gartners_2015_cool_business__294982 (2)

This research note is restricted to the personal use of maria.campos@bankmillennium.pl
G00294982
Gartner's 2015 Cool Business Award Winners
Are Role Models for Financial Services
Innovation
Published: 7 April 2016
Analyst(s): David Furlonger, Juergen Weiss
Financial services institutions are notoriously slow to adopt emerging
technologies and innovative business trends. Gartner's 2015 Cool Business
Awards recognize a number of best-in-class initiatives by banks and
insurance companies designed to overcome legacy challenges.
Key Findings
■ Gartner received more than 250 submissions from financial services institutions for our 2015
Cool Business Awards, acknowledging innovative use of technology. Forty-two percent of the
submissions came from the Asia/Pacific (APAC) region; 37% from Europe, the Middle East and
Africa (EMEA); and 21% from North America.
■ The Cool Business Awards use-case submissions — almost equally distributed across the five
award category nomination areas — highlight the successful adoption of digital capabilities to
enable legacy modernization and spur innovation in the financial services industry.
■ Winners in the different award categories were selected by banking and insurance executives
attending Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Orlando, Barcelona and on Australia's Gold Coast in
4Q15, using mobile polling technology.
Recommendations
■ Create a defined innovation team, with clear business goals and metrics, sustainable resources,
and unencumbered mandates to experiment, develop, fail and try again.
■ Build development, marketing and distribution partnerships via innovation labs, accelerators
and third-party financial technology startups (fintechs).
■ Instigate study tours of innovation labs or academic institutions that will enable innovation team
members and senior business executives to become educated about market opportunities and
to develop open innovation strategies.

Table of Contents
Analysis..................................................................................................................................................3
Award Winners in North America...................................................................................................... 6
Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) (Most Innovative Technology Legacy
Transformation Initiative)..............................................................................................................6
BNY Mellon (Most Innovative New Digital Product)......................................................................6
Citi (Most Promising Digital Business Transformation Initiative).................................................... 7
Redstone Federal Credit Union (Most Innovative Digital Customer Service Enhancement)...........8
Synchrony Financial (Most Innovative Application of Digital Technology to Grow the Business)
...................................................................................................................................................9
Award Winners in EMEA.................................................................................................................10
Discovery Insure (Most Innovative New Digital Project and Regional Winner EMEA).................. 10
Bank Millennium (Most Promising Digital Business Transformation Initiative)..............................11
Barclays (Most Innovative Technology Legacy Transformation Initiative).....................................12
Israel Credit Cards (ICC-Cal) (Most Innovative Digital Customer Service Enhancement).............13
mBank (Most Innovative Application of Digital Technology to Grow the Business)..................... 14
Award Winners in APAC................................................................................................................. 15
E.Sun Bank (Most Innovative Application of Digital Technology to Grow the Business and
Regional Winner APAC)............................................................................................................ 15
E.Sun Bank (Most Promising Digital Business Transformation Initiative).....................................16
SBI Card (Most Innovative Technology Legacy Transformation Initiative)....................................17
State Bank of India (Most Innovative Digital Customer Service Enhancement)...........................18
Westpac (Most Innovative New Digital Product)........................................................................ 19
Gartner Recommended Reading..........................................................................................................20
List of Tables
Table 1. Award Winners..........................................................................................................................5
List of Figures
Figure 1. Submissions by Category........................................................................................................ 4
Page 2 of 22 Gartner, Inc. | G00294982

Analysis
Gartner's 2016 CIO survey showed that 63% of financial services respondents believed that the
entry of digitally enabled companies from other industries and the fintech community will be a
greater threat for their organizations than competition from traditional industry players.
1
Gartner
believes that this perceived threat, which we call industry fluidity (see "Industries Will Become Fluid
in the Era of Digital Business"), is one of the critical factors driving financial services institutions to
pursue innovation opportunities more aggressively. Given that many financial services players are
still struggling with substantial legacy IT assets and organizational challenges, as well as with
redundant business models, Gartner launched an initiative in 2015 that recognizes the innovative
use of technology and provides our clients with some best practices and lessons learned to help
transform their businesses.
Gartner's Cool Business Awards highlighted best-in-class industry initiatives, to provide industry
peers with insight into developments in digital innovation. They honor initiatives from financial
institutions in five categories:
■ Most Innovative New Digital Product
■ Most Innovative Digital Customer Service Enhancement
■ Most Innovative Technology Legacy Transformation Initiative
■ Most Innovative Application of Digital Technology to Grow the Business
■ Most Promising Digital Business Transformation Initiative
All projects had to be launched during the previous year (from July 2014 through July 2015). We
received more than 250 submissions from banks, insurers, investment firms, payment providers and
other financial services institutions from around the world. The majority of submissions came from
the APAC region (42%), followed by EMEA (37%) and the Americas (21%). The submissions were
almost equally distributed among the five categories, with digital customer service (24%) the most
popular initiative, followed by digital growth (21%) and business transformation and digital products
(both 20%). Legacy transformation accounted for 15% of all submissions (see Figure 1).
Gartner, Inc. | G00294982 Page 3 of 22

