National Australia Bank’s Howard Silby reveals key strategies for large banks to overcome complex organizational structures and bring innovation to customers.

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INFocus provides exclusive insights and trends from experts and leaders across the Asia Pacific region, exploring the forces, opportunities, and challenges shaping its future.

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Howard Silby

There's two or three of what have been our most innovative pieces of work as a bank that behind the scenes Oliver Wyman have been very critical to us delivering that work.

Chris Evans

Welcome, everybody. I'm delighted to be here today with Howard Silby, who is the Chief Innovation Officer for National Australia Bank. Howard, welcome. Great to have you.

Howard

Pleasure to be here, Chris.

Chris

Fantastic. Well, why don't we get started with a conversation which I'm sure will be close to your heart. Really keen to hear your thoughts on how large incumbent banks can foster innovation in their activities today, particularly given some of the complex organizational constructs that exist within them. What have you been doing within your team here and how has that been successful?

Howard

Great question, Chris. It's fair to say I've seen a large number of innovation constructs over my lengthy career in financial services, and I've got a pretty clear view on what I think works best now. I would say there's a few key hallmarks I would like to point out. The first one, and an obvious one, is leadership from CEO down.

If a CEO prioritizes innovation that makes a huge difference. What I mean by that is ringfencing resources and funding for innovation, but also being clear about what innovation is and what it isn't. In our case, we have prioritized an area, which is my area, to really focus on leaps ahead.

It's important that the innovation area is well connected to the technology area of the bank. By connected, I mean genuinely operating at the edge of the core of the existing technology set.

I do see innovation attempts in the past where there's a lot of learning, there's a lot of innovation theatre, but you really learn the most by building stuff and putting it live with your colleagues in the bank or live with customers. It's really important that there's a build-it-mindset in the innovation teams, not just a we're here to educate and tell you what the future is. We're actually here to show you what the future is and build it.

Chris

Super interesting. I particularly like the reference to keep this function separate, but able to actually build as well. In light of that, how does the bank think about attracting talent and bringing them into the organization where the reputation of banks can vary depending on people's experience with them?

Howard

There is no silver bullet for that.

In simple terms, I'm looking for people that can work out what it is that customers want. Will they use it? Can we actually build it? How viable is it from a tech point of view?

Will customers actually pay for it?

There's an important aspect to this, which is you should look far and wide for talent and certainly not be beholden to other people that have worked in banks before. That would be mistake number one. At the same time, it's really important to provide incoming talent with context, just to be able to explain the landscape of banking, which can be a little unnecessarily complex. I've been very privileged and fortunate to attract some great talent in the team. I also can provide context, in terms of where banking has been, where banking is going, and what the art of the possible might be.

That's really important that we don't run down too many rabbit holes in the wrong direction.

Chris

Thanks Howard. Really interesting to hear how you think about the talent value proposition and what banking can provide in the innovation space for the best talent in the market. Banks can't do all this themselves, and partnerships must be a very important part of how you execute on innovation. How do you think about partnerships and how do you embed them within the way in which you deliver innovation,particularly recognizing there are many different types of partners, like big consulting advisory firms all the way down to small startups and fintechs. It’d be great to hear your perspectives on how you’ve been working with them.

Howard

Partnerships are extremely important, Chris. My team is called Innovation and Partnerships. The clue might be there in the name. If I pick up on your point about the smaller partners and fintechs, it's incredibly important for us to have fantastic relationships with the fintech community and to work alongside.

We've worked alongside many over the last three years so we can incubate their ideas in our environment or sometimes a little bit of our ideas with their help. That is absolutely essential. There's also a number of ways of going about attracting partnerships. We do happen to have a corporate VC arm as a venture capital division that is also in my Innovation and Partnerships team.

Whilst that's not the only answer, it's certainly been strongly beneficial to NAB in terms of attracting inbound partners and giving us a really amazing view of the landscape of all that's going on from seed stage right through to larger emerging fintechs. 

Chris

Thanks, Howard. It’s great to hear. You've talked a lot about partnerships with smaller companies and fintechs, but where else do you look to get support across your innovation activities?

Howard

It's fair to say, Chris, we have certainly looked to Oliver Wyman over many years,  and specifically with respect to innovation. There's two or three of what have been our most innovative pieces of work as a bank that behind the scenes Oliver Wyman have been very critical to us delivering that work.

We do use large consulting firms, particularly yourselves, in the area of innovation. We also speak very regularly, literally weekly to non-competing banks overseas on the topic of innovation. That's been incredibly helpful, something that our CEO orchestrated when he first arrived.

Chris

That’s great to hear you say it, Howard. We look forward to supporting you on the journey to come.

Howard

Thank you.

