Making Mobility Safer, Smarter, and More Accurate with AppGallery
At the beginning of this year, the urban mobility industry was booming as more people looked to convenient and intelligent transport services to get around. Investment was accelerating, new trends and technologies such as better connectivity, automation, and artificial intelligence were driving innovation and disruption, and transport operators were diversifying their service portfolio and offerings.
Fast forward to September and the transport and navigation landscape paints a completely different picture against the backdrop of new urban norms. Global lockdowns, restrictions on movement, and more flexible working arrangements temporarily brought commuting and leisure travel to a halt around the world.
However, this didn’t spell the end for the urban mobility sector – transportation is still much needed by commuters and travellers – there has simply been a shift in consumer demands and behaviours as people get used to a new way of doing things. In this sense, it is crucial that transport providers keep pace with these changes by adapting their operating models.
Earlier this month, Huawei’s annual developer conference, HUAWEI DEVELOPER CONFERENCE 2020, looked at how AppGallery and Huawei are helping developers in the transport and navigation sector address these challenges and succeed in a continually changing industry, and we’ve summarized some of the key trends and insights from the conference.
Diversifying Service Offerings to Match Changing Demands
While urban mobility activity has dipped in recent months, there has been a spike in demand for other transport services such as food delivery and last-mile transportation. With demand for urban mobility not expecting to recover quickly, mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) providers are expanding their service offerings to meet these demands and improve their business resilience. Companies such as Uber and Cabify are offering these alternative services such as food and parcel deliveries, while providers such as Bolt have expanded further to include micro mobility solutions.
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While these new services represent exciting opportunities, MaaS providers will need to enhance their capabilities to address the pain points of the additional services. For instance, delivery solution providers need to introduce capabilities such as real-time location updates and trip planning to
ensure smoother operational efficiency.
Huawei’s developer toolkit, Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) Core, provides several map-based capabilities that are vital to transport operators looking to diversify. Capabilities such as Location Kit, Nearby Kit, Map Kit, Super GPS, ML (machine learning) Kit, Scan Kit, and Awareness Kit facilitate more functional services for operators and better experiences for users.
The Map Kit, for instance, comes with real-time global road condition reporting and extremely accurate route planning features that are crucial for parcel delivery solution providers. Huawei’s Super GPS supports roadside identification, making it twice as accurate as other providers. This
precise positioning enables people to meet their driver even when surrounded by high and dense buildings or faced with difficult road layouts. Meanwhile, Huawei’s machine learning capabilities create a more informative and interactive transport experience through its language translation
service in 19 different languages, facilitating communication between travellers and drivers andallowing operators to expand their service to more commuters.
Additionally, Huawei provides comprehensive one-stop operational support that developers can leverage to address integration as well as implementation issues, achieving a faster development process.
Addressing Travel Safety Concerns
Commuters now have a heightened travel safety consciousness and are actively minimising contact with others and avoiding crowded transit such as public transport. However, demand for shared mobility remains for people who still must travel such as on-site workers. This group of commuters are looking for transport providers that can provide reduced contact, as well as shorter waiting andtravel time.
While hygiene concerns can be tackled through precautionary measures, other concerns require a more technological approach through the optimisation of existing mobility solutions. With Huawei’s end-to-end travel solution, developers can incorporate a suite of HMS capabilities to
deliver more intelligent and accurate transport services, providing customers with peace of mind through safer and more convenient journeys.
For example, HMS Core’s location capabilities provide a precise integrated positioning method, enabling passengers to share their real-time location information and give timely warnings if the car’s position deviates from the planned route. Not only does this give passengers confidence and help build trust between operators and users, it also means travellers can automatically notify friends and family if there are any issues or delays. In addition, HMS Core enables the historical driving track to be recorded and retrieved later, so any issues that only become apparent after the journey can be highlighted.
Unlocking New Opportunities
With consumers trending towards mobile technology to find ways to move around, transport operators are increasingly prioritising mobile platforms and app marketplaces to acquire new users, unlock commercial opportunities, and secure a much-needed edge to beat growing industry competition. In this light, Huawei and AppGallery help global partners strengthen brand exposure to reach more users via multiple channels. It does this through a range of different measures such as providing various operation resources and advertising opportunities; offering exclusive online and offline promotional campaigns to strengthen brand exposure and unlock access to new markets; inclusion in recommendation cards and promotion on AppGallery to drive consumer traffic; access to conferences, roadshows and on-ground promotions; as well as industry events such as HUAWEI DEVELOPER CONFERENCE 2020 and Huawei Developer Webinar.
Bolt, the ride-sharing app with 30 million users in 35 markets across Europe and Africa, is a shining example of how partners can reap commercial benefits by utilising the extensive resources AppGallery provides – the app saw an increase of 136 times in European and African downloads
from week one through to week 13 after it offered exclusive gift packages to AppGallery users. Meanwhile, the Dutch navigation app developer TomTom partnered with Huawei for the launch of TomTom AmiGO on AppGallery. The joint marketing campaign included marketing resources such as social promotion and operation resources, and within two months European downloads of the
app increased 22-fold.