Figure 1. Submissions by Category
Source: Gartner (April 2016)
To select the best technology initiatives, we implemented a robust and dynamic evaluation
framework to ensure that the assessment process was pertinent and objective (see Note 1). All
applications were judged over an eight-week period by a team of Gartner analysts using this
framework. The two most highly rated finalists for each award category and major region were
invited to present at one of the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo events in North America (Orlando),
Europe (Barcelona) and APAC (Gold Coast, Australia). Each finalist had three minutes to present its
digital business initiative, using its medium of choice (for example, slides or video). Bank and
insurance executives in attendance were asked to vote after each category presentation via online/
wireless polling, pick the respective award winner, and then select an overall regional winner from
the category winners.
This research provides an overview of the award-winning initiatives of the participating financial
services organizations across all regions and all categories (see also Table 1). For each of the
successful cases we briefly discuss:
■ Project summary (business problem/opportunity and target audience)
■ Value (quantitative and qualitative impact assessments)
■ Lessons learned (achievement of business goals, current status of the initiative and future
roadmap)
This analysis is intended to provide Gartner clients with a better perspective on global innovation
use-case initiatives. It is also representative of best-in-class industry peers. Gartner clients should

note that many of these use cases are contextualized for their market and business model
orientation.
Table 1. Award Winners
Company Name Region Award Category
State Bank of India APAC Most Innovative Digital Customer Service Enhancement
E.Sun Bank APAC Most Innovative Application of Digital Technology to Grow the
Business and Regional Winner
Most Promising Digital Business Transformation Initiative
Westpac APAC Most Innovative New Digital Product
SBI Card APAC Most Innovative Technology Legacy Transformation Initiative
Barclays EMEA Most Innovative Technology Legacy Transformation Initiative
mBank EMEA Most Innovative Application of Digital Technology to Grow the
Business
Israel Credit Cards (ICC-Cal) EMEA Most Innovative Digital Customer Service Enhancement
Bank Millennium EMEA Most Promising Digital Business Transformation Initiative
Discovery Insure EMEA Most Innovative New Digital Product and Regional Winner
Citi NA Most Promising Digital Business Transformation Initiative and
Regional Winner
Business Development Bank of
Canada (BDC)
NA Most Innovative Technology Legacy Transformation Initiative
Synchrony Financial NA Most Innovative Application of Digital Technology to Grow the
Business
Redstone Federal Credit Union NA Most Innovative Digital Customer Service Enhancement
Bank of New York (BNY) Mellon NA Most Innovative New Digital Product
NA = North America
Source: Gartner (April 2016)

Award Winners in North America
Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) (Most Innovative Technology Legacy
Transformation Initiative)
Initiative: Agility & Efficiency
Project Summary: BDC launched its project to replace lending processes that were primarily
paper-based and prevented it from effectively addressing its clients' needs. The initiative included a
customer relationship management (CRM) system that displays a 360-degree view of all client
activities, a business rule engine that manages complex risk management models, a core lending
system for the analysis and approval of loan files, and an enterprise content management platform.
BDC conducted a comprehensive joint business-IT analysis of processes that were causing
frustration for clients and employees. Once needed changes were identified, business experts
rewrote the end-to-end lending process in parallel with the IT organization. The project was then
implemented as a "big bang" migration using an agile development methodology. The result was a
completely digital system that enables new applications to be rolled out rapidly and virtual teams to
be created on as-needed basis. This has delivered improvements in operational efficiencies for both
customers and employees, cost reductions associated with the replacement of paper-based
processes and couriers, and a significantly enhanced customer experience. The collaborative
decision-making process used has proved so successful that BDC has adopted it enterprisewide.
Value: The project delivered significant efficiency gains for both customers and employees,
reducing loan cycle time and greatly improving the customer experience. BDC reports having
increased its sales volume by 6.5%, without adding or relocating employees. Despite the loss of
productivity that is to be expected in the early phases of using a new system, BDC's volume had
returned to normal levels by the second quarter the project was in place. Moreover, employee
engagement survey showed that 98% of respondents believe the project increased BDC's agility
and efficiency, 98% believed it improved the employee experience, and 96% believe it improves the
customer experience. The project has also delivered more-quantifiable returns: BDC consumes
30% less paper and has reduced courier costs by $33,700.
Lessons learned: This project shows the value of a collaborative decision-making approach where
the development of new tools is jointly managed by a technical expert and a business specialist.
This method allows the creation of systems and processes that more closely meet both customer
and employee needs, and significantly accelerates the time to market of new products. BDC has
adopted this method permanently across the enterprise.
BNY Mellon (Most Innovative New Digital Product)
Initiative: MyDashboard
Project Summary: BNY Mellon developed MyDashboard to achieve an evidence-based decision-
making culture and identify cost-reduction opportunities. MyDashboard, built on BNY Mellon's own
Digital Pulse big data and analytics platform, provides the company with actionable insights into
performance and expenses. It is an easy-to-understand dashboard that allows employees to access

