[20 MARCH 2017] Amidst all the advancements in financial innovations, trust must still be at the center of any digital transformation efforts of banks and financial institutions, according to Lito Villanueva (leftmost), Managing Director of FINTQ, the financial technology arm of PLDT’s Voyager Innovations, during the recent Asian Financial Services Congress organized by IDC Financial Insights at the Marina Bay Sands Singapore.

“Against the wave of digital tsunami, every organization, financial or non-financial institution, needs to quickly pivot by shifting to lifestyle-driven initiatives from the proverbial transaction-based services,” Villanueva said.

Trust will be the basis for how stakeholders engage with regulators, partners, vendors, and especially to customers. Trust will be increasingly evident in how players in the industry build business through “co-opetition” and shared economies, how they support APIs and open-banking concepts, and how they fast-track integration of external innovators.

Villanueva defined TRUST as an acronym that represents Transparency, Relationship, Universality, Security and Transformational.

The two-day forum which drew over a thousand executives from the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) industry in over 10 countries focused on how the financial industry has gone through tremendous digital transformation in recent years. These changes include the surge of cognitive and artificial intelligence (AI), announcements of new digital-mobile payment initiatives and the growing acceptance of financial technology or FinTech, among others.

Among the panelists include Annie Ong, Regional Sales Director of Salesforce (rightmost), and Martin Read, Lead Partner in SE Asia of Deloitte Digital (middle). It was moderated by Michael Araneta, Associate Vice President, IDC Financial Insights.