The transport and navigation industry is facing a series of unprecedented challenges as transport needs continue to change, meaning MaaS providers need to remain nimble through constant innovation. While these changes will not happen overnight, they can be accelerated by leveraging capabilities available through HMS Core and utilising the support offered by Huawei and AppGallery.
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This article is derived from a speech given at Huawei’s 2020 Global FSI Summit, a global ICT event hosted by Huawei that is focused on partnerships and trends in FSI. It was founded in 2013 and features thought leaders, consultants, and experts from the industry.
2020 is set to be a tough year. There have been unprecedented disruptions to all industries with workforces largely restricted to working from home. Yet, many companies in the Financial Services Industry (FSI) have still successfully managed to provide essential services to customers. Indeed, we have seen that a substantial number of financial institutions have made big strides in their use of digital technologies and digital functionalities, to better cope with the challenges of the pandemic. Many industry leaders have already shared their insights for accelerating industry digital transformation as well as improving industrial operations.
I would like to give you a brief introduction to the progress Huawei has already made in the finance industry. As things stand today, we have already worked with more than 1600 financial institutions, including 45 of the world’s top 100 banks, spanning across more than 60 countries.
2019 was a tough year for Huawei, but we managed to overcome the challenges, gaining the trust of our customers in the process. In 2019 alone, we added over 300 new global FSI customers, who chose Huawei as a trusted transformation partner, recognizing the competitive positioning of our products and the value they bring, regardless of external challenges. I would like to thank every Huawei customer for their interest and support.
Indeed, in 2019, we built or strengthened partnerships with leading banks, and insurers as well as securities houses in France, Italy, Singapore, Brazil, Turkey, India, and beyond. We were able to enhance the reliability and resilience of legacy IT systems and boost digital capabilities for customers. These typical success stories reflect the real-world capabilities and real-world value Huawei products provide. We have become an integral partner for global FSI customers for their digital transformation needs.
We are committed to building a robust ecosystem with our global partners, providing them with innovative solutions and helping customers accelerate digital transformation. With the increasing demand for cashless and smart finance, Huawei works closely with leading global partners to help banks improve digital capabilities, ensuring that more people have access to financial services.
The construction of this global ecosystem is one of our core focuses, and we’ve been working extremely hard on it. Our goal is to build a comprehensive ecosystem and provide more services globally through Huawei’s rapidly growing cloud services. For example, in the near future, an African bank will be able to use a Chinese or European AI partner’s outbound call service over cloud .
In China, banks are accelerating their digital transformation. Here, Huawei has played an active role and has become the largest digital transformation partner for China’s financial industry.
For instance, Huawei has helped leading Chinese banks complete the migration of massive data from traditional data warehouses to Huawei GaussDB platforms. This allows for the improved data processing and analytics capabilities specifically required in the mobile Internet era, further driving business innovation.
We are also working with leading banks to migrate their core credit card systems from a mainframe to an open distributed platform, with over 100 million customers involved. In addition to offering Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS), Huawei also takes part in the construction of cloud platforms for numerous large-scale banks.
In China, Internet tech giants possess unique competitive advantages as they explore disruptive FinTech applications, making competition from them in the financial sector extremely fierce. The competition and cooperation between these Internet giants and the Chinese financial industry has therefore been both unique and extremely interesting.
Of course, this year, this is all happening against the backdrop of COVID-19, with financial institutions around the world continuing to strive to ensure service continuity for customers. Huawei is doing the same.
We are customer-centric and committed to supporting our customers in Business Continuity Management (BCM), making the most of our global capabilities. Huawei has the global resources to efficiently respond to customer needs, providing urgent deliveries and enhanced digital support, for example, as well as ensuring the normal operation of data centers.
With the majority of technical experts working from home during the pandemic, the use of remote Proof of Concept (PoC) tools has emerged. To date, we have successfully completed over 500 remote PoCs with global customers. Our innovative set-up allows customers to implement all configurations and complete load testing and functional testing, all without the need to leave their homes.
Huawei and Chinese financial institutions have also accumulated vast experience in adapting to remote offices and the closure of a significant number of physical branches. Over the past three months, we have hosted online exchanges with over 50 financial clients from our headquarters in Shenzhen and offices overseas. This has allowed us to share our experiences and exchange views on the global financial picture.
Looking ahead to the future, uncertainty is the biggest problem as we look to enter the post-pandemic era. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) World Economic Outlook, the global economy will shrink sharply, by at least 3% in 2020, a larger contraction than the 2008–2009 financial crisis. Work, life, and business have all been profoundly affected, ushering in a “new normal.” We need to consider what this mean for financial institutions. How can we deal with such uncertainties?
Over the short term, global economic contraction will affect banks’ loan-loss reserves. Even with central bank intervention, the impact is likely to remain severe.
Twitter, a huge global company has announced that its employees can choose to work permanently from home if they prefer. However, banking has not made such a dramatic change. Overall, this is unsurprising in a sector traditionally viewed as conservative.
However, on the contrary, banking’s rapid embrace of digital strategies during these times belies that image. So, in wealth management for example, banks can and have offered consulting and transaction services digitally, allowing customers more time to look after their investments. As a result, wealth management has boomed and there has been a dramatic change in client behavior.
