8JUNE 2025CFO TECH OUTLOOKThe financial services ecosystem has changed dramatically over the past few years. There are more players and constellations than ever allowing financial institutions to test and develop innovative products and services, without significant upfront investments or undertaking of large-scale transformations. Fintech's customer-first agenda has enabled ground-breaking innovative solutions and the role of traditional financial institutions as the customers' first choice for financial services is no longer given. This has sparked a common question for leadership within the financial community ­ how can we harness the power of fintech collaboration and partnerships to convert innovative ideas into new competitive products in the marketplace?Over the years, I've had the pleasure of collaborating with several global (`traditional') financial institutions trying to move from a risk-averse culture to a culture of innovation, as well as smaller technology firms looking to compete with financial institutions in a subset of segments, but more importantly wanting to create a sustainable model to drive and scale innovative products and services together with financial institutions in the marketplace.In theory, the objectives across many fintech's and financial institutions are aligned, but why are we not seeing more successful co-creation and partnerships at scale in the marketplace?Among several others, there are four key enablers that can help enhance the ability to develop, deploy and scale innovative products.1.Management commitment with dedicated resources, time, and budget for innovation effortsOne will find innovation, fintech collaboration, and partnerships as part of most financial institution's agenda today. There may even be an assigned function, or a few select resources given the responsibility to drive an `innovation' program.The primary focus being to conduct "proof of values", "proof of concepts" or "pilots" together with fintech, and sometimes deploy the solution in the organization, but all this concludes to "just another" vendor relationship.The question to ask is, is the goal of your innovation function to provide a quick fix to an existing process or product, or to reinvent it to better serve your customers across their journey? There's no right or wrong answer to this question, but it will help define the goals of your `innovation' function.One of the biggest challenges for attaining innovation and seeing ideas through from ideation to scaled implementation and adoption is competing for business priorities. On the flip side, the number one enabler is business prioritization and a supporting funding mechanism. To allow adequate resources to drive the end-to-end innovation process, financial services institutions need to create a funding mechanism that provides a continuous flow of earmarked investment, a portfolio of innovation priorities, and a plan to keep HOW TO HARNESS THE POWER OF FINTECH COLLABORATION TO DRIVE TRUE INNOVATION?By Frida Roneus, Director, Head of Digital Strategy & Transformation, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking CorporationFrida RoneusIN MY OPINION
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