Claudia Kabbe: What sets Belfius apart in the Belgian market are our dedicated relationship managers who provide specialized solutions, such as cash advances. These are collection accounts specifically developed to collect various public taxes: The amount of the advance available is determined based on expected receipts, and enriched reporting data enables automatic reconciliation in public accounting systems.

At the end of 2023, Belfius had more than 12,000 public sector clients. This represents nearly 100% market penetration across local, supra-local and regional public authorities, as well as the non-profit sector. From 2020 to 2023, the number of transactions for public and social clients grew by 27%, while from 2019 to 2023 the amount of these transactions increased by 20%. This growth is impressive even considering Belfius’ historically high market share in this segment, which is over 50%.

CK: Belfius cash management services cover all solutions needed to “pay,” “be paid” and “manage” accounts, cash and liquidity. Our suite of products includes point-of-sale (POS) and e-commerce solutions, such as the Belfius Pay button, Payconiq and Belfius Pay Portal By Mollie. Twikey eMandate management supports recurrent collections via direct debit and our cash pooling solutions offer flexibility in timing, amounts, frequency and compensation methods. We have cash management services with different consolidation levels and with third party banks and the state of the art tools for cash analysis and forecasting as well as  e-banking applications, digital contracting and e-signing.

Beyond using technology to support our clients, we are passionate about service excellence. When clients call or email, they are connected with a personal service officer, who is familiar with client’s business and personnel. Whenever necessary, the service officer relays the query to the specialist for cash or treasury management dedicated to the client.

CK: We continually adapt our products and services to respond to technical advancements, market conditions and regulatory and client requirements.

Over the past three years, our primary innovations have focused on implementing our Smarty digital contracting tool; treasury management system EMAsphere; adding eFX to our eBanking application BelfiusWeb allowing clients to make FX conversions at current exchange rate; Single Sign on for BelfiusWeb and BelfiusEdge for FX and IR management  ; and same day,cross-border zero-balancing with Commerzbank.

Our “Inspire 2025” program includes initiatives to improve client onboarding and to expand mobile offerings and to enhance our portals. Our “Future of Payments” and the “Future of Reporting” programs are modernizing our platforms to meet the latest technical and regulatory standards. 

CK: Our focus is on building strong relationships with our clients and understanding their unique needs, whether it’s supply chain analysis to optimize their working capital, special applications to manage FX positions and execute real-time payments in over 25 currencies or strategies to manage excess liquidity.

Relationship managers work hand in hand with our experts on transaction banking, commercial finance and financial markets who look to inspire our clients with insights, recommendations and analysis of market conditions and sectors. Belfius is a strategic financial partner for entrepreneurs, enterprises and the public and social sectors, and our goal is to be meaningful and inspiring for Belgian society.

Being the first-ever financial institution in Azerbaijan is not enough on its own to stand out in a crowded marketplace. Kapital Bank has also become increasingly agile in response to what customers want and need.

“It’s about being the first choice for our customers,” said Farid Huseynov, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer. “We earn their trust by striving for excellence in everything we do.”

Put simply, the bank’s competitive advantage comes from its ability to combine tradition through a 150-year history with innovation. “We have a deep understanding of the Azerbaijani market, and we’ve made significant investments in digital transformation to stay ahead,” he added.

A clear example is Birbank, Kapital Bank’s mobile banking app which is tailored to the needs of how individuals, SMEs and large corporations want to manage their finances, make payments and transfer money.

“It’s more than just a banking app,” said Huseynov. “It’s a complete digital ecosystem, designed to simplify the everyday financial needs of our customers.”

After launching in 2018, by 2021 Birbank had transformed into a fully digital bank, enabling Kapital Bank to pioneer end-to-end banking products through a mobile app within Azerbaijan.

“It was like rebuilding from scratch,” explained Huseynov. “Our mindset changed, and since 2021, we’ve continued our digital transformation, constantly evolving in line with global trends.”

Around 3 million users are testament to the experience and journey. Collectively, they have driven the digital deposit portfolio up by AZN 600 million in 2024 to date, to AZN 1.1 billion in total – growth which showcases the trust customers place in the digital banking solution.

Loyalty programmes are another feature of Kapital Bank’s customer-first approach. They have led to over AZN 156 million (US$91.8 million) in cashback, miles and bonus refunds in 2023-24, amid net profit of AZN 166 million for nine months of 2024, and assets of more than AZN 10 billion.

By prioritising agility in its operations and strategy, Kapital Bank has also built a new mindset and culture. It promotes collaboration, flexibility and continuous improvement across the organisation, encouraging teams to take ownership of their projects, adapt quickly to changes and keep customers at the centre of their decision making.

“This journey has also laid the foundation for more flexible and innovative service delivery, enhancing both customer experience and employee engagement,” said Huseynov.

Being forward thinking is reflected in automated tools that create efficiency. The bank has invested in technologies like voice-to-text and text-to-voice systems, reducing the need for many of the daily customer interactions like phone calls by solving problems before they even reach the customer, such as via advance notifications about potential risks like card blocks after suspicious transactions. Further, an artificial intelligence-integrated chatbot gives tailored responses to customers based on their behaviours and needs.

