
Speaker: And that really allows us to create scale and efficiency that sets HSBC apart in this space.
Speaker: And without the HSBC network, we really wouldn't be able to bring that story to life.
Speaker: It brings a tremendous advantage when it comes to moving money cross-border, really allows us to reduce what I call the number of moving parts in a payment.
Speaker: And the more you can reduce those, the more efficient you're going to be in your payment execution.
Speaker: Really to echo the point that Lewis made though, providing a one-stop shop for payments and all the adjacent spaces that payments cuts across is really important to our strategy.
Speaker: And the way we go about that is to make sure that we design and develop
Speaker: products together with our partners, whether that's trade or in FX or elsewhere in the bank.
Speaker: And then how we take those products and services to market exactly to Lewis's point so that we don't talk about vertical products, but we really talk about end-to-end solutions.
Speaker: Embedded FX, with trade and receivables, with working capital in mind.
Speaker: All those embedded solutions are really coming to the fore now, aren't they?
Speaker: I mean, we've been talking about it for a few years, but it's great to see it actually happening and making a positive difference for end users like our listeners, our corporate treasurers who are out there.
Speaker: But Mark, I wanted to just delve into something with you.
Speaker: around the point that Lewis raised, which was around collaboration.
Speaker: So it'd be good to understand how HSBC delivers those optimal payment services in terms of channels, but also partnerships.
Speaker: And maybe you could go into a little bit more depth on the collaboration, some of the partnerships you have there and what they bring to the table for all parties.
Speaker: It's a really interesting topic, actually, and one that is also moving extremely quickly.
Speaker: But there's always two sides to the answer.
Speaker: The first, I think, is
Speaker: for a bank like us and considering the customers that we serve from, as I said, the smallest sort of retail client right through to the largest institutional client, we have a strategy for client access and channels that's very extensive.
Speaker: And that's intentional to ensure that we can deliver our solutions, our services in a way that the client wants to consume them.
Speaker: That could be through our own proprietary digital channels, which are increasingly going mobile.
Speaker: that we saw a massive ramp up of mobile access during the pandemic and it really hasn't stopped.
Speaker: It's continued to increase, which is fantastic.
Speaker: But also direct integration with clients, increasingly using more modern API technology.
Speaker: We have a very extensive suite of corporate and treasury APIs that allow us to support our customers in that way.
Speaker: And then to the second part of your question, across the partnerships and vendors, we're working closely
Speaker: closely with the vendors that we know our customers use to run their business.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What software do their staff use to run their business on a day-to-day basis?
Speaker: What platforms are they using and how do we embed our services directly into those platforms?
Speaker: to make sure that it's much easier for our customers to go on to discover what we can do, to turn it on, activate it in a very elegant way without the traditional reams of paperwork or processes, and then go on to consume it.
Speaker: And the consumption is so important here because if you can insert your services in the platforms that your customers use to run their business, then the way in which they consume it becomes very familiar because it's the software they use on a day-to-day basis.
Speaker: It's a very familiar setting for them.
Speaker: And it's much more delightful to use services that way.
Speaker: We do have some partnerships that are very active in this space.
Speaker: We work very closely with Kariba, as everyone will know, a leading treasury management software provider.
Speaker: And we integrate very tightly some of our cross-border payment services within Kariba.
Speaker: So if you're a Kariba customer, it's very easy to, again, discover, activate and consume our services.
Speaker: And also many people may have, or many listeners may have read that we have a partnership with NetSuite.
Speaker: which we've started in the US.
Speaker: And that's a much more end-to-end solution where we go from service provisioning, account opening, right through to product and service execution and end-to-end operations.
Speaker: So really a real keen focus for us.
Speaker: We think there's some distinct advantages by being in the platforms that our customers use.
Speaker: We think we can serve them much more holistically and much more professionally that way.
Speaker: But also, I think we can reach more clients that way as well.
Speaker: We will get an advantage of distribution because many more customers who perhaps aren't with HSBC today will begin to discover what it is we can do for them.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: And scale it that way.
Speaker: Great stuff.
Speaker: Lewis, your thoughts?
Speaker: Partnership is so important, right?
Speaker: There's so much going on, as you mentioned.
Speaker: You know, do all of that by ourselves is almost impossible.
Speaker: So we do need to work with the partners.
Speaker: In fact, we are attending Cybos.
Speaker: So Swift is actually one of our biggest partners.
Speaker: And we're actually actively talking to Swift on many topics, right?
Speaker: How to lead the usage of a pre-validation and how we can translate the power of new ISO data standards into real benefits for our corporate clients, right?
Speaker: These are the topics probably we have to work with
Speaker: partners like Swift to really deliver the final benefit to our clients.
Speaker: So essentially we use partners in many different ways.
Speaker: Mark mentioned we use partners as our potential distributional channel for our services.
