Mambu’s APAC MD Lays It All Out

Anil Prabha

July 5, 2020

Asia Blockchain Review had talked to Myles Bertrand, the APAC Managing Director for Mambu in the previous part of our interview session. This is the second part of the interview.

For the uninitiated, Mambu recently announced a global partnership with Google Cloud to accelerate customer’s experiences to the cloud. Mambu customers can now launch and extend banking and lending operations in more countries on its cloud agnostic platform. So, let’s catch up with Myles in the second part of his responses to our publication.

Apart from the technical perspective that is being highlighted in this new partnership, what is the bigger picture here? Almost every country is jumping on the fintech bandwagon, and central banks are even getting into digital currencies too, e.g China with their digital yuan. What’s your take on all this?

Digital banking is the way of the future, there’s no doubt about it. The use of cash was in decline even prior to the COVID pandemic, and we imagine this will only continue, with an increased focus on digital transactions.

Digital currencies have their own benefits and drawbacks, and it will certainly be interesting to watch the progress in China. From our experience globally, central banks are becoming more and more instrumental in driving improvements in technology, as well as underpinning the ability for banks to support different demographics in the market and embrace new technologies.

By utilising publicly available capabilities and SaaS based models, central banks are paving the way for greater financial inclusion for communities that are currently unserved or underserved, and ensuring healthy competition within the marketplace.

Speaking from a local perspective, our experience in Malaysia so far with Bank Negara Malaysia has been extremely positive – we’ve found them to be highly engaged in the newer platforms and shifts in technology and very supportive of the Malaysian market becoming a market leader for digital banking and transformation.

Finally, what do you see in your crystal ball? Where are things headed in the APAC region and perhaps what’s your take on things with economies reopening amidst rising Covid-19 cases in certain countries? It’s almost like uncertainty is the new normal these days, and navigating this new reality is just going to be the de facto standard for a while. What do you think?

It’s impossible to predict exactly how the global economy is going to react in a post-COVID world, and some countries and regions are going to be in a state of upheaval for some time to come. But I think we can be pretty confident in saying that continued acceleration in digital transformation across many industries is a given – that’s not going to go backwards now.

In terms of banking, I see a new emphasis on digital interactions between customers and their financial institutions; the day of the bricks and mortar bank branch is in steady decline, and the ability of banks to provide their customers with responsive and fulfilling digital interactions is essential.

Locally, Asia Pacific will continue to be a market leader in the digital transformation space, and we can expect to see further acceleration in the use of digital engagement mediums from both new challenger banks as well as well-established and mature organisations. It’s an exciting and unpredictable time, that’s for sure, and we predict a great deal of change on the horizon.

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About the author
Anil Prabha

Editor In Chief

Anil started his career in journalism all the way back in 2003. After traversing the sphere of editorial, corporate communications and advertising, he has now come full circle and is back in the world of journalism. He believes in the power of the written word, and its ability to enthrall, delight and inform the reader.

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