information, such as status reports on their training and development, performance goals,
expenses, and technology usage statistics. Employees can view how they compare with company
averages, and managers can also view reports on their teams' usage.
The bank's user experience team used a design thinking methodology that focused on empathizing
with users from beginning to end. Before building, they conducted interviews with employees and
managers to ensure their understanding of what users needed to increase their effectiveness. Then
they defined problems and formed small teams to brainstorm ideas with sketches and wireframes.
The wireframes were then crowdsourced on BNY Mellon's internal social network, with feedback
solicited from employees and incorporated into the design.
Value: The project was part of an enterprisewide effort to reduce infrastructure expenses by 3%.
The system enables employees, managers and service teams to identify and make changes to
inefficient or unproductive uses of technology, such as unused seat licenses for software or
services. To date, MyDashboard has identified more than $2 million in potential savings.
Lessons learned: MyDashboard has been rolled out to approximately 13,000 employees in BNY
Mellon's Client Technology Solutions organization. The bank's Digital Workplace team is currently
working to extend the project's benefits by integrating the application into its intranet. BNY Mellon
believes that broader use of MyDashboard will deliver even more substantial performance
improvements and cost savings.
Citi (Most Promising Digital Business Transformation Initiative)
Initiative: Agent-based voice biometrics authentication
Project Summary: Citi recognized the critical need to address issues that negatively impact
customer experience, such as cumbersome authentication procedures. Citi implemented real-time
authentication mechanisms to provide faster authentication, by seamlessly and automatically
verifying the claimed identity using voice biometrics within the first few seconds of every call, with
minimal effort by the customer. The vast majority of customers are enrolled passively, and the
system expedites time to service for legitimate customers.
Real-time authentication had never before been deployed in a customer-facing manner in North
America, and the implementation required close collaboration among internal development staff,
infrastructure partners, information security personnel, and the vendor's developers located in
multiple time zones and countries. The bank was also uncertain about the reactions of both
customers and employees. Securing employee buy-in and accountability were especially critical to
the success of the project.
Value: The real-time authentication deployment is in its infancy, and data is still being collected. Citi
reports that, to date, 70% to 75% of eligible customers have consented to enrollment in voice
biometrics. The bank also reports anecdotal evidence of positive customer reaction to the
technology, and anticipates a 15- to 20-second reduction in average call-handling time.
Lessons Learned: The solution was initially scoped to serve 10% of inbound call volume within the
Citi-branded U.S. credit card file, and the bank has completed the final expansion of the agent

population to meet this objective. Given the success of the implementation, and pending final
metrics on call-handling time, Citi is considering expanding the deployment to a larger portion of the
credit card file and other product lines, both within North America and in global markets.
Redstone Federal Credit Union (Most Innovative Digital Customer Service Enhancement)
Initiative: Electronic Lobby Manager Operations (ELMO) application
Project Summary: Redstone Federal, one of the 25 largest credit unions in the U.S., recognized
that it needed a better understanding of what was going on in its branch lobbies. Like many
financial institutions, Redstone lacked the data to truly understand how its employees spend their
time when not processing transactions. Redstone Federal Credit Union developed the ELMO
application to integrate with the internal account-processing platform to offer a more efficient
solution for managing lobby resources and improving member service. The application enables
either the greeter (via a desktop screen or a mobile tablet app) or the member (via a mobile device
or a lobby touchscreen device) to identify the member's needs and connect members with an
appropriately trained representative in a timely manner.
Members are recognized by the iBeacon on the mobile app and placed in the branch lobby queue.
A Redstone employee can then greet the member, help with the specific reason for the visit, discuss
other products that are available and provide additional help with anything else needed. When the
customer leaves, the lobby visit is marked completed. Every step of the process is timed. ELMO's
dashboard enables management to see what is going on across all Redstone branches — how
many members visited; how many are waiting and for what reason; and how long a process has
taken by employee, location and reason — in real time and with drill-down comparisons. The
solution allowed Redstone to eliminate manual paper-based processes by enabling a mobile digital
experience in the branch, providing real-time tracking methodology to deliver actionable business
intelligence.
Value: The ELMO application helps Redstone serve consumers more efficiently and personally,
while optimizing the use of branch personnel. It also gives consumers greater control over when and
where to visit a branch, and helps them make the best use of their time. Redstone reports that the
application has reduced wait times, on average, from 20 minutes to five minutes. Since the project's
inception, approximately 160,000 visits have been logged, for a total wait time reduction of 40,000
hours. This has enabled Redstone to service members more effectively and efficiently, allowing for
more cross-sell opportunities.
Lessons Learned: Redstone reports that ELMO has been highly effective in meeting its defined
objectives of reducing member wait times and eliminating paper-based manual systems. It has also
provided a way for Redstone to effectively reach millennial consumers through mobile adoption.
Future plans call for built-in calendaring for appointment time selection and iBeacon integration for
automatic signaling of member presence when entering branch lobbies, eliminating the need for
members to enter confirmation information for mobile appointments.

Synchrony Financial (Most Innovative Application of Digital Technology to Grow the
Business)
Initiative: Suite of mobile solutions
Project Summary: Synchrony, a provider of "private label" credit cards based in Stamford,
Connecticut, recognized that mobile devices' increasing integration in every aspect of consumers'
lives has led to both higher expectations of merchants and new opportunities to deliver a positive
customer experience. The company set out to develop a suite of mobile solutions that anticipate
and solve customer and partner needs and keep pace with rapidly evolving technologies.
Synchrony's mobile suite is designed to streamline the mobile apply-and-buy process, rounding out
the life cycle of accounts, from acquisition, to servicing and loyalty, through mobile.
The applications in Synchrony's suite include:
■ mApply, which allows shoppers to securely apply for credit on their mobile devices and instantly
access their approved credit line
■ mService, which allows customers to pay bills and service their accounts on their mobile
devices
■ Mobile rewards, which allow customers to display reward certificates on their mobile phone and
present them at the point of sale
■ Digital card, a digital version of a Synchrony Financial private-label credit card or patented Dual
Card, that enables in-store account lookup and proprietary mobile payment functionality
Synchrony has leveraged strategic partnerships to develop a mobile platform that can be rapidly
integrated across retailers and third-party digital wallets, including Apple Pay and Android Pay.
Value: Synchrony reports that its mobile application suite has processed more than 5 million mobile
mApplications to date, with volume growing more than 70% from April 2014 through April 2015.
These transactions account for approximately 7% of Synchrony's total credit application volume.
Many leading retailers used mApply as a way of helping customers beat the lines during the holiday
season. The latest-generation mApply platform includes a fully redesigned user experience that has
contributed to completion rates rising nearly 300% in the past year. Synchrony's mService currently
receives more than 9 million logins monthly. Synchrony also reports that its digital card, first piloted
in 2014, has resulted in increased activations and transactions for a significantly higher credit spend
at a number of retailers.
Lessons Learned: Synchrony Financial credits the success of its mobile application suite to its
Innovation Station team — a group of cross-functional individuals that is focused exclusively on
emerging technology, ideation and agile development of new products. This team hosted "bolt
sessions" with partners and customers for intense, one-day prototyping sessions. The Innovation
Station team is also partnering with the recently opened Chicago Innovation Station, which is
focused on data analytics. The teams are working together on "Next Best Offer," a proof of concept
that analyzes data about a consumer's shopping habits and delivers personalized discount and
loyalty offers via mobile devices.

