President of the Association of Mexican Banks participates in the opening session of Dialogues on Finance.

By ASTRAYA RODRÍGUEZ | EGADE BUSINESS SCHOOL

According to Daniel Becker Feldman, President of the Association of Mexican Banks (ABM), digitalization in banks has gone from being an option to become a necessity to enhance customer service.

“Banking today is a Big Data and technology industry,” the executive affirmed.

In the opening session of Dialogues on Finance, the new Financial Think Tank series of EGADE Business School in collaboration with ABM, Becker Feldman commented that industry 4.0 is transforming the economy and how businesses operate and compete.

“Today we have 139 million online banking transactions, reflecting an annual growth of 29.8%, and 158 million mobile banking transactions with a 98.4% annual growth, which gives you an idea of what is happening in the financial sector,” he said.

He asserted that 50% of the Mexican economy does not participate in the banking sector and that banks are striving to achieve digital channels that are far more efficient than the physical channel.

Becker Feldman emphasized that digitalization in banking has led to the development of tools such as CoDi, the payment platform that, if adopted and exploited on a large scale, could significantly impact the country’s financial inclusion.

“There is an enormous opportunity to integrate the informal market into the banking system, thereby generating a better quality of life and closing the economic gaps in the different sectors of the population,” he said.

Regarding cryptocurrencies, Daniel commented that this is a technology that is here to stay and will be one of the most transformational elements going forwards.

“We need to understand how the central banks can play a leading role in this respect; it’s something we should not lose sight of,” he observed.

During the virtual session, Osmar Zavaleta, Interim Dean of EGADE Business School, and Jorge Martínez, Director of the Financial Think Tank, highlighted the importance of starting dialogues like the ones to be promoted through the new series, to understand the financial market and contribute ideas to solve the challenges faced by the industry.