That is the promise of Edge, a plug-and-play banking and insurance platform that Oliver Wyman says is an ‘accelerator, comprising of foundational capabilities for a Digi-bank, including front-end journeys and UI, pre-integrated services (with a range of vendors), and production-ready infrastructure.’
A spokesperson from Oliver Wyman noted that Edge is not a core banking system or bank-in-a-box. It is designed to help incumbents and digital challengers accelerate their digital ventures and elevate their customer experience.
Built by Oliver Wyman Digital's in-house team of designers and engineers, Edge is a cloud-native platform that is modular, scalable, and designed around regulatory requirements in Asia Pacific to reduce the upfront cost and decrease risk.
It includes a future-ready front end, pre-integrated middle and back-end services, and 'productionized' infrastructure. This translates to the ability to increase the distribution of products to multiple partner websites or apps, access to the latest pre-configured financial services products, and flexibility for integrations with multiple third-party providers such as eKYC.
Additionally, Edge's continuously evolving digital products, services, and upgrades are tailored to help clients stay ahead of market developments.
"BaaS and IaaS are great opportunities for incumbents to team up with non-financial businesses and thus capture new revenue growth at a low cost. But they can pose a threat, too, as they open the financial services market to new challengers," said Dan Jones, partner, Oliver Wyman Digital.
Digital growth opportunity
So far, 21 new digital banking licenses have been issued across Asia Pacific, and up to five new licenses will be awarded in Malaysia in the first quarter of 2022. Therefore, customers will have greater options and consequently higher expectations of an intuitive, mobile-first, value-added financial service.
"A key success factor for the new digital bank entrants in Malaysia is the ability to provide a full suite of financial products in a price-efficient manner. Edge offers a ready-made solution that comes with onboarding, payments, lending, and insurance journeys, making it a simple, one-stop solution," said Anirudh Singh, Partner and Head of Malaysia, Oliver Wyman.
For tech firms and non-banks looking to quickly enter the financial services market, Edge opens opportunities for them to explore alternative business models and new revenue streams. Edge is a complementary product to Oliver Wyman's holistic approach to building new digital ventures, supporting clients from strategy through to design, build, and launch.
With Edge, Oliver Wyman estimates that clients will only take 6 to 9 months on average to get to market.
"Building a digital banking or insurance platform has never been as quick and cost-efficient. With the increasing competition for incumbent banks and new entrants alike across Asia Pacific, it is important to get to market and acquire customers as soon as possible. By launching Edge, we offer our clients an agile and reliable solution that enables them to stay competitive," added Jones.