National Australia Bank’s Howard Silby reveals key strategies for large banks to overcome complex organizational structures and bring innovation to customers.

INFocus Series

INFocus provides exclusive insights and trends from experts and leaders across the Asia Pacific region, exploring the forces, opportunities, and challenges shaping its future.

Go to series

Howard Silby

There's two or three of what have been our most innovative pieces of work as a bank that behind the scenes Oliver Wyman have been very critical to us delivering that work.

Chris Evans

Welcome, everybody. I'm delighted to be here today with Howard Silby, who is the Chief Innovation Officer for National Australia Bank. Howard, welcome. Great to have you.

Howard

Pleasure to be here, Chris.

Chris

Fantastic. Well, why don't we get started with a conversation which I'm sure will be close to your heart. Really keen to hear your thoughts on how large incumbent banks can foster innovation in their activities today, particularly given some of the complex organizational constructs that exist within them. What have you been doing within your team here and how has that been successful?

Howard

Great question, Chris. It's fair to say I've seen a large number of innovation constructs over my lengthy career in financial services, and I've got a pretty clear view on what I think works best now. I would say there's a few key hallmarks I would like to point out. The first one, and an obvious one, is leadership from CEO down.

If a CEO prioritizes innovation that makes a huge difference. What I mean by that is ringfencing resources and funding for innovation, but also being clear about what innovation is and what it isn't. In our case, we have prioritized an area, which is my area, to really focus on leaps ahead.

It's important that the innovation area is well connected to the technology area of the bank. By connected, I mean genuinely operating at the edge of the core of the existing technology set.

I do see innovation attempts in the past where there's a lot of learning, there's a lot of innovation theatre, but you really learn the most by building stuff and putting it live with your colleagues in the bank or live with customers. It's really important that there's a build-it-mindset in the innovation teams, not just a we're here to educate and tell you what the future is. We're actually here to show you what the future is and build it.

Chris

Super interesting. I particularly like the reference to keep this function separate, but able to actually build as well. In light of that, how does the bank think about attracting talent and bringing them into the organization where the reputation of banks can vary depending on people's experience with them?

Howard

There is no silver bullet for that.

In simple terms, I'm looking for people that can work out what it is that customers want. Will they use it? Can we actually build it? How viable is it from a tech point of view?

Will customers actually pay for it?

There's an important aspect to this, which is you should look far and wide for talent and certainly not be beholden to other people that have worked in banks before. That would be mistake number one. At the same time, it's really important to provide incoming talent with context, just to be able to explain the landscape of banking, which can be a little unnecessarily complex. I've been very privileged and fortunate to attract some great talent in the team. I also can provide context, in terms of where banking has been, where banking is going, and what the art of the possible might be.

That's really important that we don't run down too many rabbit holes in the wrong direction.

Chris

Thanks Howard. Really interesting to hear how you think about the talent value proposition and what banking can provide in the innovation space for the best talent in the market. Banks can't do all this themselves, and partnerships must be a very important part of how you execute on innovation. How do you think about partnerships and how do you embed them within the way in which you deliver innovation,particularly recognizing there are many different types of partners, like big consulting advisory firms all the way down to small startups and fintechs. It’d be great to hear your perspectives on how you’ve been working with them.

Howard

Partnerships are extremely important, Chris. My team is called Innovation and Partnerships. The clue might be there in the name. If I pick up on your point about the smaller partners and fintechs, it's incredibly important for us to have fantastic relationships with the fintech community and to work alongside.

We've worked alongside many over the last three years so we can incubate their ideas in our environment or sometimes a little bit of our ideas with their help. That is absolutely essential. There's also a number of ways of going about attracting partnerships. We do happen to have a corporate VC arm as a venture capital division that is also in my Innovation and Partnerships team.

Whilst that's not the only answer, it's certainly been strongly beneficial to NAB in terms of attracting inbound partners and giving us a really amazing view of the landscape of all that's going on from seed stage right through to larger emerging fintechs. 

Chris

Thanks, Howard. It’s great to hear. You've talked a lot about partnerships with smaller companies and fintechs, but where else do you look to get support across your innovation activities?

Howard

It's fair to say, Chris, we have certainly looked to Oliver Wyman over many years,  and specifically with respect to innovation. There's two or three of what have been our most innovative pieces of work as a bank that behind the scenes Oliver Wyman have been very critical to us delivering that work.

We do use large consulting firms, particularly yourselves, in the area of innovation. We also speak very regularly, literally weekly to non-competing banks overseas on the topic of innovation. That's been incredibly helpful, something that our CEO orchestrated when he first arrived.

Chris

That’s great to hear you say it, Howard. We look forward to supporting you on the journey to come.

Howard

Thank you.