To underline the main point: we have found that digital technology is a critical way to address the impact of the pandemic. This digital space is where leading global financial institutions work their best amid the process of digital transformation. China Merchants Bank (CMB), for instance, has continued to efficiently issue large loans to corporate customers through a zero-contact process. Meanwhile, China Life held an online training live broadcast for over one million insurance agents. It is therefore abundantly clear: financial institutions with high-performing digital capabilities will thrive in the future.
As I have just said, we have had numerous exchanges online with numerous financial executives across the world. They all believe that remote work capabilities and business agility are particularly critical in the new normal. And we can surely all agree that financial institutions must move quickly into this digital world. It is further predicted that e-commerce, digital payments, and super apps will gain further traction and become major trends. Rapid changes must come with renewed models for Business Continuity Management (BCM) covering mobile offices, digital transformation, risk management, internal control processes, and more.
Simultaneously, digital transformation will be more effective with the well-timed introduction of new technologies including 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT), to accelerate the process. Early adopters will be able to convert today’s challenges into competitive advantages in the future and take a comfortable lead in the digital world.
The digital world will be based on mobility, with connectivity becoming exceedingly important: customers will need and demand full access to financial and non-financial services anytime, anywhere. 5G is not just an innovative connection point but also one that drives business innovations, to enable all-round customer experiences. In the future, powerful real-time connections must be ubiquitous, and 5G, IoT, and flexible networks are key technologies in delivering this.
We believe that mobile capacity will be the core capability of future banks. It will not only serve as a point of contact with clients, but also as an interface for internal operations and collaborations with partners. The mobile apps of banks will become a key operational platform. To support such a mobile-centric model requires new Information Technology (IT) architecture and key capabilities in 5G, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and cloud. As a leader in these fields, Huawei is uniquely positioned to support the cloud transformation of financial institutions as well as build new connectivity capabilities, helping financial institutions improve agility and innovation
Mobile apps will be the main arena for future banks, with digital customer acquisition dictating app traffic. Banking apps will become the core platform for digital operations, and will turn into super apps by combining multiple services for all scenarios, creating an ecosystem.
Banks will therefore need to transform into mobile-centric IT architecture, including building mobile internet based on 5G technology, restructuring flexible cloud-based and distributed IT architecture, building AI-powered data platforms, and building agile micro-service architecture, open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) , and more.
Over the past ten years, we have gained a wealth of experience in the global financial industry. In particular, in the Chinese market, we have invaluable firsthand experience working with top banks undergoing digital transformation at the same time as they are competing with tech giants exploring FinTech disruptions to the industry. The rapid development in the mobile app era of these banks has also provided a great deal of insight. We are more than happy to share our experience and ecosystems with our customers and partners around the world, to enter the mobile digital world together.
· AppGallery helps global brands and locally popular brands such as TomTom, Bolt, Emirates, Sberbank and Kumu achieve business success
· Additional initiatives to work closer with partners include building three new global ecosystem cooperation labs and five new global developer service centres
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Dongguan, China, 10 September 2020 – Huawei has today shared important updates on AppGallery at the Huawei Developer Conference 2020 (Together). Delivering his keynote speech, Mr Wang Yanmin, President of Global Partnerships and Eco-Development at Huawei Consumer Business Group highlighted AppGallery’s achievements in the first three quarters of 2020, outlined the comprehensive support Huawei provides for its global partners and shared success stories to inspire developers.
“Despite increasing challenges, AppGallery and the Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) ecosystem has continued to show progress this year, all thanks to our global partners. With this strong support and recognition, we will continue to invest in the ecosystem as we build one of the top three app distribution platforms in the world. We are confident that as we continue to work closer with our partners, we can help them to grow and achieve their business goals, especially for those locally popular names who are looking to expand into other global markets,” said Mr Wang Yanmin.
AppGallery and the HMS ecosystem continue to flourish in 2020
AppGallery now dedicates itself to meet the diverse needs of 490 million Monthly Active Users (MAUs) in over 170 countries/regions with. Within the first half of 2020, user app downloads reached 261 billion, underscoring the popularity growth of this app marketplace among users.
Currently, 1.8 million developers globally have joined Huawei Mobile Services ecosystem and more than 96,000 applications have integrated with HMS Core worldwide, offering users even more unique experiences.
Meeting user need by bringing diversified local apps
An underlying priority for AppGallery is reaching the diverse needs of users across different regions and provide them with relevant and quality app services. AppGallery’s ‘Global + Local strategy’ is an innovative approach to app listing that provides consumers with an enhanced experience by focusing on popular local apps.
Some globally popular apps and services will always be the preferred choice for consumers around the world. With the support of influential global partners, Huawei’s ecosystem continues to grow, with partners such as Bolt, Deezer, Foodpanda, TomTom Go Navigation, LINE, Qwant and Telegram joining AppGallery to make life more convenient for users.
