Open innovation involves opening the innovative processes of a company to many types of information and contributions from abroad. In that direction, the Peruvian financial system has become an example and a reference of what can be achieved from its relationship with ‘startups’, ‘fintechs’ and ‘insurtechs’. The evolution of this relationship and the upcoming challenges for banking were the central theme of the CEO Summit Open Innovation, an event organized by Movistar, El Comercio and Wayra.
Banking needs agility
During his participation in the CEO Summit Open Innovation, Eduardo Torres-Llosa commented that banking, in general, may seem slow for the ‘fintechs’ and there is a consensus that more agility is needed. In the case of BBVA Continental, “our planning is now quarterly and our biweekly delivery cycles. The idea is to incorporate the ‘fintechs’ in these production cycles. We are in the process of developing an open architecture platform with APIs (Application Programming Interface) that allows immediate results, “said the BBVA CEO in Peru.
Eduardo Torres-Llosa also highlighted the change of mentality within BBVA Continental to allow the entry of external teams such as ‘fintechs’ for work in financial solutions.
The search for digital solutions
The alliance between banking and ‘fintech’ favors digital solutions Peru is the sixth Latin American country in growth and representativeness of the ‘fintech’ industry, so the growth potential of local ‘startups’ is still very wide. In this context, banks have great potential to contribute to this growth through the creation of collaborative spaces that promote disruptive innovation.
“The bank is organized in a radically different way to encourage innovation. The work by silos and functions has given way to an ‘agile’ model, whose main purpose is to empower the teams to achieve results in a given time. This new organization is allowing us to create products at twice the speed of what we could do before. This change of mentality is also key to promoting open innovation and recognizing that ‘fintechs’ can do some things better than us” Torres-Llosa said.
Methodology ‘fast track’
Eduardo Torres-Llosa commented that BBVA Continental currently works with five ‘fintechs’ under the ‘fast track’ methodology, which consists of streamlining the processes of the bank and the ‘startups’ to implement high-impact solutions in the clients within a framework of limited and agile time.
Changing mentality is key to promoting open innovation and recognizing that ‘fintechs’ can do some things better than we do”.
After an open selection process led by BBVA’s Open Innovation, the five ‘fintechs’ that collaborate with the bank were chosen to carry out concept tests and work together with the different areas of the organization.
Also published on Medium.