Where art meets engineering: enabling the future of banking

…and thousands of people used the products he built; some are still being used 40 years on. Through Converge Banking, we’re creating digital products that allow banks to build new services for their customers. I get a real sense of satisfaction knowing that what we create will be used by millions. When people ask what we do I often say it’s like designing a washing machine – you can’t just build one universal appliance and expect it to meet everyone’s needs. You have to understand the issues and needs of your users first – what they need to wash or how big their family is. Then you can design, build, test, install and sell the right products for the right user.

… through our digital banking platform, BankingSuite. It gives you everything you need to run your bank or building society, from infrastructure and hosting to customer experience and onboarding, mobile and web apps and everything in-between. But that doesn’t mean we can’t tailor it. To make it bespoke we’re offering it in two modes – we’ll provide the code so the client can customise and operate it all themselves or we’ll build it all and run it for them. And that product management capability is an important evolution for Deloitte.

…but for banking. Much like how the printing press revolutionised how people shared information, digital banking is allowing us to revolutionise how people interact with, and benefit from, their money. And innovation has to be in everything: if it’s not, banking will become stale. So many other sectors are curating their customers’ digital experience and banks are expected to do the same. That means moving away from targeting big customer segments and towards a more personalised approach: using the data banks have to really tailor experiences and products. For example, if you take out a loan you have to enter rudimentary information about what you earn, where you live, how you’re employed and the bank looks at your credit history. It would be much more helpful if the bank also looked at your transaction data and the money you hold to offer a personalised loan that’s more manageable. They can also use that transaction data to offer better rewards that are more meaningful for customers. Like offering them discounts at the coffee shops they visit the most, rather than a chain they’ve never been to.

…that are of the highest quality, that are beautiful but also usable – that’s where art meets engineering. You need creativity, but you also have to be structured and methodical, to be able to take a great idea, get into the technical details and then create something simple and efficient for the customer to use. Imagine your banking app is just the very tip of the iceberg; if I were to draw a schematic of the technology that allows you to make one single payment in that app, you’d be shocked by the sheer scale of it. To come up with something so elegant and effective out of something so complex is tough, and I think that’s the most unexpected part of my job.

…but that’s a benefit (according to our head of engineering)! I’ve not worked as an engineer, but I’ve had lots of roles in operations and IT service management, so I understand what it’s like to run tech, not just build and design it. And it’s a culmination of those experiences that helps me see things from different perspectives. I understand people’s frustrations, where they need to grow, move and change to be able to do what they need to do. I want to serve that, to help people create processes that eliminate inefficiency. Everything I’ve ever done, both inside and outside of work, has led to that. I’m always applying design thinking to my life and have done throughout my career. From selling designer clothing, to designing classic furniture, up to the products I help build today, I’ve tried to show that nothing has to be boring or plain – it can be functional and beautiful, just like the products I watched my grandfather make.