Bangkok Bank's Charamporn Jotikasthira to grace ABF Digital & Open Banking Conference 2019

The executive director makes the case for forging strategic ties in the financial ecosystem.

Charamporn Jotikasthira is the executive director of Bangkok Bank, one of Thailand’s largest banks. He focuses on innovation and technology development and oversees the bank’s innovation department and accelerator programme for technology startups, Bangkok Bank InnoHub.

Before joining Bangkok Bank, Jotikasthira was the President and CEO of Thai Airways International. Today, he serves as a governor of the Stock Exchange of Thailand. He is also the chairman of MIT Enterprise Forum Thailand and a member of the finance committee of Srisavarindhira Thai Red Cross Institute Nursing.

Charamporn holds an MBA from Harvard and an electrical engineering and computer science degree from MIT.

In an interview with Asian Banking & Finance, Jotikasthira outlines his vision of a well-developed infrastructure that supports the open banking agenda.

What are your previous experiences and positions held that contributed to who you are as a banker/expert today?

Currently, I am an executive director and a member of the board of Bangkok Bank where my responsibilities include focusing on innovation and technology development. I also have oversight of the recently formed Innovation Department and Bangkok Bank InnoHub, an accelerator programme for technology startups. In my current role, I am in close contact with others in the banking industry, both here in Thailand and internationally, as well as government, industry and academia. This helps keep me aware of the issues facing finance and other industries.

Prior to my current position, I worked at a senior executive level across a diverse range of publicly and privately-owned organisations. I have served as President and CEO of Thai Airways International and President of the Stock Exchange of Thailand, and as the first Chairman of ETDA (Electronic Transaction Development Agency). I also spent more than a decade at Siam Commercial Bank, including as Chief Information Officer. Throughout my career, I was first to launch and deploy many pioneering digital products, services and system infrastructures in Thailand and the region.

What would you say are the best practices and digital strategies deployed by the region's digitally dominant banks? Where does open banking fit in this agenda and how should banks capture the opportunities from this growing ecosystem?

One thing which most bankers would agree upon is that we are in uncharted waters. We face huge challenges as our core businesses are facing different and intense kinds of competition. We have a tradition of putting security first given our role in safeguarding our customers’ assets, maintaining their trust and supporting the security of the financial system. We have well- established and tested systems of checks and balances in place. However, as with other banks, our legacy systems such as core banking are very costly and difficult to change. We need to find new ways of doing things so we can more rapidly integrate new innovative systems and solutions into our existing infrastructure, while retaining high-standard security, to support the changing needs of customers, clients and partners in this technological age.

Regarding best practice, Bangkok Bank is a member of BIAN (Banking Industry Architecture Institute), an association of banks, technology solution providers and academic institutions, which has developed a “Coreless Bank” initiative, a collaboration between banks and technology companies to develop infrastructure suitable for open banking. The aim is to help banks more rapidly develop cost-effective services for digital-first customers.

In addition to developing shared infrastructure between banks, we also need to develop platforms that bring consumers, SMEs, banks and fintechs into the same ecosystem. This will provide more data points and insights that can enable us to provide new and customised services for people and companies that currently may lack access to funding and financial services.

Regionally, we also need to develop more collaboration, especially in the areas of cross-border trade and payments, as well as developing regional interoperability of systems, including QR codes.

Can you give us a glimpse of what you will share at the ABF Digital & Open Banking Conference 2019?

I’ll be talking about how banks can add value to the financial innovation ecosystem and help increase financial inclusion by collaborating or partnering in various ways with corporates, SMEs, fintechs and innovators. One of the areas of focus for Bangkok Bank InnoHub is providing “future SME solutions” that will solve a wider range of problems for us, our customers and the ecosystem in areas such as mobile-based AI assistant for sales teams, social and e-commerce platforms, and cloud-based accounting solutions for SMEs. In the future, I see an ecosystem where banks still play a vital role, but one which is defined by continual collaboration between startups, technology partners, regulators, non-traditional businesses, our people and teams, and wider stakeholders and communities.

The ABF Digital & Open Banking Conference 2019 will take place on 22 October in Singapore. To learn more about the event, click here. To register, click here. For inquiries, you may contact Andrea at [email protected] or at +65 3158 1386 ext 212