Award Winners in EMEA
Discovery Insure (Most Innovative New Digital Project and Regional Winner EMEA)
Initiative: Smartphone-Enabled Driver Quotient (DQ)-Track
Project Summary: South Africa has one of the world's worst motor vehicle accident fatality rates,
with more than 14,000 deaths each year. Road accidents cost the economy over R300 billion each
year. Ninety percent of accidents are caused by drivers themselves, which motivated Discovery
Insure to change people's behavior beyond traditional no-claim bonus incentives. The insurer
launched Vitalitydrive, a driver behavior program to make motorists aware of how they drive. The
program makes use of DQ-Track, a telematics device, to measure acceleration, braking, cornering,
speed, distance, location and time, providing feedback to clients.
Common telematics devices, such as black boxes, are often expensive, difficult to distribute and
install, and don't support immediate behavioral change due to delayed feedback. The product uses
standard smartphone technology (GPS, an accelerometer, gyroscope and Bluetooth low-energy
capabilities) as well as a Vitalitydrive sensor with a Bluetooth low-energy (BLE) chip. This sensor,
which is patented by Discovery, communicates with the smartphone via BLE, enabling the insurer to
attach driving behavior to both the phone user and to the insured vehicle. The program provides
users with tools to improve and gives them powerful rewards (such as up to 50% of their fuel
spending back) for driving well and reducing their chances of being in an accident. This creates
shared value, because Discovery can reduce claim costs, clients get financial rewards, and South
African society benefits from safer drivers and fewer accidents.
The system was built using the Amazon Web Services back end. It uses a combination of
technologies and digital platforms, including iOS Xcode, Android development studio, Java and
various scripting languages, such as PHP and Python.
Value: Within nine months of the program's starting, 10,000 clients had bought policies with this
new technology option, and the program is now growing at a rate of 100 clients a day. Since
launching this digital solution in November 2014, Discovery Insure has collected data on over 23
million kilometers (14.3 million miles) of driving behavior from more than 2 million trips. Clients have
a 25% better driving score on average, earn more rewards and have a 10% lower chance of an
accident when using this digital technology option for monitoring their driving behavior. Within the
entire Discovery Insure program, clients can save up to R800 each month for driving well, which
equates to a high percentage of the average motor insurance premium. Better drivers cost less than
half in claims than poorer drivers. Discovery's motor vehicle accident fatality rate is approximately
one-third lower than the national motor vehicle accident fatality rates.
Lessons Learned: The project helped Discovery Insure create shared value for all parties.
Discovery is currently doing further development to improve the safety features of the program and
enhance rewards to create even more behavioral change. Currently, 30% to 40% of new clients are
selecting the new technology, and Discovery expects this to grow to 50% to 60% in the near future.

Bank Millennium (Most Promising Digital Business Transformation Initiative)
Initiative: Transforming customer experience via next-generation omnichannel platform
Project Summary: Bank Millennium, a Warsaw-based commercial bank, deployed an end-to-end
omnichannel cash loan disbursement process that was developed entirely in-house and completed
in a phased approach. Customers can start, save and resume applications using the channels of
their choice — digital, mobile or automated teller machine (ATM). One of the main drivers for the
project was the issue that customers previously weren't able to save their applications if they did
not complete them and, therefore, had to restart. Only 20% of customers who checked a loan offer
on the digital channel actually applied, and only 18% reached the disbursement stage. The project
addressed these issues and also provided a "human touch in digital" — for example, offering
customers the opportunity to use live chat and co-browsing to receive support during the
application process.
The project had a strong mandate not only to create and deliver the technical solution, but also to
cross existing siloes within the bank. The project team acted as an innovation lab, focusing on
customer journeys and customer needs before considering architecture and products. Bank
Millennium combined multiple business areas, design and user experience, and dedicated IT teams.
The solution ensures that information is shared consistently and securely among multiple channels
in real time. It integrates data from channel-specific systems, and the bank's lending platform and
CRM system, to manage process flows and to capture events from all channels.
The project delivered four foundational solutions:
■ Application Centre to orchestrate application processing across channels, providing real-time
information on status and triggering follow-up actions
■ Communication Centre to centralize information on every interaction with the client exposing it
to all channels
■ Campaigns Centre to enable event-based follow-up activities and next-best-offer handling
■ Communication Tools, a co-browsing application offering personal customer support
Value: The omnichannel integration project's success was measured against two key performance
indicators: conversion of applications and digital channel sales share. The application conversion
rate grew from a baseline of 18% in February 2014 to 49% in December of the same year (a 172%
increase), while the digital channel share grew from 9% to 30% (an increase of more than 200%) in
the same period. After the complete project rollout, the digital channel sales share increased by
140% and went up from 5% to 15%.
Lessons Learned: Bank Millennium was able to increase its cash loan conversion rate by 50% and
achieve a 20% share for the digital banking cash loan sales volume. The project delivered its main
goal: to increase sales conversion and reduced leaks in electronic channels. The bank integrated
three completely new channels into the end-to-end sales process (call center/telemarketing, mobile
application and ATM). The project had an impact on customers' habits as they became increasingly
comfortable in starting applications through online channels. More than 30% of total bank cash-