Local developers are quickly realising the wide-ranging benefits of listing with AppGallery as consumers also often prefer their own local apps and services too. In Middle East & Africa, the favourite local messaging app Imo and the well-known online shopping platform noon shopping are available on AppGallery. In Europe, BBVA, one of the largest financial institutions in the world, and Allegro, a popular online shopping app has come on-board the AppGallery platform. In Latin America (LATAM), AppGallery has onboarded Bancolombia, one of the largest bank in LATAM, and Linio, the leading e-Commerce marketplace. In Asia Pacific, the popular travel booking app Agoda and Lazada, one of the top e-commerce sites are listed in AppGallery.
Developers are at the heart of Huawei’s innovation
Partners are joining AppGallery to utilise Huawei’s innovative technology and HMS core, enabling traditional sectors to fast-track digital transformation. Huawei’s fully open HMS Core helps accelerate app innovation and elevate user experience. With these capabilities and services, users will be able to enjoy differentiated experience from apps, thus to bring more business opportunities for add developers as well.
Sberbank, the largest bank in Russia with more than 67 million active customers locally, partnered with AppGallery to launch its own Near field communication (NFC) contactless payment supported by HMS. Within 11 days, over 21 million users have downloaded the app with 3.2 million installation.
Separately, Grabjobs, a leading recruitment platform in Asia, is integrated with Caas Kit that allows the app to conduct in-app recruitment and interviews. Meanwhile, 3D facial recognition payment via PayBy supported by Security kit makes payment securer. Sweet Selfie also managed to add super night mode and anti-shaking in its features list after integration with Camera kit.
AppGallery’s full-spectrum support sees partners achieving business success
AppGallery provides full-spectrum operational support for developers worldwide and assist them to unlock new opportunities, such as cross-region operation and global exposure. To date, a number of partners from various regions have benefited from AppGallery.
Tom Tom, one of the world’s leading navigation brands, has both of its popular navigation apps TomTom Go Navigation and TomTom AmiGO listed on AppGallery. Through joint marketing efforts with Huawei, TomTom AmiGO saw 22 times growth in download rate; Bolt, a ride-hailing application saw an increase of 136 times in European and Africa downloads from week one to week thirteen; Kumu, a TV livestream app from the Philippines, worked with AppGallery to launch a Mother’s Day campaign. In the first 15 days, there was 220% increase in Kumu’s premium users, and its revenue grew more than 40 times.
Huawei also has extensive support to assist developers explore business opportunities in China and other global markets, by providing relevant consulting service, localization and integration, marketing and campaign services. A spokesperson from newly joint partner Emirates said: "It’s our pleasure to build a collaboration with Huawei in order to provide the best possible customer experience…The engaging tools that are available on the AppGallery can help us create closer bonds and experiences with more customers, especially in China, which is a significant market for us. The next phase of our collaboration will roll out soon and is aimed at benefitting passengers at every step of their journey, from trip planning to arriving at their destination.”
Since last year, Huawei has helped over 700 partners enter the Chinese market.
Huawei pledges to work more closely with developers and partners
Going forward, Huawei continues to expand developer services. Huawei is building three global ecosystem cooperation labs in Russia, Poland, and Germany to serve global developers and provide enablement, testing, and certification services. Five global developer service centres will also be established in Romania, Malaysia, Egypt, Mexico, and Russia, providing local services and platforms to help developers better grow and innovate.
Huawei has always and will continue to welcome global developers to join the HMS ecosystem. We believe that by working closely together, we can bring a better, smarter app experience to global consumers. After all, when tiny stars come together, they form a brighter constellation.
The retail industry is undergoing a monumental shift. Brick-and-mortar stores and traditional high streets around the world have experienced a gradual decline over recent years due to shoppers preferring to buy goods online. Enforced retail closures and worldwide lockdowns have only served to accelerate consumers’ shift towards online shopping. While these behaviour shifts have spelled problems for many retailers struggling to attract and retain traditional customer bases, it’s also opening exciting opportunities for businesses that are ready and willing to launch into a new age of online retail.
The changing world of e-commerce
It’s no secret that online shopping, also known as e-commerce, continues to represent a growing share of the retail industry. According to Digital Commerce 360, Research and Market Statistics, global ecommerce sales through all channels reached a total $3.53 trillion in sales by the end of 2019, and that growth rate of 20% is expected to extend into the foreseeable future – by 2040, it is expected that 95% of all purchases will be made online. While international giants such as Amazon and Alibaba are often the first to spring to mind when thinking about online retailers, there are an estimated 1214 million e-commerce websites across the globe, with more coming online every day.
New consumer trends are shaping how online retailers conduct their business. People are increasingly looking to their smartphones and mobile apps to find and buy products, and high-quality, tailored content on retail platforms is becoming the baseline expectation for consumers. Furthermore, consumers are growing more familiar with new technology such as augmented reality and artificial intelligence and are looking for online retail platforms that integrate these capabilities.
With such a competitive market dominated by a core group of leading marketplaces, and consumers expecting more innovative experiences from their mobile phones, merchants will need to look at new and unique ways of piquing the interests of prospective customers and improving customer conversion rates. In this sense, new and innovative technology can help online sellers create more interactive and intelligent online shopping experiences and find new ways of gaining new customers.
Earlier this month, Huawei’s annual developer conference, HDC 2020, looked at how AppGallery and Huawei are helping developers in the e-commerce sector address these challenges and succeed in a continually changing industry, and we’ve summarized some of the key trends and insights from the conference.
