Name: AI in multicloud architectures with Nationwide
Uploaded: 2024-07-19T12:34:25.478Z
Duration: 811.36

Otto Benz_Nationwide Building Society.mp4

Otto Benz_Nationwide Building Society.vtt

English

{{00:00:08}}
Hello, everybody, and
welcome to FinTech Futures.

{{00:00:11}}
We are here today at day two of
money 2020 Europe in Amsterdam.

{{00:00:17}}
My name is Tyler Pathe.

{{00:00:19}}
I'm a reporter for FinTech Futures.

{{00:00:21}}
And today I'm very pleased
to be joined by Otto Benz.

{{00:00:25}}
Otto, how are you?

{{00:00:26}}
I'm very well.

{{00:00:27}}
Thank you.

{{00:00:27}}


{{00:00:28}}
It's great.

{{00:00:29}}
It's great to meet you and to, to
have this quick discussion with you.

{{00:00:32}}
I know you've got a
very busy agenda ahead.

{{00:00:34}}
Before we get going on our discussion
and more into why you're attending

{{00:00:38}}
the conference this year Why don't
you give our viewers a little bit of

{{00:00:41}}
a breakdown of who you are what your
position is and which your company is?

{{00:00:44}}
Fantastic.

{{00:00:45}}
So I'm Otto Benz.

{{00:00:46}}
I'm director of payments at Nationwide.

{{00:00:49}}
Nationwide is the UK's largest building
society and we have a wide range of

{{00:00:54}}
products in the financial services
space, but mainly current accounts

{{00:00:57}}
savings and mortgages and I look
after all the payments processing

{{00:01:01}}
for Nationwide Cash, checks, all the
legacy stuff, more interesting stuff,

{{00:01:07}}
faster payments, fax, traps, and open
banking, and all the fun stuff too.

{{00:01:12}}
that is very, interesting, and yes,
it's a pleasure to have you here, as I

{{00:01:16}}
said, most notably because you're due
on stage quite soon, I believe, to talk

{{00:01:23}}
about AI in multi cloud architectures.

{{00:01:27}}
Now this is very exciting.

{{00:01:28}}
It's a leading topic, not just at
Money 2020 this year, but across

{{00:01:32}}
the industry of what I'm seeing.

{{00:01:35}}
Can you tell us from your perspective, is
this a technology match made in heaven?

{{00:01:39}}
It's interesting.

{{00:01:40}}
I think both of the elements have
real potential, but for us, We push

{{00:01:44}}
forward more at the moment on cloud
computing and a lot of our, reason

{{00:01:49}}
for using cloud is around resilience,
particularly on payments processing.

{{00:01:53}}
And what we're trying to do is we're
trying to look at the opportunity

{{00:01:56}}
to use AI alongside that to see
what advantages it can make.

{{00:02:01}}
And I think, we're making some
interesting  steps in that process.

{{00:02:05}}
So it could be a match made in heaven.

{{00:02:07}}
I'm not sure yet.

{{00:02:09}}
I think that's, I think
that's a positive answer.

{{00:02:13}}
you've got a really good
mindset by the sounds of it.

{{00:02:16}}
and with a Nationwide board
service remit, there's really any

{{00:02:21}}
direction that this could go into.

{{00:02:22}}
It's very, exciting to hear that you're
embracing that technology in terms of,

{{00:02:28}}
when the cloud meets AI, in terms of,
one technology interacting with the

{{00:02:34}}
other and maybe monitoring the other.

{{00:02:35}}
How can that process be kept
both seamless and secure?

{{00:02:39}}
It's a good challenge.

{{00:02:41}}
At the moment, I think we, we alongside
lots of other players in the industry

{{00:02:45}}
use cloud technology, in the core
processing and AI as part of that, the

{{00:02:52}}
big space that it occupies is around
fraud and financial crime processing.

{{00:02:56}}
So all of the classic use
of AI is in that space.

{{00:02:59}}
And, the way that you then implement
on, infrastructure, including

{{00:03:04}}
cloud, clearly that's fine in the
sense that's a known way forward.

{{00:03:10}}
The space where I think we're
less clear and where we need more

{{00:03:14}}
understanding of the actual use case
around the cloud, the AI environment

{{00:03:19}}
and how to deploy it is around Gen AI.

{{00:03:22}}
And the Gen AI tech capabilities
are, I think, a bit new.

{{00:03:25}}
So alongside.

{{00:03:27}}
Using Gen AI capabilities to assist,
the kind of co pilot world in co

{{00:03:32}}
development or, productivity for users.

{{00:03:38}}
that space, I think, whether it's on
cloud or not on cloud, it doesn't matter.

{{00:03:43}}
Most of the challenges around, as you
point out, around security, around

{{00:03:47}}
what are you going to do with the data?

{{00:03:50}}
How do you make sure that the output
of the Gen AI capability is rational?