Business customers also benefit from the push to digitalise. For example, the Birbank Biznes mobile app enables SMEs to access their accounts and perform various financial transactions anytime and anywhere. For example, 99% of all non-lending operations are performed remotely, including business loans of up to AZN 100,000.

To further reinforce its focus on contributing positively to its home market, Huseynov said Kapital Bank doesn’t have plans at the moment to expand beyond Azerbaijan.

“There is still so much potential for growth and innovation within our country’s banking sector, and our focus remains on improving the welfare of our people through customer-centric services and increasing banking accessibility across the country,” he added.

This includes efforts to enhance the domestic digital ecosystem. A new loyalty programme is in the pipeline to offer rewards and bonuses, as are new digital services, from payment options to innovative products.

By 2026, Kapital Bank expects that over 60% of its issued loans will be processed digitally. It is also using advanced scoring models and new data sources to simplify the loan process.

These are examples of how Kapital Bank aims to implement its vision for the next five to 10 years – to further embrace change and innovation, to adapt to new technologies and evolving customer expectations. “Our commitment to digital transformation remains strong and we aim to further enhance our products and services to meet the needs of a rapidly developing financial ecosystem,” added Huseynov.

Since 2018, AI has been essential to CTBC’s digital strategy, supported by its in-house R&D lab with 200-plus data and AI-focused scientists. This initiative now spans more than 50 departments across three major business lines. With over 100 active AI applications in production, the bank achieved an explosive 150% increase in AI usage year-over-year. Wang underscores CTBC’s vision: “Our goal is to scale AI implementation and deliver tangible benefits.”

CTBC aims to leverage both GenAI and traditional AI to enhance its personalized banking experience and seamlessly deliver next-gen banking services.

Digital account fraud is a significant issue for global financial services, increasing 45% annually. Using AI, CTBC has defied the trend: Its innovative AI Skynet fraud detection system reduced fraud in its credit card accounts by 6% in 2024. Wang attributes AI Skynet’s success to its robust technology:

CTBC plans to expand real-time AI detection beyond credit cards to all transactions in the coming year. The bank is also piloting applications to use AI models in anti-money laundering systems and will continue to collaborate with government and law enforcement agencies to prevent fraud across the ecosystem.

After years of testing, CTBC identified six mainstream technologies that underpin their digital evolution. Wang said, “To be sustainable, AI efforts must solve for these challenges: revenue generation, process efficiency, OCR for digitizing paperwork, identity verification, insight generation, and RegTech for risk management. This ensures we build the best use cases for our customers and the business.”

Future innovations will utilize OCR technology to digitize complex documents and advanced facial recognition through multi-modal verification technology. CTBC is leveraging data resources from both retail and corporate banking, providing deeper enterprise-wide insights.

GenAI requires high volumes of data, but Wang explained, “transaction data from our customers is good, but not enough to extend GenAI. To provide value, we input the knowledge and insights of our experienced senior bankers into the AI brain.” He says CTBC’s Data Centre needs both “the right governance and the right talent” to implement GenAI successfully.

The greatest generational wealth transfer in history is underway, with older generations (in particular baby boomers) passing on around $84 trillion to younger generations between now and 2045.

This “Great Wealth Transfer” will impact millions of people around the world and could potentially open up exciting opportunities to reshape our financial systems and redistribute wealth to support both people and our planet. More immediately, however, this unprecedented transfer of wealth represents a major challenge for banks, particularly those who provide services to high-net-worth individuals.

From now until 2025, $35.8 trillion (42%) of the overall total volume of wealth transfers is expected to come from high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth households, which together only make up 1.5% of all households. In most cases, the children and grandchildren of these high-net-worth individuals (the likely recipients of wealth transfer) are currently using different banks.

Younger generations have no loyalty towards their parents’ preferred banks, and therefore incumbent banks are at risk of losing trillions of dollars’ worth of investment over the coming years. In fact, 87% of children plan to take management of their inheritance elsewhere, meaning that incumbent banks could see significant reductions in the size of their assets under management.

To minimize these risks, banks urgently need to engage younger generations who are set to inherit, and this means understanding their needs, values, and preferences, which are very different from those of their parents and grandparents.
At the same time, banks need to work with their existing high-net-worth customers to facilitate seamless and secure transfers of wealth to their children. This process should be digitally enabled and serve the needs of all generations.

To engage the next generation of investors, banks should be focusing on education, convenience and values.

Younger generations need the right support and advice to maintain and grow the wealth they inherit. Many of them don’t have the same level of knowledge and experience in investing as their parents. Shockingly, when it comes to the retention of family wealth, it is estimated that 70 percent of wealthy families lose their wealth by the second generation, and 90 percent by the third, through a combination of asset dispersal, capital losses and inheritance tax.