How to stick out from the crowd and gain new customers
It’s an age-old challenge for retailers of all shapes, sizes, and sectors – how to attract and retain new customers. Having quality products or low prices can only get you so far in the modern day, and the saturated online market makes it hard for retailers to get noticed.
As more and more consumers gravitate to mobile and smartphone technology, Huawei understands that the success of its app marketplace, AppGallery, and its wider ecosystem is dependent on the success of its developers and partners. That is why it allocates extensive resources and has implemented a range of measures to help merchants drive traffic onto their platforms. Huawei offers cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities to drive more intelligent shopping solutions and enable retailers to create more tailored shopping services for their customers. For example, its Precision Marketing feature uses Push Kit and ML to ensure marketing is carried out in the most precise manner to accurately reach the right audiences. The Intelligent Shopping function, combines product display, customer searching, reviewing, and purchasing to drive sales, while the Smart Photo Searching feature utilises deep learning technologies to help customers easily find the products they want through an image search rather than relying on outdated text-based search options. AR also enables a ‘try before you buy’ feature, which allows consumers to use their smartphone camera to place products into real-life scenarios. This enables consumers to understand the functions and design of a product and to view how it would look in the ‘real environment’, such as viewing a new piece of furniture in their lounge of living room.
These solutions are helping deliver tangible success for AppGallery partners. Banggood, one of the largest cross-border ecommerce apps in South East China, implemented the Smart Photo feature to allow customers to quickly and easily find specific items in its extensive product selection, leading to a much smoother shopping experience and a higher visit-to-purchase conversion rate.
These features are complemented by the wide range of innovative capabilities available through HMS Core, Huawei’s toolkit for developers, which also help drive more intelligent targeting. Huawei’s Ads, Push, Scan, and Analytics Kits enable retailers to deliver targeted campaigns such as advertising, push notifications, and QR code-based coupons. For example, Lenta, the largest hypermarket and supermarket chain in Russia, uses push notifications to remind customers of discounts, leading to the app’s 16 million active users increase expenditure by 3%.
Furthermore, for e-commerce brands that rely solely on web-based platforms, Huawei’s Quick Apps help platforms become smartphone compatible by allowing developers to wrap an existing web-based store into an app that is present in AppGallery, all in under an hour.
These resources are in addition to the unparalleled marketing support, promotional opportunities, and branding resources Huawei and AppGallery offer its partners to help them attract new users throughout AppGallery’s 490 million monthly active users. KUMU, a community platform where you can get paid by becoming a live streamer, demonstrated how apps can take full advantage of AppGallery’s in-app resources after it featured in Top Banners, Flash Screens, and recommended app lists. KUMU also launched joint marketing promotions with Huawei, including a Mother’s Day campaign and an AppGallery KOL contest, which resulted in premium users increasing 220%; IAP revenue increasing 40-fold; and a reach of more than 1million users.
Creating a more immersive and visual experience for consumers
Gone are the days when online retailers could simply list products on their website and trust that new customers will click through and make a purchase. While this model might work for established online marketplaces that have thousands of products at competitive prices, smaller players need to do more to truly engage users and differentiate themselves from the swarm of competitors.
That is why Huawei focuses on providing platforms and retailers with the tools and resources to create a more intelligent user experience, without the need for extensive technical expertise and expensive software. There are many ways to utilise technology to improve user experience, but one method that has been proven to boost user acquisition and customer conversion rates is live commerce, where a seller presents a product to a live online audience of prospective customers.
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Earlier this year Huawei launched a new live commerce solution to help make ground-breaking technology accessible to online retailers without using costly and resource-intensive studio equipment. The solution combines some of Huawei’s most innovative technology such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Artificial Intelligence (HiAI) to enable online retailers to create more immersive and intelligent visual experiences. For example, Huawei’s powerful AR capabilities can create an advanced visualization experience, where chosen products can be displayed separately to those being shown by the presenter. Meanwhile, HiAI also revolutionizes the consumer experience by allowing the use of scenario-based sales, such as the presenter setting alternative backdrops to their live stream. The solution also enables presenters to use a second camera position that is perfect for showing alternative shots for modelling products, while enhanced 5G and Wi-Fi capabilities help deliver a faster and smoother live stream.
As the e-commerce and retail industry continues to evolve, AppGallery and Huawei is committed to helping retailers of all shapes and sizes keep pace with ongoing changes in the sector and embrace new technology to succeed in today’s online world.
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This article is derived from a speech given at Huawei’s 2020 Global FSI Summit, a global ICT event hosted by Huawei that is focused on partnerships and trends in FSI. It was founded in 2013 and features thought leaders, consultants, and experts from the industry.
2020 is set to be a tough year. There have been unprecedented disruptions to all industries with workforces largely restricted to working from home. Yet, many companies in the Financial Services Industry (FSI) have still successfully managed to provide essential services to customers. Indeed, we have seen that a substantial number of financial institutions have made big strides in their use of digital technologies and digital functionalities, to better cope with the challenges of the pandemic. Many industry leaders have already shared their insights for accelerating industry digital transformation as well as improving industrial operations.