Speaker: So API embedded banking service, embedded payment services will be critically important for that model.
Speaker: We also use a lot of partners for our product development, especially for now a lot of co-creations we're doing.
Speaker: So
Speaker: partners, even as our vendor for technologies, needs to work with us to deliver the final solution.
Speaker: They're part of the overall design, development, and delivery process.
Speaker: And some of the partners, actually, they're providing part of their business offering in our solutions.
Speaker: One example is we offer OmniClex, which is merchant solutions in many markets.
Speaker: And we provide single API.
Speaker: We provide an interface with our client.
Speaker: They receive very consistent service from their end.
Speaker: But the online service provider in different markets, the gateways actually are different partners.
Speaker: And we build up interface to connect to those partners so that our clients can benefit from very consistent service from HSBC without worrying about different markets.
Speaker: The online services might be provided by different partners.
Speaker: These are great examples how we can effectively use partnership to really jointly deliver business benefits to our clients.
Speaker: Yeah, and make sure it's all streamlined and consolidated.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: That makes sense.
Speaker: But Lewis, I wanted to pick up on a couple of things you mentioned there.
Speaker: So you mentioned ISO 20022, which is obviously coming online.
Speaker: And then we've also got things like the pre-validation services.
Speaker: That's happening now and it's all starting to come through.
Speaker: But with that in mind, what else do you see is the most important current and future developments in the wider payments industry and also in HSBC's solution set?
Speaker: And how do you think clients might benefit from these developments?
Speaker: I guess there are just, you know, too many points I want to mention on that one track.
Speaker: Yeah, indeed.
Speaker: A lot of developments, right?
Speaker: It's so dynamic and it's very exciting in this space, but probably I can pick up a few most prominent developments in my mind.
Speaker: The first thing is we actually believe the infrastructure investment will continue.
Speaker: We have seen basically real-time payment systems, you know, fast payment systems being mandated by regulators in many markets.
Speaker: And that will lay down a great foundation for
Speaker: digital evolution for those markets.
Speaker: And the ISO migration is a journey.
Speaker: It has just started and there's still a lot of new developments we need to follow up.
Speaker: So the infrastructure investment will continue to be a focus and we need to take care of not only features and functionalities, but also the system robustness and resilience.
Speaker: So that will continue to be a strong trend.
Speaker: Second thing is
Speaker: we believe we'll see a lot of new value added services coming up riding on the new infrastructures.
Speaker: Like we have seen like, you know, instant electronic direct debit authorization going live in many markets, which actually enable the digital economy like e-commerce platform, online brokerage offerings to really pick up their business momentum, right?
Speaker: And other services like QR code,
Speaker: for many markets, especially developing markets are becoming so common because that's very agnostic for any consumers to access to merchant services.
Speaker: And we have also seen a very strong push from the market by adopting request to pay instead of always doing the passive payment.
Speaker: So we believe we will see a lot more value added services in the payment space.
Speaker: And probably another point I want to pick up is really
Speaker: potentially many new emerging payment trends might become mainstream.
Speaker: We've been actively working on blockchain related developments.
Speaker: We apply the patent for our HSBC, DLT, settlement utility, HDSU in a number of key markets, right?
Speaker: Our objective is basically to become an enabler for those potential new payment reels.
Speaker: And the last point probably I want to really also remind ourselves is really
Speaker: be extremely mindful with also the regulatory developments.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: New system is one thing.
Speaker: The regulations around high availability and regulatory control over certain business types are also the points we need to observe, we need to monitor.
Speaker: Yeah, of course, a lot of opportunities, but risks as well to consider.
Speaker: And like you say, all of that regulatory angle.
Speaker: Mark, what would you add to that?
Speaker: I'm going to reinforce a little, if I can, Eleanor, a few points, because it would be sort of remiss of me as the cross-border lead here at HSBC not to touch on ISO, particularly as we're recording this around about Cyboss.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So as Lewis said, ISO has been a tremendous effort on the part of the industry so far, but we're not even halfway through yet.
Speaker: There's a tremendous amount to do between now and the end of 2025.
Speaker: The infrastructure investment across the industry has been significant.
Speaker: And I think all of us are looking forward to the time when we can start to leverage the capabilities of ISO to create enhanced products and services.
Speaker: So a few things need to happen, I think, to bring that to life.
Speaker: We've got to see the transition of the payment flows to the new standard.
Speaker: And that goes right back into the early part of
Speaker: payment origination and payment delivery from clients and how they themselves are ready from a data point of view, from a platform point of view, just to be able to supply the data that the new ISO standard can accommodate.
Speaker: But once that's starting to become mainstream, I think it could be a game changer because now we'll have rich payment data traveling alongside with the payment end to end,
Speaker: with no need for it to travel separately and get modified or compressed along the way.
