For 16 years, Celent’s Innovation & Insight event has celebrated excellence in technology innovation across the world of financial services, honoring the best-in-class technology for banks, insurers, wealth management, risk professionals, and market infrastructure. Celent's Innovation & Insight Week 2022, held March 15–17, was a celebration of technology-led brilliance across financial services. The overall theme—Thrive!—demonstrated how financial institutions (FIs) have accelerated investment in digital technology to deliver truly amazing results.
The virtual summit was filled with live presentations; the announcement of Celent Model Awards, complemented by case study videos from our winners; and breakout sessions. In addition to highlighting the year’s major technology trends for financial services as the COVID pandemic evolved, the event also looked at the rapidly evolving implications of the war in Ukraine.
I want to thank everyone who made Innovation & Insight Week 2022 a success: award nominees and winners, attendees, event sponsors, presenters, and Celent colleagues.
If you weren’t able to participate during the live sessions or if you’d like to revisit the presentations, I invite you to explore the many free materials on the Innovation & Insight Week platform. On-demand access to this year’s content, available through June 14, 2022, includes:
- Replays of live sessions,
- Case study videos from award winners, highlighting innovative implementations from Model Insurer, Model Bank, Model Risk Manager, Model Wealth Manager, Model Sell Side, and Model Buy Side award winners,
- Additional information about each of the Innovation & Insight Week 2022 sponsors.
How Financial Institutions Use Technology to Thrive
Let’s take a glimpse at the six main themes that came into focus about how financial institutions (FIs) are using technology to thrive.
- Embracing the cloud: It’s no longer a matter of if firms will use cloud technology; it’s a matter of when and how. The evolution in cloud in the space of just a couple years has been extraordinary, across every industry, supporting the initiatives of a variety of Celent Model Award-winning programs, including an all-in-one-wealth platform, a fresh take on corporate credit risk management, and ecosystem transformations
- Enhancing customer experience, through engagement and empowerment: FIs thrive when they recognize that initiatives aren’t just about the experience, but about the outcomes for customers. Award submissions reflected an emphasis placed on developing custom digital solutions focused on client service. These weren’t necessarily front-edge, customer-facing areas, as has been the focus in the past. The middle and back offices are also involved, as their roles in the value chain (e.g., operations, product development, and service) also affect customer experiences.
- Putting artificial intelligence (AI) into production: AI, in all of its vast complexity (including machine learning and data analytics), is an incredible area of research and exploration. Leading uses of AI in financial services include using it to identify why claims submissions were being rejected, then reworking them—saving significant time; evaluating the entire customer journey, from onboarding to claims and payments of claims, to capture efficiencies and digitize the entire process; and predictively notifying bank customers of the risk of non-sufficient funds occurrences, then eliminating overdraft fees—reducing fee income for the bank, but making a wise long-term investment in customer loyalty.
- Operationalizing the ecosystem: Heritage systems can create technical debt, inhibiting agility. Skillfully implemented legacy and ecosystem transformation initiatives, though, can integrate create fresh compatibility with their value chain. This requires evaluating technology infrastructure, operating models, business models, domain applications, and the overall business mindset.
- Digitizing throughout: As digital evolution progresses, organizations are digitizing throughout, from front to back offices. Brothers Rick Chavez, partner at Oliver Wyman, and Marty Chavez, partner and vice-chairman at Sixth Street Partners, provided an in-depth look at how business and software are intertwined. They addressed essential questions: To thrive, how do you reinvent a business by applying software to it? And once you’ve done that, how do you grow?
- Extracting and delivering value through data: As new technologies gain traction, extracting and delivering value through the available data requires a comprehensive approach. In addition to improved market segmentation of data, innovation execution requires strategic focus, organizing for innovation, a culture of creativity, an emphasis on design thinking, reliance on scientific methods, and dynamic planning.
Charting a Firm’s Path Forward
In addition to the themes that came to light through award submissions, Celent’s Innovation & Insight Week 2022 highlighted broader industry and consumer trends that will impact a broad swath of FIs.
Financial institutions must be mindful of what’s best for—or perhaps concerning to—customers. The US personal savings rate had some spikes during the pandemic, but has reverted to a more normal level. Consumer sentiment has been declining and is near its three-year lows, as people remain uncertain about the many changes that have occurred over past years.
As each firm considers trends and best practices in order to chart its path forward, it’s essential to focus on fundamentals:
- Identify where you are today;
- Know your differentiating value, including your strengths and areas of opportunity;
- Identify the partners and technologies to get you there, as you can’t do it alone; and
- Execute relentlessly with the customer in mind.
Continued success requires keeping an eye on the new, learning how to work with others, and adapting to the surprises that will continue to come our way.
Congratulations! Celent’s 2022 Model Award Winners
What would it look like for a firm to do everything right with today’s technology?
This is the question that Celent’s annual Model Awards seek to answer, recognizing excellence in technology in the financial services industry. Winning entries highlight real-world examples of how technology drives innovation; you can click through below to read and watch more.
- Celent Model Bank 2022 Award winners
- Celent Model Capital Markets 2022 Award winners
- Celent Model Insurer 2022 Award winners
- Celent Model Risk Manager 2022 Award winners
- Celent Model Wealth Manager 2022 Award winners
Nominations for Celent’s 2023 Model Awards program open June 27, 2022.
Learn More
To set up a meeting with one of Celent’s analysts, please message us or connect with us on Twitter (@Celent_Research, #IIWEEK2022).