We are here at Money 2020 Europe in Amsterdam and I'm delighted to be joined by Bianka Swat, the Chief strategy Officer at Bank Digital Bank here with HQs in Amsterdam.
So thank you so much for joining us, Bianca.
Thank you so much for having me.
OK, so all of the conversation at Money 2020, with the exception of stablecoins, has been on AI.
And I wanted to ask you a question which I'm sure you've been asked so much before, but are we finally moving on from the concept of AI replacing humans through to AI working with humans, and how do you feel that shifts the way that companies build?
Yeah, that's a great question because I noticed the discussions as well.
They're quite binary, right?
AI replace people with it not at bank we tend to ask ourselves a different question, which is how can we use AI to stay user centric at scale?
So AI is not the strategy, the user is the strategy.
How can we make their lives easy as we grow across countries and Yeah, so for us it's not about that, right?
So as a clear example, we build our own general platform, a bunk, and our users are people who live an international lifestyle.
They want to be served wherever they are, whatever language they speak, whatever time of day, and we really use AI to employ that.
And then our humans within the company, we have many humans still working with us.
We're also still hiring.
Um, they can focus on things they're good at judgment, creativity, empathy, and all those great things.
And exactly what what you said of building it yourself, um, as opposed to kind of just embedding it as a feature from elsewhere, and how do you feel that changes the way that the company is operating?
Yeah, it is a fundamental difference because I notice indeed that a lot of companies use AI as a layer on top.
I always like to compare it to the difference between downloading an app on your phone or the operating system, so iOS or Android or whatever phone it is that you use.
I see a lot of players doing the first, so a tool to make a certain process go faster.
But at Bunk we really have it embedded in everything.
It's the operating system.
AI.
We use AI to make decisions within products, engineering, support everywhere, and then you feel a fundamental difference as a user as well, because at the end of the day, a user doesn't really care frankly, about whether you are AI powered or not AI powered.
They want to do a thing.
They want to pay a bill.
They want to travel and know if they have enough money.
They want to know what's going on.
And with AI as an infrastructure, you will just feel as a user that it goes.
A lot quicker, safer, and it's a greater experience overall.
Yeah, and it's that real question of like is something digitized or digitalized, like to say the, the difference between the app, the or or just using it the other way.
It reminds us of the early internet age where you had um people had a shop and then you have your online shop.
Yes, which of course is now online.
Yes, and it's now completely inconceivable.
It's now just one business, but it at the beginning it was like oh.
My online business and seeing that change and boy changing very quickly.
Um, so Ba obviously is, is so incredibly successful and often challenger banks lose their edge as they scale and become closer and closer to traditional banks.
How do you feel that you stay on the user side while whilst growing as a company to a large company?
Yeah, that's exactly what I focus on in my role actually because As you scale, right, there will be more people, more products, more countries.
It's very easy to lose that human side of whatever it is you do, uh, but at Bunk we always start with one question first.
What is the user trying to do and how can we service them in whatever way we need to do that, right?
Um, what is the user trying to do and how do we build around that?
And sometimes we use AI, sometimes we don't use AI for that, um, but that is the starting point.
And then in that case, I mean, and, and you know, if the Challenger Bank is is approaching it that way, but a traditional bank is sort of thinking, how can I prevent from a bit more agile, what do you feel separates the challenger from the traditional bank nowadays, apart from, you know, just better apps, right?
Yes, but that is a good question because the apps have improved a lot as well on the traditional side, which is good.
At first, I think one of the main things that differentiated a challenger was the fact that it was all digital and easy and now a lot of traditional banks have done that too.
But I don't think that is the real gap.
A very tangible example perhaps is within bank we always refer to our users as users, whereas a lot of traditional players say customers because it's a very different relationship.
When you have a customer, you have a product, so it's very inward focused that you're trying to sell.
For us it's very.
Much about who are users, what lives do they live, in our case, an international life, and how do we build around that?
How do they interact with the product.
So for me, the gap is not a digital gap per se, Online, not online.
The gap is a mindset gap, and I think you can copy lots of features, and they can continue doing that for a long time, but you cannot copy a mindset.
Without wanting to deglamorize it, it's almost like banking is a fundamental utility, and that's where your users really get it to make life easy, benefits, yeah, absolutely.
I want to talk a little bit about your expansion into the US.
Tell me about the strategy.
Tell me about your approach there.
Yes, so we recently applied for a US banking license and I'm very, very excited about that.
I cannot wait and actually.
The US is a very interesting market in many ways.
I mean, it's a huge market.
It's quite fragmented as well, so we're not going to go in pretending to know everything about everyone.
We're going to focus on the group of people that we have been serving in Europe.
So there's a group of 5 million people between Europe and the US that have ties to both sides of the Atlantic.
So there can be European experts moving to the US, US experts moving to Europe, and we're building a single platform for them to manage their money because it's quite painful to open accounts in the first place when you move there, but also to manage accounts, manage money across both continents, and we will give them one single platform, and I'm very excited.
I cannot wait.
That seems like a whole new frontier and as digital banks grow, becoming this global banking system.
Uh, it's uh an interesting time and just to wrap us up, digital banking.
What do we mean by that?
Yeah, what do we mean by that?
You've been talking to people all day.
I would ask, I'd rather ask you.
Um, for me, um, or for us a bank, it is not necessarily about digital.
Uh, we're building a bank that moves with you.
Um, I know it's a lot of traditional banks or the sector, um, on its own is very rigid in that sense, so.
It still assumes that you live a life in one country in one currency, and that will never change.
For us, we are building.
How people actually live their lives.
So for me it's not whether it's online, not online, we're a bank that moves with you wherever you go.
I, I think that's a really great way of putting it.
I mean, ultimately digital is just that it gives us the options and how can we then provide those options to the users and it seems like the perfect approach.
Well, we're very excited to hear more and we look forward to next time you can come and join us and tell us about the rest of the expansion.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for joining us.