Speaker: And that will help with payment processing and the precision of payment processing, whether that be sanction screening or reconciliation.
Speaker: And it really, I think, paves the way for a much more data-led approach to payments and what we call payment intelligence and insights.
Speaker: That's going to be exciting to watch, probably two, three years away.
Speaker: It's going to require a tremendous push by the whole industry, not just the banks, but all of the software and platform providers.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The second thing I would mention is general trend in the industry to pursue ever increasing sort of acceleration of cross border payments.
Speaker: How do I get to a point where I can move money
Speaker: around the world, 24 by 7.
Speaker: And there's lots of prior investments that we've all made that I think will be leveraged to make that possible.
Speaker: The RTP schemes that Lewis mentioned, we participate in many and the interlinking of those schemes will be interesting to watch over the course of the coming period to see how we can leverage those prior investments to link together RTP schemes for near real-time settlement.
Speaker: I think sort of innovation in the world of funding and liquidity management to make all of that possible.
Speaker: It's one thing being able to exchange messages in real time.
Speaker: It's quite another to make sure that you've got the funding and liquidity in the right place at the right time at an acceptable cost.
Speaker: And perhaps some of that will be supported by some of the work that Lewis and his team are doing around distributed ledger or central bank digital currencies.
Speaker: All these things, I think, come into play when we start thinking about that.
Speaker: And then lastly, I think more and more, we're already seeing this increasingly so, how all of us use what have traditionally been wholesale payment services to power payments for consumers.
Speaker: You mentioned some of it earlier, Eleanor, in terms of where you started your time in payments and how it's changed.
Speaker: But at HSBC, we have services that support
Speaker: really efficient worldwide payment distribution is called global disbursements and we're increasingly making that available for our retail customer base.
Speaker: We have a global wallet solution that allows us to use the power of the network to allow customers to operate internationally without having to be in market.
Speaker: All of these things I think are going to make the world shrink in terms of payment execution and receipt but are all things that we should be looking out for.
Speaker: Definitely and if anyone hasn't
Speaker: looked at that global wallet solution have a have a little uh google have a look into it because it is very interesting it's very cool so yeah definitely to look into excellent stuff well we've covered absolutely loads in this podcast today it's been a bit of a download of info because there's so much going on so what are your key takeaways both of you maybe some action points for our listeners in terms of making the most of all of this change that's happening in the payment space today mark what would you say
Speaker: First of all, I'm considering our listeners and who they might be.
Speaker: I think it's important that our listeners understand that the role that they play in the organisation now is probably much more strategic than it ever was, particularly if they're involved in payments.
Speaker: And by embracing payment evolution,
Speaker: going to help your business change and transform at the pace it needs to to remain competitive.
Speaker: I think, easy to say, much more difficult to do, but try to retain a digital mindset.
Speaker: That has to be where we start our thinking.
Speaker: That comes, though, with some challenges.
Speaker: You need to think very carefully about how we all prepare ourselves for a world that's much more data-orientated.
Speaker: whether that's technology, whether that's processes, and particularly whether that's skills within our own teams here at the bank and with our listeners today.
Speaker: And then lastly, with all of the change we've spoken about today, and we've all agreed that it's happening faster and faster all the time, we all need to be adaptable to that change, remain agile, try to embrace it and get the most from it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Keep your mind open for sure.
Speaker: Lewis, final thoughts from you?
Speaker: I think it's really a very exciting time, as I mentioned, Drey.
Speaker: So
Speaker: I guess probably the first thing is that we need to realize we're still on a journey.
Speaker: So we basically were committed to supporting our clients digital transformation journey.
Speaker: And we will always value feedback from our clients and that that will be factored into our investment schedule, our business priorities.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And the second thing, probably also important.
Speaker: We also need industry collaboration.
Speaker: A lot of initiatives probably need drawn effort from everyone, banks, regulators,
Speaker: industry authorities and potentially also clients to work on the same objective, right?
Speaker: That's the only way we can probably adapt to the transformation on the market.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: So a great call to action there for everyone listening to finish up.
Speaker: And it's so important to have that collaborative joint effort to make sure that we embrace all of these opportunities that are out there.
Speaker: Thank you both so much for joining us today for this whistle stop tour of everything payments.
Speaker: It's been a real pleasure having you here and eye opener as well.
Speaker: So thank you.
Speaker: Thank you, Elna.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Thank you for joining us today.
Speaker: This has been HSBC's Cyboss Spotlight, a podcast miniseries produced especially by TMI for HSBC Global Viewpoint.
Speaker: To discover other episodes in this series, search for HSBC Global Viewpoint or TMI's Treasurycast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Speaker: And to find out more about HSBC's presence at Cyboss, visit gbm.hsbc.com forward slash Cyboss.
Speaker: Thank you for joining us at HSBC Global Viewpoint.
Speaker: We hope you enjoyed the discussion.
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