MARKET REPORT Finance & Banking
“The industry has more regulation compared to before the big banking crash. Web chat, bots and AI
will continue to grow along with continued investment in call centres for general customer advice.”
John McKindland, Head of Solution Sales at Nimans
demonstrate steps, to prevent
sta circumventing compliant
procedures, is relative to their
size and the value of transactions;
understanding this is a key
part of doing a good job in this
space. Once you understand
the compliance parameters, you
can work in this sector with all
the great call management tools
and productivity tools that can
support them.”
Can you be a generalist or is it
essential to specialise in this
vertical…why?
“ e main challenge facing
resellers is having to maintain
their knowledge of compliance
and the increased regulation
around continuous monitoring
which favours those who
specialise in the sector,” says Carl
Boraman at Tollring.
“ ose who already have
experience delivering agile
cloud solutions and mobility
will already have a greater
understanding of the compliance
needs in nance and banking.
e bene t of being a
specialist is that they can
demonstrate their skills and
knowledge to their nance
customers and show that they
can deliver solutions to realworld
problems. is requires
highlighting work done elsewhere
to build credibility.
ey will also need a highly
quali ed set of products and
services that have security and
compliance requirements already
built-in to deliver piece of mind
to their nance and banking
customers.”
Iain Sinnott at VanillaIP o ers
some pragmatic advice.
“If you want to sell to a large
investment bank you need to
be a specialist, if your focus is a
small pensions and investment
broker you can be a generalist,
but you must understand their
compliance obligations and the
limitations of your portfolio.
eir solution options will be
more restricted than a standard
business.”
ED SAYS…
2019 is bringing several changes in the banking
workforce and culture as GenZ joins the ranks.
Digitisation will create demand for skills in
cyber security, data science, and automation.
Since universities rarely produce market-ready
graduates, banks will need to bridge the gap
with training and collaboration.
All are opportunities for innovative and versatile
channel resellers.
at could be a headset refresh
programme or IT peripherals
or perhaps distinct software
providers.”
Carl Boraman at Tollring
points to this being a fastchanging
market that is
particularly impacted by the
growth of millennials.
“ ese younger nancial
customers want 24/7 access,
social media and easy access on
various uni ed communications
mediums.
However, there is still a
need to cater for the ageing
population who may not be
so technologically advanced.
Financial organisations and their
providers must not lose sight of
their customers’ wide variety of
needs and most speci cally, to be
aware that the phone still plays
a big part in customer service
today.
Personalisation of services is
another growing requirement.
Communicating to such a
segmented market can be a
challenge but fortunately, as
communications move into the
cloud it also becomes easier to
gain insights and thus improve
personalisation.”
What are the major considerations
for partners wanting
to enter and succeed in this
vertical?
John McKindland at Nimans
advises resellers that this is a very
mixed and dynamic sector where
you don’t need to specialise too
much at the lower end such as
Estate Agents, IFA’s and solicitors.
“You need to understand
the regulatory environment
where call recording and audit
trails come in – other than that
it’s quite a simple sell. But the
more corporate you go you need
to specialise and have access
to specialist vendors. ose
that provide extension side
call recording for stock market
trading rooms is one example.”
Meanwhile, Carl Boraman
at Tollring, says “Resellers
need to go the extra mile to
build assurances into their
proposition so that if/when a
ntech customer is targeted, they
know they have the backing and
support of a supplier that has
built fully documented processes
and substantiated security into
the proposition. is requires
resellers to look for peer-to-peer
relationships with suppliers
who o er similarly relevant
propositions.
Resellers must be able to show
how customers can bounce-back
and recover after an attack and
get back to business-as-usual
within acceptable timescales. It’s
not enough to rely on the end
customer to do risk assessment,
it has to be central to the
proposition in order to minimise
reputational damage. is
should cover root-cause analysis,
stress test proposition to prove
ability, what backup mechanisms
are in place such as being able
to ip from on-premise to cloud
ICT.”
Iain Sinnott believes that
“Compliance is a relative
thing so the level to which a
business in this sector needs to
28 | Comms Business Magazine | August 2019 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
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