{{00:03:55}}
so I think the, cloud element of that.

{{00:03:59}}
is less known.

{{00:04:01}}
It's less clear what happens to, our data,
our customers data in that environments.

{{00:04:06}}
And those are the things that we
really need to make sure work properly.

{{00:04:10}}
I think in the more
traditional space, if you like.

{{00:04:13}}
using AI to help our financial crime to
help prevent against financial crime.

{{00:04:19}}
that's a space where infrastructurally
cloud is, the right place to help.

{{00:04:24}}
And, our core payments processing
we're developing on cloud.

{{00:04:28}}
We have with one of our partners,
we're redeveloping our faster

{{00:04:30}}
payments processing platform with form
three on a fully cloud environment.

{{00:04:36}}
and the AI type capabilities, How we
manage, those payments, how we understand

{{00:04:43}}
whether they're from or to fraudulent,
potentially fraudulent participants.

{{00:04:48}}
That's a really important use case.

{{00:04:52}}
particularly in the new world in the
UK where we have to prevent against

{{00:04:55}}
authorized push payment fraud.

{{00:04:58}}
that's really important for us.

{{00:05:00}}
That, APP fraud is, massive and it
continues to grow and it's, It's worrying

{{00:05:05}}
from our perspective within the industry
to see these forces be like, Oh, AI

{{00:05:10}}
is a really useful tool for lots of
things, especially for committing crime.

{{00:05:13}}
So it's as you say, sharpening the
blade in a different way and trying to

{{00:05:19}}
prevent AI being used against you in a
way, which is a fascinating, deployment.

{{00:05:26}}
In terms of, Nationwide's embrace
of cloud technology within its sort

{{00:05:30}}
of payments processing, how have
you seen, your capabilities change?

{{00:05:37}}
I, understand that's a journey that
you're still going on, but is there

{{00:05:40}}
any indication that you can give
where the cloud has been beneficial

{{00:05:43}}
to your payments processing?

{{00:05:44}}
Yeah, two things in
particular I'd point out.

{{00:05:47}}
One is around the ability to
scale the infrastructure to

{{00:05:52}}
cope with increased demand.

{{00:05:55}}
with our new Faster Payments platform,
we've already seen, the way that, the

{{00:06:01}}
increased throughput and the increased
capability to take on transaction

{{00:06:05}}
processing volume is, significantly
better in a cloud environment, than

{{00:06:10}}
it has been on our legacy environment
where the infrastructure needs to be

{{00:06:13}}
procured and needs to be rolled out.

{{00:06:16}}
And, and the other place where I
think, maybe not so much cloud, but

{{00:06:20}}
certainly the style of development
that we are implementing around it.

{{00:06:25}}
has meant that we've been able
to produce, put in already again

{{00:06:29}}
this year, point releases into the
environment without taking it down,

{{00:06:33}}
without going, without taking it
offline, without people noticing.

{{00:06:38}}
And, for us I think really that's
the, the key thing, the holy grail

{{00:06:42}}
of payments processing is the fact
that you can make change to the

{{00:06:45}}
environment and nobody notices.

{{00:06:48}}
However much everybody loves to
do one fun stuff in payments.

{{00:06:51}}
If it doesn't work, nobody's very happy.

{{00:06:55}}
being able to do incremental
implementations into live, into

{{00:06:58}}
an environment, without taking it
offline and without affecting the

{{00:07:02}}
large, high throughput, transaction
processing is really, critical.

{{00:07:08}}
Because you're serving, I believe,
16 million members at the moment?

{{00:07:11}}
Yeah, it's about that.

{{00:07:14}}
represents something like
10 percent of the UK.

{{00:07:18}}
and we have had a number of, of
bad outages and our faster payments

{{00:07:22}}
platform previously, and the legacy
platform has not been reliable for us.

{{00:07:28}}
that's not something that
we can really support.

{{00:07:31}}
we want to be in a space where we
provide the Reliable processing platforms

{{00:07:35}}
for our customers and it's really,
critical for us to get this right.

{{00:07:41}}
Can we see then, switching over
to your use of AI, you've spoken

{{00:07:45}}
a bit about its fraud application.

{{00:07:48}}
is there any other areas where
we might see it crop up, maybe

{{00:07:52}}
in a small bit, maybe in a large
bit with a nationwide services?

{{00:07:55}}
Yeah, sure.

{{00:07:56}}
One area which is outside my domain that
we're currently testing and in quite a

{{00:08:01}}
close to go live environment is around how
to help customers who've, unfortunately

{{00:08:06}}
had a bad experience and have complained.

{{00:08:10}}
it's a kind of classic utility
for general AI capability,

{{00:08:15}}
which, seems very promising.

{{00:08:17}}
so my colleagues are looking at.

{{00:08:19}}
when, for example, the payment's,
work has gone really badly wrong,

{{00:08:23}}
I've been unable to, facilitate making
a payment for one of our members.

