How tomorrow's bank will function digitally – interview with Wiseasy

The Paypers sat with Li Yan, founder and CEO of Beijing Wiseasy Technology, to learn more about how will banking look like in the near future

Could you tell our readers something about the background and history of Wiseasy and its founding?

Wiseasy was founded in 2012 when China’s mobile Internet enjoyed fast development and online transactions became a normal in people’s daily consumption. Back then, a hardware device that facilitated the O2O payment scenarios with value-added services would definitely meet the growing market demand. Keeping these in mind, Mr. Li Yan and his team invented the Android based terminal, which quickly found its way in various payment scenarios. Thus, Wiseasy’s smart terminal is the first smart POS terminal that meets the financial security criteria and it is certified by China Union Pay. Compared to traditional POS, Wiseasy’s WPOS are based on Android operation system, which means that it has unlimited potential in extending the application scenarios and that innovative value-added services and functions are possible.

As a pioneer of the payment industry, Wiseasy has always been adding new services and bringing new values to meet the market demands. Apart from globally certified smart POS devices, Wiseasy also provides advanced cloud services such as Wise Cloud and PayCloud and customised and integrated solutions such as E-campus solution and telecom on-boarding solution.

With 8 years’ development, Wiseasy has transformed from just a smart hardware provider to a world leading digital banking and payment builder, capable of providing complete and integrated digital banking and payment solutions to global customers.

Until today, Wiseasy has served 12 industries, has been successfully involved in solving 24 use cases and provided services for 251 technical partners and payment agencies in 67 countries and regions worldwide.

As your recent white paper ‘A Whole New World: Banking’s Digital Future’ makes clear, banks around the world have started adopting innovative, digital-first client services. Although still in its infancy in Europe and North America, fully digital banking is more advanced in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, where banks have fewer legacy systems to manage. What challenges do legacy banks face when building the right infrastructure for the digital future while servicing their current customers?

Digital banking has been enabled by the rapid development of cloud computing and intelligent terminal technology – which itself has proliferated thanks to the widespread adoption of super-fast 4G and 5G mobile Internet. With the access to mobile Internet, digital banking means a new service model supported by new technologies.

Therefore, the legacy banks need to make sure that the new technology architectures of digital banking such as security intelligent terminals and cloud computing can be integrated within their legacy systems and are able to project existing services into a digital environment.

Secondly, with the improvement of efficiency, the digital channel and the traditional services would conflict with each other. Some traditional services that cannot be integrated into the new system might be closed. This is an inevitable problem in the improvement of efficiency.

Thirdly, the banks need to give full consideration to how their original customer data can be integrated into the digital accounts. These customer data can help financial institutions to create more value-added services and marketing campaigns to improve the relationship with their customers.

Finally, due to the emergency of new technologies, hardware and software investment is a must, and as such employees should be equipped with new capabilities to use and be able to maintain the new system. Consequently, the training costs will be faced by these legacy banks.

What customer segments are underserved and which opportunities could this bring for forward-thinking banks?

Due to the limited of bank network coverage, a large number of people are unbanked (they don’t have a bank account). Also, there are people with a bank account, but banking services and financial rights are far from them due to low network coverage and long distance to the bank branches. Digital banks break the boundaries of physical network by making available more services to a wider population. It can be said that digital banking makes it possible for banks to extend to customers with the lowest costs.  People can have the access to banking services in 24 hours on their mobiles, which definitely is a good opportunity for banks to provide more diversified services to the customers.

How did the usage of digital wallets develop during the pandemic, and how will this drive the future of digital banking relationships?

In the background of the pandemic, digital wallets have special importance, not only by providing fast, convenient, simple, and safe payment methods, but also reducing physical contact and potential spreading of the virus. The customer can pay safely with the QR code on their smartphones from a distance. Digital wallets are the entrance to the banking services, which can be called the bank branches on people’s mobiles, by greatly decreasing the times of going to banks. The less people going out, the safer they are in the pandemic. Therefore, the pandemic is a time for consumers to become more used to accessing banking services and paying with their mobiles. Since March 2020, the use of digital wallets, which is the main future driver of future digital banking relationships, has exploded. According to Capgemini, over the globe the use of digital wallets is up 65 percent among over-65s; while in Sweden, the over-55s have used the country’s Swish mobile payment solution 50 percent more since the start of the crisis.

What do you think consumer banking will look like in 5 years’ time?

By 2025, we expect digital banking solutions to predominate around the world. By then, banks will have revolutionised their customer acquisition strategies and improved customer satisfaction while reducing overall costs both for the banks themselves, and their customers.

In 5 years’ time, most of the banking services will be done on mobiles. In the mobile payment scenarios, customers will be able to enjoy more financial services such as consumption loan and instalment. The functions of banks will be totally customer oriented. A more flexible and effortless way of banking services will be provided, which are more segmented and customised. For example, the payment product will be more diversified to meet the scenarios demands and customers’ preferences. There will co-exist dynamic QR, static QR, In App Payment, Quick Pay, Pre-Authorisation, and others. The banks will offer more integrated wealth management from settlement of B2C and B2B payments, from Overdraft to Microloans. Agency banking will be empowered with more services such as eKYC, Onboarding, ATM, Utilities Bill, and Top up etc.. Even people’s social life will be blended to their bank account. Banking will be a big ecosystem that covers most aspects of people social and consumption life.

About Li Yan

Li Yan is the founder and CEO of Beijing Wiseasy Technology. Under his leadership, Wiseasy’s smart terminal became the first smart POS terminal that meets the financial security criteria and it is certified by China Union Pay.

About Wiseasy

As the global digital banking and payment builder, Wiseasy explores the development and application of digital banks and payment technology services in the worldwide scope, based on smart financial terminals and payment services.