Digital technology has disrupted the media and advertising industry as we know it. It is now reinventing commerce, banking, health and manufacturing. There is no more old industry and new industry. Everything is new and everything is being reinvented. How does good governance keep pace in an ever changing world?

Open banking is a long overdue project. If Australia doesn’t get a move on, then we will lose the opportunity to establish our country as a leading financial services and fintech hub in the Asia-Pacific region.

The UK Government has announced a proposed radical new plan for the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) to fund a series of initiatives that would generate competition in the marketplace and provide better accessibility to funding for SMEs.

If Australia had a centralised register that contained all information to satisfy Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements, merchants would find it easier to swap between financial providers, which would in turn increase competition within the market. Its a win-win for merchants and financial providers alike.

It goes without saying, if Australian doesn’t quickly develop its own ‘ecosystem’ of entrepreneurial success stories, then our home-grown companies that are frozen by an analogue mindset will be left behind, with their customers switching to competitors from overseas that use technology to provide a better user experience and a better quality of product.

SMEs should be the front-runners of disruption. How do they do this? By learning how to reinvent themselves and becoming tech-savvy. The good news is that access to cutting edge technology has never been easier as the world moves to cloud-based IT and an everyday richer world of Apps.

Apple is using the world leading Australian EFTPOS terminal infrastructure with its NFC readers to support its Apple Pay solution, but bars Australian providers from accessing the NFC antenna of its smartphone fleet. That does not only eliminate third parties in the card payment space alone, but also those providing services with regards to transport, passports, driver licences, loyalty solutions and many other innovations not yet imagined. 

Delivering new financial services through technology (FinTech) has created huge excitement and attracted huge investment, because it provides consumers and businesses with a better user experience on more attractive terms. At the same time, users rightly expect to be safe and this is where RegTech becomes a critical factor of the revolution in banking and financial services.

Mobile wallets are a relatively new technology in the Australian marketplace. There is now an opportunity to make sure that there are no mandates or technical specifications removing choice from merchants and cardholders.

For reform to be successful in the banking sector with regard to SME lending, the big banks need to be receptive to making changes to their policies so that SMEs are not at a disadvantage when securing a loan. There needs to be transparency between financial providers and potential borrowers and that’s a no-brainer

Despite all the hype, starting a bank is hard in the UK, mission impossible in Australia. While the British licensing process is supposed to take six months it actually takes roughly two and a half years. New digital banks that go for disruption need to spend the time and investment to develop their own deep technology stack. 

When digital innovation starts to disrupt an industry, a window of opportunity opens up. In banking this is happening now. If Australia creates the regulatory environment for Open Banking, it can establish itself as a leader in the field.