loan applications are now started online (a 200% increase). The success of the project provided
Bank Millennium with the technical and organizational foundation for the integration of other core
processes, including claims, other credit models and Internet payments.
Barclays (Most Innovative Technology Legacy Transformation Initiative)
Initiative: Barclays Payments Business
Project Summary: Barclays bank initiated a transformation initiative to improve the customer
experience by providing simple, seamless payment initiation, real-time or near-real-time visibility
into payment processing, visibility of transactions, better rates, support of self-service and
continuous 24/7 payment processing. The project should also support the rapid rollout of
integration with new clearing channels and new partner customers, as well as rapid adoption of new
industrywide payment schemes. As a consequence, Barclays established the Strategic Payment
Hub (SPH) to decommission legacy payment processing platforms and enable digital channels. The
SPH integrates with Barclays core systems and creates a digital access layer and dynamic routing
for the entire landscape. It includes the following features:
■ A microservices framework with several RESTful application programming interfaces (APIs) to
search for payments directly from the payment processing back end, to initiate a recall case
directly in the back-end system without contacting the operations team or to provide foreign
exchange sheet rates
■ A bulk file processing framework to process corporate customer files, along with processing for
its first customer American Express (Amex)
■ A centralized point of entry for payment messages and files
■ Intelligent payment routing based on payment features and downstream system availability
■ Real-time data access to the underlying processing systems on the basis of an always-on 24/7
service
Value: The SPH project has simplified the customer journeys of 13 million Barclays retail online
banking customers by enabling service payments. Self-service payment recall was made possible
through the payment search and recall API, which is available on a 24/7 basis. The bank established
a generic reusable API as part of the SPH framework, and work is in progress for other channels to
use APIs as well. Eventually, Barclays' entire online payment customer base, across wealth,
corporate and retail, will use one or more API services offered by SPH. Bulk file-processing
functionality that was implemented for Amex could go live in six months, with the capability to
accept a 100,000-transaction file in five minutes. (Bulk file processing was targeted to process
100,000 files in 30 minutes.) Eventually, most bulk payment file processing will move to the SPH.
The use of open-source tools and frameworks helped to significantly reduce operating costs, and
the use of extensible frameworks is expected to result in improving time to market.
Lessons Learned: The success of the project can be measured through the continued funding to
the project, with a rapidly growing set of channels looking for integration through additional services
or reusing existing services. The search-and-recall API functionality is already in use for the retail
online banking channel, and work is in progress to onboard the corporate client channel. All SPH

services will support new business demands, such as 24/7 processing, as well as new regulatory
needs, such as segregation and routing. Barclays will also be able to integrate new clearing
mechanisms, such as digital wallets and mobile devices.
Israel Credit Cards (ICC-Cal) (Most Innovative Digital Customer Service Enhancement)
Initiative: DigiCal Forms
Project Summary: ICC-Cal is one of Israel's leading credit card companies, and offers various
financial services to private customers and merchants. Every month, the company deals with more
than 30,000 customer forms submitted via fax, for dozens of services for which a customer
signature is needed or no Web/mobile self-service utility has yet been developed. Because Israeli
security regulations do not allow email to be used, these forms have to be handled manually by
back-office clerks, leading to high operational costs and the potential for human error. Manual
processing also leads to longer service-level agreements (SLAs) and poor overall customer
experience and satisfaction.
To eliminate paper, fax and manual back-office work, ICC-Cal developed the DigiCal Forms
platform, which enables its users to turn any paper form into a responsive digital online form within
minutes. Customers can then access the form at Cal's website, receive it as a link within a text
message during a call to the call center or get it automatically via interactive voice response.
Authentication talks place with a simple SMS-based one-time-password solution, and the customer
can then digitally complete the form with the needed information. Customers can add attachments
and can graphically sign the form on the touchscreen of their smartphones and tablets, or on their
desktops. The system populates basic customer details automatically and performs basic
validations. Once the customer sends the form, it is automatically archived and is associated with a
new or existing applicable CRM case.
Value: ICC-Cl reports that the total cost for design, development, testing, training and
implementation equated to approximately four person months of effort, and estimates that it will
total up to six person months once the solution is fully rolled out. Each digital form reduces manual
back-office work by up to 15 minutes. According to the company's implementation roadmap, more
than 4,500 forms would have been received via DigiCal Forms by the end of 2015, and the effort
would have been recovered. The final target is to receive up to 60% of all forms in digital format,
which would lead to a savings of more than 20 back-office clerks. In addition, SLAs will be reduced
by up to one business day per service, and losses caused by identity theft or associated human
errors will be reduced. ICC-Cal also considers enhanced customer satisfaction and the competitive
advantages of being the first Israeli financial institution to provide such a solution as value.
Lessons Learned: The DigiCal Forms project was launched gradually to reduce risks and allow
internal users to adjust to the change. Four types of digital forms are in production so far: update of
customer details, a request to increase customer's account credit limit, a customer declaration that
goods have not been received from a merchant and requesting a reversed transaction. Two months
after the initial launch, and with no marketing efforts, approximately 25% of these three forms were
being received via the new platform. The company plans to extend the DigiCal Forms project

