Rion Breslin, conference director of the Seamless series, speaks to Ashley Thomas, head of strategy and operations at Revolut based in Singapore. Among other things, Ashley is responsible for launching new products and services, enhancing profitability, and improving the customer experience.
Ashley, how do you navigate the ever competitive and evolving neobanking ecosystem as it continues to change rapidly?
There are many banks and fintech providers, as you know, which support the different banking needs of customers. But what we’re yet to see is a single platform supporting customers with all their money management needs without having to open multiple apps. Revolut stands out from the competition due to this ability to offer a one-stop shop for all money management needs of our customers.
Most new banking players that you see today are very specialised in a few products. Hence, being a financial super app is a key differentiating factor for us. There are a range of services that customers require, from let’s say, daily payment needs to managing finances during travel, sending money across the border, saving and growing their money.
It can get quite overwhelming to manage all these aspects on different platforms and can also make customers unsure of the hidden fees that are involved. This is where Revolut comes in with a one-stop platform for all these services. Also, at Revolut, we also have the ability to respond to market needs quickly. Just recently, we launched multiple new products across multiple markets. In Singapore, especially, we launched stock trading, crypto trading, instant cards transfers. We also added a few forex wallets in Singapore and a lot more products are upcoming.
Where do you feel the main pain points or main plans for expansion lie? And where are the main gaps for unmet needs for your current and incoming customers?
As I shared earlier, Revolut’s vision is to be a global financial super app. Hence our expansion lies also in this particular strategy. We want to meet a wider range of our customer needs. We want to bring more products to our customers on a single lap so we can make money management very easy.
Just to take an example, Singapore has a large population of foreigners. Around 40 percent of Singapore’s population are foreigners who work in corporates, construction industries, etc. So there are very different kinds of customer segments. This creates demand for many services such as multi-currency remittances, which you may not see in other markets. I’m sure you would see some similar trends in Middle East economies, which has a very similar population profile.
So we currently offer products that include payments, multi-currency cards, foreign exchange and remittances, and also savings and investment products like stock trading. We are also launching a new product right now, which is called a money markets fund.
In terms of expansion, there is something different we are doing right now. We are going to launch Revolut Business, which is our SME offering to Singapore. This would be the fintech offering for SME customers. To give a bit of background information about our Revolut Business product, it is currently available in 40 markets across UK and US. It will be a one-stop platform for all business finance needs accessible on both web and mobile.
That’s very interesting and that’s an exciting next chapter for sure. For myself and for our audience I’d like to ask where do you feel the main pain points lie in building trust with your customers?
There are a lot of discussions going on about how to build trust with customers across various markets. I think there is a flavour to this discussion in different markets. I can share more of a flavour what I see within Revolut. So when it comes to the digital banking space, security and data privacy is of utmost importance. With so many digital financial players in the industry, the competition to secure the lion’s share of the market is heating up and many players are raising their head to become number one. While doing so, they may miss investing in what is so important, which is the digital infrastructure and anti-fraud controls.
This is what will build credibility, trust, and loyalty in your consumers. At Revolut, we invest across the board to give our consumers confidence with their money in Revolut. One is our AI driven fraud detection technology and biometric authentication capability. At Revolut, we continuously refine our machine learning models to improve our algorithms. I know it sounds boring, but it is what ensures that we can protect our customers money from any fraud threats, any new fraud threats in the market.
We also have a very specialised frontline customer support team who are highly knowledgeable about fraud and we assess customers 24/7. We also educate our customers using fraud learning courses so that customers can stay up to date about the types of fraud in the market. Then just to give some data, one third of our entire workforce is actually dedicated to fighting financial crimes across Revolut.
I wouldn’t have realised it was that high, but that’s interesting as I know people, especially in an older space can feel skeptical new ways of banking.
Yes, the reason for that is when we are trying to make money move faster it also means that there is more chance of fraud happening. And this is also essentially why you need bigger, better and smarter controls. And this is something Revolut really invests in. This is what we hope to build our customers trust around.
Thank you very much. We’re looking forward to seeing you on site at the Seamless Middle East show on the 14th, 15th, and 16th of May.
See Ashley on Day 2 of Seamless Middle East 2024 | Digital Banking Battlefield | Stage 1
Panel: Disruptors on the block: building a winning AI neobank