I would like to give you a brief introduction to the progress Huawei has already made in the finance industry. As things stand today, we have already worked with more than 1600 financial institutions, including 45 of the world’s top 100 banks, spanning across more than 60 countries.
2019 was a tough year for Huawei, but we managed to overcome the challenges, gaining the trust of our customers in the process. In 2019 alone, we added over 300 new global FSI customers, who chose Huawei as a trusted transformation partner, recognizing the competitive positioning of our products and the value they bring, regardless of external challenges. I would like to thank every Huawei customer for their interest and support.
Indeed, in 2019, we built or strengthened partnerships with leading banks, and insurers as well as securities houses in France, Italy, Singapore, Brazil, Turkey, India, and beyond. We were able to enhance the reliability and resilience of legacy IT systems and boost digital capabilities for customers. These typical success stories reflect the real-world capabilities and real-world value Huawei products provide. We have become an integral partner for global FSI customers for their digital transformation needs.
We are committed to building a robust ecosystem with our global partners, providing them with innovative solutions and helping customers accelerate digital transformation. With the increasing demand for cashless and smart finance, Huawei works closely with leading global partners to help banks improve digital capabilities, ensuring that more people have access to financial services.
The construction of this global ecosystem is one of our core focuses, and we’ve been working extremely hard on it. Our goal is to build a comprehensive ecosystem and provide more services globally through Huawei’s rapidly growing cloud services. For example, in the near future, an African bank will be able to use a Chinese or European AI partner’s outbound call service over cloud .
In China, banks are accelerating their digital transformation. Here, Huawei has played an active role and has become the largest digital transformation partner for China’s financial industry.
For instance, Huawei has helped leading Chinese banks complete the migration of massive data from traditional data warehouses to Huawei GaussDB platforms. This allows for the improved data processing and analytics capabilities specifically required in the mobile Internet era, further driving business innovation.
We are also working with leading banks to migrate their core credit card systems from a mainframe to an open distributed platform, with over 100 million customers involved. In addition to offering Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS), Huawei also takes part in the construction of cloud platforms for numerous large-scale banks.
In China, Internet tech giants possess unique competitive advantages as they explore disruptive FinTech applications, making competition from them in the financial sector extremely fierce. The competition and cooperation between these Internet giants and the Chinese financial industry has therefore been both unique and extremely interesting.
Of course, this year, this is all happening against the backdrop of COVID-19, with financial institutions around the world continuing to strive to ensure service continuity for customers. Huawei is doing the same.
We are customer-centric and committed to supporting our customers in Business Continuity Management (BCM), making the most of our global capabilities. Huawei has the global resources to efficiently respond to customer needs, providing urgent deliveries and enhanced digital support, for example, as well as ensuring the normal operation of data centers.
With the majority of technical experts working from home during the pandemic, the use of remote Proof of Concept (PoC) tools has emerged. To date, we have successfully completed over 500 remote PoCs with global customers. Our innovative set-up allows customers to implement all configurations and complete load testing and functional testing, all without the need to leave their homes.
Huawei and Chinese financial institutions have also accumulated vast experience in adapting to remote offices and the closure of a significant number of physical branches. Over the past three months, we have hosted online exchanges with over 50 financial clients from our headquarters in Shenzhen and offices overseas. This has allowed us to share our experiences and exchange views on the global financial picture.
Looking ahead to the future, uncertainty is the biggest problem as we look to enter the post-pandemic era. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) World Economic Outlook, the global economy will shrink sharply, by at least 3% in 2020, a larger contraction than the 2008–2009 financial crisis. Work, life, and business have all been profoundly affected, ushering in a “new normal.” We need to consider what this mean for financial institutions. How can we deal with such uncertainties?
Over the short term, global economic contraction will affect banks’ loan-loss reserves. Even with central bank intervention, the impact is likely to remain severe.
Twitter, a huge global company has announced that its employees can choose to work permanently from home if they prefer. However, banking has not made such a dramatic change. Overall, this is unsurprising in a sector traditionally viewed as conservative.
However, on the contrary, banking’s rapid embrace of digital strategies during these times belies that image. So, in wealth management for example, banks can and have offered consulting and transaction services digitally, allowing customers more time to look after their investments. As a result, wealth management has boomed and there has been a dramatic change in client behavior.
To underline the main point: we have found that digital technology is a critical way to address the impact of the pandemic. This digital space is where leading global financial institutions work their best amid the process of digital transformation. China Merchants Bank (CMB), for instance, has continued to efficiently issue large loans to corporate customers through a zero-contact process. Meanwhile, China Life held an online training live broadcast for over one million insurance agents. It is therefore abundantly clear: financial institutions with high-performing digital capabilities will thrive in the future.
As I have just said, we have had numerous exchanges online with numerous financial executives across the world. They all believe that remote work capabilities and business agility are particularly critical in the new normal. And we can surely all agree that financial institutions must move quickly into this digital world. It is further predicted that e-commerce, digital payments, and super apps will gain further traction and become major trends. Rapid changes must come with renewed models for Business Continuity Management (BCM) covering mobile offices, digital transformation, risk management, internal control processes, and more.