beyond private customers to business customers and its own marketing and sales organizations.
Part of the roadmap will be the integration of the platform with mobile applications.
mBank (Most Innovative Application of Digital Technology to Grow the Business)
Initiative: Customer analytics
Project Summary: mBank, a Polish direct bank, developed its Customer Analytics and Real-Time
Marketing (RTM) offering as a key element of its mBank communication platform. The offering uses
data from different data sources to present relevant advice, offers and other communications in real
time. The main objectives of mBank's Customer Analytics project are:
■ Building a client-centric approach by providing relevant banking and partners' offers via all
communication channels
■ Increasing clients' satisfaction through advanced online analysis of their needs
■ Improving the success rates of direct campaigns and sales generated through CRM
The achievement of these objectives is made possible by developments in CRM technology and
significant improvements in communication channels, such as:
■ The development of a real-time engine to processing single and complex events (sequences)
from many data sources (for example, card transactions, transfers, Web traffic and geolocation)
■ Web analytics tool implementation to analyze Internet banking traffic and optimize it according
to customer behavior
■ Contextual marketing that adjusts on the fly, according to customer browsing tracks in the
bank's Internet banking system
■ The ability to connect external call centers to the real-time engine to deliver the right offer at the
right time
Value: mBank reports that this project has enabled it to respond to customer needs with a relevant
offer within less than three seconds of emergence of an event or sequence of events, in every
communication channel, including external call center. Connecting the RTM engine with external
call center CRM capabilities increased the performance of the communication channel. Up to
240,000 events can now be processed by the CRM system every minute (previously, the maximum
was only several thousand offers per month), allowing mass personalization. Internet banking
campaigns show a 10% success rate. The RTM engine is being constantly adjusted/improved to
improve the ratio of marketing to sales, which is currently 10% leads producing 40% of sales.
mBank has been conscious of reducing marketing spam to customers, thereby improving
satisfaction rates. The addition of advanced analytics solutions boosted credit products profitability
by 28% and click-through rates by 37%.
Lessons Learned: This project completely changed mBank's methodology for marketing and sales
engagement. Previously, it used a one-dimensional approach that analyzed a single event to
observe and understand global customer behavior. Now the bank analyzes sequences of events
and how they affect the adoption and use of its products. Using big data analysis in real time

offered a better understanding of customer behavior, enabling the generation of more relevant
offers. mBank's project team is currently working on algorithms that will allow it to analyze
sequences of words, or collections of words that customers type into online fields, when
conducting money transfers. By drawing the context out of every money transfer, it hopes to detect
the exact event scenario and offer the best product for every customer in each specific scenario.
Award Winners in APAC
E.Sun Bank (Most Innovative Application of Digital Technology to Grow the Business and
Regional Winner APAC)
Initiative: Digital Intention Intelligence Solution (DIIS)
Project Summary: The competition for customers in Taiwan is extremely intense. E.Sun bank
wanted a new way of changing the experience dynamic by launching its DIIS. This solution also
formed the foundational platform to collect and analyze customer Web-browsing data to enable
better business insight. E.Sun collected 460 million customer in-page clicks in 2014. Analysis
covered 750 different Web pages, organized from different content, functions and headings of 6,000
pages on the official website. In conjunction with offline data and customer journey mapping, E.Sun
augmented the analysis with statistical modeling to delve more deeply into customer behavior. After
continuously proposing and verifying hypotheses, the bank extracted 22 extremely precise
customer behavior intentions, such as entertainment, domestic and international travel, funding, or
investment management, which provided a 360-degree view of individual customer requirements
and behaviors.
Value: Unsecured personal loan volume grew by 600% (surpassing the annual goal by 177%),
digital foreign exchange deposit volume grew by 38%, online credit card application rates rose by
300% and online wealth management transaction volumes increased by 150%. Electronic Digital
Marketing (eDM) open rates grew three times, from 5% to 15%, and the customer SMS response
rate increased six times, from 0.2% to 1.2%. Marketing efficiency increased through more accurate
targeting of potential customers, enhanced via cooperation with third parties such as Google, Yahoo
and Facebook. This strategy increased overall conversion rates three times, effectively expanding
leads 20 times and reducing digital marketing costs by 75%. Marketing cycles were optimized as
E.Sun analyzed its customer decision journey data, finding that 75% of customers who engaged in
transactions made their decisions within seven days of interaction initiation. E.Sun took advantage
of this critical information to optimize the allocation of marketing resources. Customer experience
was improved as behavioral patterns were aligned with different channels. Transaction volume
increased by 50% when the customer clicked five or more times on the foreign exchange marketing
event. In addition, based on the strength of browsing intention, E.Sun initiated eDM when a
customer clicked one or two times, and sent an instant message when the customer clicked three
to four times, and had a customer representative contact the customer directly when the customer
clicked five or more times. DIIS helped determine what kind of foreign currency customers were
interested in transacting. A text message was promptly sent to customers to remind them of market
changes. This time-saving solution increased the conversion rate four times compared with general
marketing methods.