Crucially, banks must recognize that younger generations are far more digitally literate than baby boomers. They favor the speed and convenience of digital banking, and they pride themselves on using only the most innovative applications and digital services. Indeed, by 2030, up to 80% of new wealth management clients will want to access financial advice in a Netflix-style model that is data-driven, hyper-personalized, continuous, and potentially by subscription.

The majority of millennials report that they would be open to using a ‘digital-first’ bank or fintech for their investment activities, and almost half would be willing to shift a large proportion of their assets to a fintech in order to get 24/7 availability and greater convenience.

The reality is that the current wealth transfer process is unclear and inconsistent, often based on offline, personal relationships between high-net-worth individuals and their advisors. A lack of transparency and communication around inheritance planning between generations serves as a barrier to the smooth and efficient transfer of assets.

Barring exceptions, baby boomers are generally less digitally- savvy and more wary about managing and transferring assets through digital channels. High-net-worth individuals often have complex and diverse assets, and they need to stay ahead of tax reform and navigate global residencies in order to maximize their assets for their children and grandchildren.

If banks are to tackle the challenge of generational wealth transfer over the coming years, the starting point has to be the effective digitization of the wealth process, balancing the need for innovation to attract younger generations, with the need to reassure older customers around the suitability and security of digital services to manage and transfer their assets.

By bridging the digital gap between generations, banks can maintain and enhance their relationships with older high-net-worth customers, helping them to prepare their assets for transfer and bring their children and grandchildren into their process at an earlier stage through more transparent communication.

A digitally enabled, transparent wealth transfer process can give older generations a sense of control, with features that enable them to share information and be more transparent with the next generation about what they stand to inherit. It can also help families to retain the knowledge and relationships built up over many years, combining intuitive digital experiences with the expertise and personal touch offered by advisors.

Crucially, with a strategic, digitally enabled wealth transfer process, banks can engage new generations by creating tailored content based on their own particular interests. In doing so, they can help millennials and Gen Zs to deepen their knowledge and confidence around investment, building brand equity and reducing the chances that younger generations will take their inherited wealth elsewhere.

Increasingly, many high-net-worth individuals aren’t waiting for their existential end to pass on their wealth, pursuing a different strategy outside the traditional hand-offs of wealth through wills and trusts. A digitally enabled wealth transfer process makes ‘giving while living’ much easier on both sides, and this in turn provides banks with an ongoing opportunity to showcase innovative services to younger customers.

Bank of China (BOC) continues to play a pivotal role in green finance. Through its “BOC Green+” global brand, the bank is offering a range of green financial products. The brand is part of its Green Financial Plan, which aligns with China’s national strategy of achieving “carbon peak and carbon neutrality.”  

BOC actively participates in international green finance collaboration. It has implemented climate risk management and disclosure under the framework of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Banking (PRB) and the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD). It has played pivotal roles, serving as co-chair of the Transition Finance Taskforce of the Green Investment Principle (GIP) for the Belt and Road initiative, vice-chair of the China Council of the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI).

At the forefront of green financial products that support sustainable practices, BOC has ranked first among Chinese banks on Bloomberg’s “Global Green UoP Loans” and “Global Sustainability-Linked Loans” lists. As of June 2024, BOC’s domestic green credit balance reached 3.67 trillion RMB, representing a nearly 40% year-over-year increase. Key projects include the world’s largest solar powered reverse osmosis seawater desalination facility and the construction of the Abu Dhabi waste-to-energy facility, one of the largest in the Arab world. 

The bank was also the first to open trading and registration accounts in China’s National Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Market and jointly underwrote China’s first interbank green office building REITs. It also collaborated with the ChinaBondPricing Centre to introduce the ChinaBond BOC Green Bond Index, enhancing the market’s capacity for green financial instruments.

In the first half of 2024, BOC underwrote 98.37 billion RMB in domestic green bonds, outpacing its peers. The bank also underwrote US$9.177 billion in international green bonds, topping among Chinese peers in Bloomberg’s “Global Offshore Green Bonds” rankings and ranked first in the National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors’ “list of Investors in Green Debt Financing Instruments”. Additionally, BOC issued the world’s first “Belt and Road” sustainable development bond, channeling proceeds into renewable energy and water management projects.

BOC has prioritised customer Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) risk management. It has implemented a comprehensive ESG risk management policy governing the entire business cycle for corporate banking.  It encompasses risk identification and classification, due diligence, approval, contract management, fund distribution, post-lending management and post-investment management, thereby driving continuous improvements in customer ESG risk management at the bank.

BOC has developed a comprehensive green finance talent development system, held competitions to encourage innovation in related products and services, and integrated specialised training into its employee programs. As of June, 2024, the bank has established 389 sub-branches featured with green finance services.

BOC’s head office and three other landmark buildings have obtained “carbon neutral” certifications. The bank has also invested in energy-saving upgrades, reduced food and paper waste, and promoted the use of clean energy vehicles. At the sub-branch level, it has designed 33 green-built locations and encouraged employees to adopt energy-saving practices.

Bank of China is committed to driving sustainable growth and contributing to China’s dual carbon goals.  By leveraging its entire operation, BOC has positioned itself as a global leader in green finance.