Simultaneously, digital transformation will be more effective with the well-timed introduction of new technologies including 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT), to accelerate the process. Early adopters will be able to convert today’s challenges into competitive advantages in the future and take a comfortable lead in the digital world.
The digital world will be based on mobility, with connectivity becoming exceedingly important: customers will need and demand full access to financial and non-financial services anytime, anywhere. 5G is not just an innovative connection point but also one that drives business innovations, to enable all-round customer experiences. In the future, powerful real-time connections must be ubiquitous, and 5G, IoT, and flexible networks are key technologies in delivering this.
We believe that mobile capacity will be the core capability of future banks. It will not only serve as a point of contact with clients, but also as an interface for internal operations and collaborations with partners. The mobile apps of banks will become a key operational platform. To support such a mobile-centric model requires new Information Technology (IT) architecture and key capabilities in 5G, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and cloud. As a leader in these fields, Huawei is uniquely positioned to support the cloud transformation of financial institutions as well as build new connectivity capabilities, helping financial institutions improve agility and innovation
Mobile apps will be the main arena for future banks, with digital customer acquisition dictating app traffic. Banking apps will become the core platform for digital operations, and will turn into super apps by combining multiple services for all scenarios, creating an ecosystem.
Banks will therefore need to transform into mobile-centric IT architecture, including building mobile internet based on 5G technology, restructuring flexible cloud-based and distributed IT architecture, building AI-powered data platforms, and building agile micro-service architecture, open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) , and more.
Over the past ten years, we have gained a wealth of experience in the global financial industry. In particular, in the Chinese market, we have invaluable firsthand experience working with top banks undergoing digital transformation at the same time as they are competing with tech giants exploring FinTech disruptions to the industry. The rapid development in the mobile app era of these banks has also provided a great deal of insight. We are more than happy to share our experience and ecosystems with our customers and partners around the world, to enter the mobile digital world together.
By Guo Ping, Rotating Chairman, Huawei
Huawei has a unique advantage of providing financial institutions with solutions that range from connectivity to intelligent computing and from the core to the edge. These solutions will help the global finance sector address post-pandemic challenges, accelerate mobile and intelligent transformation, and develop core digital innovation capabilities and competitiveness
2020 is destined to be an unusual year. The COVID-19 pandemic has tremendously impacted life and work worldwide, casting a shadow over the global economy. The future has become increasingly uncertain, and people are starting to think about how to cope when the “black swan” becomes the new norm.
Challenges and Opportunities Facing Financial Institutions During COVID-19
With the rapid spread of COVID-19 worldwide, reopening economies while ensuring safety, and preventing a second — or even third — wave of the pandemic have become major challenges. These challenges, plus an economic downturn, have left the world facing increasing uncertainty.
The world’s major economies have stagnated, or even experienced negative growth, and national governments and central banks are facing unprecedented challenges. It’s difficult to strike a balance between reopening economies in the short term and avoiding financial risks, which has caused uncertainty for fiscal and monetary policies.
Meanwhile, consumers’ reluctance to spend and disruptions to supply chains have had a continuous and unprecedented impact on enterprises in regards to demands, operations, and financing. Survival has become increasingly difficult for many enterprises. Financial institutions, which serve hundreds of sectors, are no exception, and face huge challenges in both the short and long term.
During the pandemic, 25 percent of all brick-and-mortar financial outlets have been closed, while the remaining outlets have shortened their opening hours and reduced staff numbers. Many bank staff have been unable to work as usual, disrupting normal operations of data centers and call centers. The pandemic has seriously impacted client acquisition and marketing channels, causing a sharp drop in both client numbers and product sales at financial institutions.
In the long term, financial institutions will face great pressure from low-quality assets, which will negatively impact their credit ratings, core capital, and equity financing. Compounding these problems, many financial institutions will face restructuring or go bankrupt. Measures such as downsizing outlets, optimizing positions, and reducing costs have become the new norm for financial institutions.
As tech giants compete across borders, financial institutions face challenges regarding client acquisition and profitability, which endangers their long-term business performance. Digital and agile operations capabilities will be vital to bridging the gaps between financial institutions and enabling leading institutions to overtake their competitors. Reshuffling and restructuring will become major trends for financial institutions.
Digital Transformation Has Become a New Direction for Financial Institutions
It is worth noting the increasingly important role that technologies, especially digital and mobile technologies, have been playing during the pandemic. The inability of brick-and-mortar stores to serve customers has led to explosive growth in online shopping, in areas such as groceries and medicine, incubating many new businesses. Numerous students have been learning online from home, which has directly driven the development of live lessons and distance education.
Many sectors and enterprises that are closely related to national economies have been able to use innovative technologies, like mobile offices and remote videos, to rapidly resume work. Thanks to stronger remote collaboration capabilities and higher work efficiency, enterprises that are taking the lead in digital transformation are more capable of resisting risks caused by the pandemic.
The same is true with the finance sector. Banks’ response to the pandemic clearly shows that digital and mobile capabilities are critical to addressing business challenges. Enhancing such capabilities will allow banks to weather the current crisis, leaving them in a better position to address future challenges.