Lessons Learned: Knowledge gained from the DIIS solution has changed the strategic vision and
planning horizon for market leadership to an anticipated two years. From development to operation,
DIIS produces end-to-end, real-time monitoring and trend reports; provides insights into customers'
life cycles; and offers appropriate financial services in the right time frame. Future planned
expansion includes a real-time recommendation system based on customers' Web browsing data,
offline data and open data. Through data mining and machine learning technology, the DIIS system
will customize personal experience and offer precise product recommendations to customers,
including next-best-offer and content recommendations. Working with social media, third-party data
companies and online advertising firms, E.Sun expects to identify more online customers, generate
richer customer intention maps and preference labels, and enhance the solution via the introduction
of high-performance parallel computing storage equipment (Hadoop) to gather more data. E.Sun
also plans to develop risk-type customer intention labels, providing customers with more
comprehensive planning and financial management capabilities.
E.Sun Bank (Most Promising Digital Business Transformation Initiative)
Initiative: Cross-border online shopping
Project Summary: E.Sun cross-border shopping provides consumers in Taiwan with a convenient
tool for purchasing products from Alibaba's Taobao and Tmall online shopping malls. Previously,
Taiwan consumers had to use credit cards for payments on overseas e-commerce platforms. Not
everyone in Taiwan has a credit card, and many have reservations about using credit cards online.
Previous fraud involved businesses storing value and purchasing goods on behalf of customers
without their knowledge or agreement. E.Sun Bank introduced a simple, secure and convenient
cross-border shopping service for consumers to overcome cross-border Internet shopping payment
challenges.
Value: The project increased market share by offering lower rates than credit card payments, and
E.Sun Bank account holders have zero interbank transfer service charges and return service
charges. Market knowledge of this promoted new account openings. E.Sun Bank account holders
have grown 15 times compared with the same period last year. E.Sun has also seen an increase in
online members, with the number of cross-border shoppers nearly 20 times that of the same period
of last year. The customer repeat purchase rate has reached 71%, and the average number of
purchases per person exceeds five. Also, the monthly average transaction amount has grown by
81% compared with the previous year.
Lessons Learned: The success of this project leads E.Sun to believe that this model can be
replicated across different e-commerce platforms and in other countries, such as Japan and Korea,
and countries of Southeast Asia. The use of an innovative brand has also been shown to attract
even more partners with innovative models. After the introduction of cross-border shopping, many
well-known domestic and foreign brands have negotiated joint, innovative financial services
initiatives with E.Sun. In the future, E.Sun will employ an omnichannel digital service. E.Sun also
leveraged the use of big data to develop Internet finance. Cross-border shopping generated large
amounts of data in the form of online transaction information. This data and applied analytics will
enable E.Sun to gain a better understanding of its customers, and provide them with customized
online products and services.

SBI Card (Most Innovative Technology Legacy Transformation Initiative)
Initiative: Application sourcing and credit decision management system/one-stop shop for CRM
Project Summary: SBI Card is the third-largest credit card issuer in India, with 3.2 million
customers. The company receives and processes 300,000 financial transactions per day and
acquires 70,000 new customers every month. Its operations are spread across 63 locations in India.
SBI Card has a wide range of card products for all types of consumer segments — retail,
international, and corporate. Business operations began in 1998, and during the past 16 years,
approximately 60 discrete applications have developed to support the business. This legacy issue
created:
■ Huge operational cost, because a large team was involved in maintaining the applications
■ Scalability challenges, making it difficult to support the growing business
■ Significant manual intervention for critical processes, and stale data used in some customer-
facing applications
■ Significant change management process challenges and frequent incidents of business
disruption and financial losses
■ Latency in go-to-market resulting from the need to change as many as 10 applications at once
to implement a single business process
SBI Card had to come up with a solution to address these problems, while overcoming challenges
such as convincing the board to approve an initial capital expenditure, as well as organizing an IT
team with the right skill set to accommodate bimodality. The role of team members was mapped to
the projects and resource gaps analyzed. Business leaders had to be aligned with project goals
(short- and long-term). An agile development model was strictly followed, to ensure that business
continuity was not disturbed. A new solution architecture strategy was also developed, with the
following considerations:
■ Anticipation of five- to seven-year growth due to the boom in e-commerce business in India and
the need for credit card services
■ A shift in technology trends toward a more service-oriented-architecture-based architecture,
cloud-based platforms and virtual servers
■ Increasing use of mobile applications and social media
■ Leveraging the benefits of off-the-shelf product development instead of homegrown
applications
■ Lean support teams with niche skill sets to reduce cost and enhance operational efficiency
■ Reduced application and hardware footprints to bare minimums, simplifying IT and delivering
99.99% uptime and drastic reduction of operational budget
Value: Quantifiable benefits included:

■ Twenty-three percent growth in account volume
■ Credit card application decisions completed in 10 seconds
■ Thirty percent of applications prefiltered — that is, not having to be remediated at the
processing stage
■ Turnaround time of card delivery reduced by five days
■ Eighty percent of application decisions now automated — that is, without the intervention of
underwriters
■ More than 2,000 users operating on the same platform
■ IT operational cost reduced by 50%
■ Time to market of small changes reduced from 30 days to one day because of highly
configurable system architecture
■ 360-degree view of the application life cycle
■ Enhanced risk management capabilities, reducing fraud
■ 360-degree customer view
■ Twenty percent increase in cross-sell booking
■ Twenty percent reduction in average call duration of customer service agents
■ Enhanced cross-sell booking features, improving customer satisfaction
Lessons Learned: The program went live over 2014 and 2015, and created a paradigm shift in the
IT application landscape and thinking. Major objectives from an IT standpoint were a much leaner
application landscape and reduced operational cost. This program offered a window into how
execution of such projects could achieve significant enterprise change. The business achieved
efficiencies in sales, operations, customer service and marketing, and measurably impacted card
volume and spend.
State Bank of India (Most Innovative Digital Customer Service Enhancement)
Initiative: SBI Quick
Project Summary: Missed Call Banking is a new service from the State Bank of India that enables a
customer to access banking services via a missed call or a text message, with predefined keywords
sent to predefined mobile numbers. It is available free of charge for account holders. The services
offered include:
■ Balance inquiry
■ Mini statements
■ ATM cards

■ Car and home loan inquiry
This service can only be activated from the mobile number that is registered for a specific account
with the bank. It can also be used via the SBI Quick application (available for the iOS, Windows and
BlackBerry mobile OSs), which allows the customer to use the service without remembering the
various keywords and destination mobile numbers. The goal was to make the format of SMS
messages as simple as possible, keeping security and customer convenience in mind, meet strict
time-to-market guidelines, and promote the application among customers amid strong competition.
Value: The offering is simple to use and available 24/7. There is an instant response from the bank's
system for the service requested. It offers customers a cost-effective way of handling account
enquiry services, and reduces enquiry transactions via other channels. The application itself was
developed on a new "one touch" Mobile Application Development Platform and is the first of its
kind in the Indian market. Consequently, customers need not remember the format, keyword or
bank mobile number, because the application seamlessly saves this data for the user.
Lessons Learned: The service has received overwhelming response from users. State Bank of
India intends to extend SBI Quick to check status enquiry and mobile top-up. Plans also include SBI
Quick being extended to associate banks.
Westpac (Most Innovative New Digital Product)
Initiative: Westpac Live
Project Summary: The diverse needs of customers in a digital context and the requirement for
Westpac to create an integrated, omnichannel view of customer finances led to the development of
Westpac Live. The project had several design principles: simplicity, personalization and service
choice. The goals of the project were to improve digital experiences for 6 million consumer and
small or midsize business customers by improving their educational awareness of their entire
financial picture, regardless of how, when and where they banked.
Westpac Live integrates data from 200 other institutions, including PayPal, eBay and banks, as well
as reward schemes and store cards. Biometrics enable rapid sign-on and stronger authentication.
Self-service options include contextual hints, new product activation, advanced multiaccount
searching and single sign-on account switching.
Westpac had to integrate 105 systems via 65 real-time and 178 batch interfaces and diverse data
structures, and the offerings went live in 3Q14 to 2.6 million digitally active customers. Customer
forms can now be prepopulated from existing or predictable datasets.
Five hundred customers were engaged in prioritizing business requirements and testing prototypes.
The pilot phase incorporated feedback from 15,000 customers, and there is ongoing dialogue with 3
million active customers concerning enhancements such as data visualization, financial
management tools and business banking services.
Value: As of June 2015, Westpac Live had 4 million registered users. Digital sales grew three times
over the first six months of deployment. Average product per wallet numbers increased from 2.85 to

3.03. The cost of servicing customers also dropped from $3.8 (A$5) via nondigital channels to $0.15
(A$0.20) if serviced digitally. Since October 2014, Westpac Live processed 1 million service
requests, saving the bank $3.4 million (A$4.5 million) and $57 billion (A$74 billion) worth of
payments.
Westpac Live also delivers targeted service and sales advice through Next Bank Actions, a
decisioning engine oriented around customer behavior, transaction history and so on.
Westpac Live has also provided 1 million customers with fingerprint or four-digit pin sign-on,
improving convenience and customer satisfaction. Customer advocacy and engagement have seen
a 30-point increase in Net Promoter Scores.
Lessons Learned: Westpac Live was a mechanism to not only improve existing customer
experience and aid them in a digital journey, it also facilitated the acquisition of 800,000 new
account holders. The delivery of the self-service capability has increased digital interactions (the
bank has, for example, seen a 76% increase in traffic moving from the branch and call center to the
digital platform for customers advising the bank about going overseas). Customer feedback is
critical to the enhancement of new services and future design. Westpac believes clarity of vision —
especially the customer's perspective, customer involvement and recruitment/retention of bank
talent — was critical to success.
Gartner Recommended Reading
Some documents may not be available as part of your current Gartner subscription.
"2016 CIO Agenda: A Financial Services Perspective"
"CEO Briefing: Building Fintech Defenses"
"Hype Cycle for Digital Banking Transformation, 2015"
"Hype Cycle for Digital Insurance, 2015"
"Innovation Insight: Insurance Billing and Collections Management Solutions Support Customer
Centricity"
"Insurance CIOs Need to Review Their Strategy for Native Mobile Customer Apps"
"New Year's Resolutions for Financial Services CEOs in 2016"
"Predicts 2016: Digital Banking Initiatives Will Fail Without Strategic Investments in Emerging
Technologies"
"Predicts 2016: New Technologies and Business Models Will Drive Digital Disruption in Insurance"
"Toolkit: Strategic Technology Map for Digital Insurance 1.0"

Evidence
1 Gartner's 2016 CIO survey included 290 participants from the financial services industry.
Note 1 Assessment Framework
We utilized the Gartner Awards Framework (GAF) as a structured assessment model that enables
the participating organizations to be benchmarked against world-class performance standards. The
GAF consists of specialized assessment modules pertaining to the evaluation criteria for each of the
award categories. The criteria and subcriteria provide a robust set of requirements that are used as
the methodology for benchmarking and learning among the participating organizations.
Disclaimer: This research is based on self-reported material provided by the finalists.

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