The pandemic presents the finance sector with a great opportunity to reshape its infrastructure. This will allow the sector to achieve digital and mobile operations for its internal processes and workflows, better manage and process data, and provide more personalized services and products that better suit clients’ needs.
To achieve those goals, executives of financial institutions must re-consider how to use mobile and digital approaches to ensure business continuity. I would offer the following recommendations:
Begin with mobile office platforms to maximize the value of bank resources: For example, departments inside banks can collaborate anytime, and bank staff can assign and track tasks anywhere. Account managers can communicate with their clients and conduct marketing from home.
Enhance mobile apps platforms and use mobile programs (such as outstanding apps) to establish unified interfaces for 24/7 client services. Banks should reshape their services throughout the client journey, allowing clients to enjoy one-stop services, including consultation, investment, insurance, loans, payments, food deliveries, and ride hailing. Banks can also use flexibly structured technical capabilities to transcend service boundaries, connect to numerous sectors, and provide better services.
Upgrade big data and AI capabilities to gain access to more data: This will allow banks to more proactively and effectively conduct stress tests and risk controls, ease the pressure posed by low-quality assets, and reconfigure assets.
In addition, as all sectors — including governments and regulators — are rapidly going digital, digital transformation has become a must for financial institutions. Executives of financial institutions should proactively introduce leading technologies and implement digital transformation step by step.
Develop a “mobile first” strategy to keep pace with the mobile trends; establish organizations in regards to technology, business, operations, and risk controls, and encourage changes in cultural systems.
Introduce cloud computing technology to build an agile and scalable digital pedestal, and gradually move business capabilities to the cloud; gradually change the operating model from being offline to online, and ensure asset-light operations.
Iteratively upgrade mobile client platforms and office platforms, and reshape services throughout the client journey; establish an open, flexible, and superb system architecture that allows bank outlets to develop functions based on business needs and open up services to third-party platforms. This will enable banks to more frequently connect to and closely collaborate with Internet platforms.
Apply technologies like big data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enable ubiquitous banking services and continuously improve client experience.
Finally, the sector must keep pace with the development of new technologies and explore future possibilities in advance. This is important because competition in the finance sector will no longer be limited to financial institutions. New technologies, especially 5G, will revolutionize connections at bank outlet s . More importantly, these technologies will inspire comprehensive client experiences and ubiquitous business innovations. Banks will evolve from their traditional roles as banks for people to banks that also connect “things.”
In the future, digital technologies like 5G, Wi-Fi 6, the Internet of Things, and cloud will provide numerous mobile devices with fast Internet access, leading to exponential growth in connections and information exchanges. All kinds of financial services will be aggregated and delivered to mobile devices without users even knowing. Users will be able to access financial services from their smartphones anytime, anywhere. Through Virtual Reality (VR), users will even be able to communicate with bank professionals “face-to-face,” while smart assistants will provide them with detailed investment plans and fund arrangements. The possibilities are endless. Technological developments will cause disruptive changes to financial services, and all this is just the beginning
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Huawei Works with Ecosystem Partners to Help Financial Institutions Go Digital
Huawei advocates an overall strategy of combining connectivity and computing ICT infrastructure. The company aims to provide the world with the best connectivity through powerful, simple, and intelligent networks. Huawei also aims to provide the world with the most effective computing power through its “general computing power + AI computing power” to enable pervasive intelligence.
Connectivity and computing will collaborate and correlate through AI. “Connectivity” transmits data to “computing,” while “computing” provides support for “connectivity.” Together, they create intelligent ICT infrastructure for digital economies. By focusing on digital ICT infrastructure that consists of connectivity, computing, and AI, Huawei is committed to building an open ecosystem.
Huawei also aims to build a digital platform that will help its partners and customers in the global finance sector go digital. Based on clouds, Huawei’s digital platform will integrate new ICT technologies and data of the finance sector. Upward, this platform supports the rapid development and flexible deployment of apps, and enables agile business innovations for financial institutions. Downward, the platform improves “cloud-network-device” synergy through ubiquitous connectivity, further integrating the physical world with the digital world.
As we are about to enter the age of intelligence, we position our enterprise business as “Huawei Inside.” This represents our aspiration to become the core of the digital world and build an open, digital pedestal through a combination of ubiquitous connectivity, a digital platform and pervasive intelligence. Huawei is also committed to developing a partner ecosystem and providing its customers in the global finance sector with end-to-end industry solutions.
Huawei has a unique advantage of providing financial institutions with solutions that range from connectivity to intelligent computing and from the core to the edge. These solutions will help the global finance sector address post-pandemic challenges, accelerate mobile and intelligent transformation, and develop core digital innovation capabilities and competitiveness.
Over the past 10-plus years, Huawei has worked with more than 5,400 solution and service partners worldwide, serving over 1,600 financial institutions in more than 60 countries and regions. Throughout this process, Huawei has accumulated vast experience in doing business with the finance sector and has built a sound ecosystem.
In the Chinese market in particular, we have helped leading banks complete digital transformation and proactively respond to the disruption and competition from Internet financial service providers. We have gained vast experience in facilitating the robust development of banks during the age of mobile banking. We are more than willing to share our successful experience and ecosystem with the global finance sector, to help rapidly move the sector toward mobile and smart finance.
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