{{00:08:29}}
and they have to complain
and ask for a redress.

{{00:08:32}}
actually the ability to then go and
collate the information and prepare a

{{00:08:36}}
response that then needs to be looked over
by a human before it actually gets sent.

{{00:08:41}}
it looks really, promising.

{{00:08:43}}
And you can get a much better standard
of English, much better standard of  you

{{00:08:48}}
know what went wrong and what are we
going to do about it to put it right

{{00:08:51}}
for you with some assistance with
some preparatory work rather than just

{{00:08:56}}
starting with a blank piece of paper
and collecting all the information.

{{00:08:59}}
So that's really promising.

{{00:09:00}}
That's in, one of our late
stage proof of concepts.

{{00:09:05}}
So hopefully we will see that.

{{00:09:08}}
but something that's live for me within
the payments world is we've recently gone

{{00:09:12}}
live with visas, smarter step system,
which is steps as a stand in processing.

{{00:09:19}}
So for our cards platform, when
people make payments, but our

{{00:09:23}}
capabilities are not, fully functional.

{{00:09:27}}
We've taken down for maintenance.

{{00:09:29}}
Visa has traditionally provided a
service to stand in for authorizations

{{00:09:33}}
to keep, card payments going.

{{00:09:35}}
We've gone live actually, this
month, with our AI enhanced service.

{{00:09:41}}
And it will look more carefully at
the customer's individual pattern

{{00:09:46}}
of payments to provide a better
outcome during periods of standing.

{{00:09:50}}
So that's really interesting.

{{00:09:52}}
We've launched that with Visa and we're
going to see what difference that makes.

{{00:09:57}}
Hopefully not too much, because we're
normally processing, so we don't want

{{00:10:00}}
to use, it's one of those resilience
things, where you don't want to use

{{00:10:03}}
the capability, but you need it there.

{{00:10:05}}
Yeah, it is important to be supported
by these things, in the worst case

{{00:10:09}}
scenario, This conversation so far,
you've touched upon areas of fighting

{{00:10:14}}
fraud, of increasing your service
delivery, of ensuring that reliability

{{00:10:19}}
within your services for your members.

{{00:10:22}}
and this is all sort of
part of Nationwide's digital

{{00:10:25}}
infrastructure rejuvenation journey.

{{00:10:28}}
Yeah.

{{00:10:29}}
what other pain points is that
journey seeking to overcome?

{{00:10:33}}
You've touched on, my domain
is mainly the back, right?

{{00:10:37}}
so the things that you've
mentioned are my own domain.

{{00:10:39}}
If I look more widely at our, pain
points in our digital experience, there

{{00:10:46}}
are two things that we're trying to do.

{{00:10:48}}
One is around enhancing our digital app.

{{00:10:52}}
within our customer experience to just
provide a much better, capability to, for

{{00:10:58}}
people to use, to transact and to contact.

{{00:11:02}}
we've, we've spent quite a lot of
time removing the dependency on our

{{00:11:06}}
traditional old fashioned card reader.

{{00:11:09}}
and we're now building out our new
app with, which is out there this

{{00:11:13}}
year, and, hopefully people will, our
customers who are benefiting from that.

{{00:11:19}}
And we're trying to put a lot more users
front end capability in that space.

{{00:11:23}}
And again, in the payments domain, for
me, that's about improving things of

{{00:11:27}}
the information that you have about
your payment, how you can recognize it,

{{00:11:31}}
if you want to query it, if you want
to dispute something, the capability,

{{00:11:36}}
to allow people to serve within that
environment is significantly enhanced.

{{00:11:42}}
So, those are the things that I'm looking
for out of the wider, my colleagues,

{{00:11:46}}
implementations in the digital apps.

{{00:11:49}}
in that kind of dispute space, which
I mentioned, we're going to try and

{{00:11:52}}
improve the way people, customers can,
look at what they, what they've done and

{{00:11:59}}
have a better experience if they don't
recognize the customer's, transaction.

{{00:12:04}}
So that's really important as well.

{{00:12:06}}
That's really, fascinating to have
that sort of really in depth level of

{{00:12:11}}
oversight into your services and be
able to provide that to your customers.

{{00:12:16}}
I think that, I think it's going
to be an absolute, hugely success.

{{00:12:20}}
and I look forward to this app.

{{00:12:22}}
Launched later this year.

{{00:12:23}}
So it's the app.

{{00:12:24}}
The app launch is live now.

{{00:12:26}}
So this has been launched So it's a it's
a series of upgrades to the new app which

{{00:12:31}}
came which is now live So so that's great.

{{00:12:35}}
Yes.

{{00:12:35}}
we shall that we shall be waiting hot
on heels There's other grades to arrive.

{{00:12:41}}
but also it's been fantastic to
speak to you today Thank you.

{{00:12:44}}
I can't keep you for too long because
the stage is calling and I, if I can slip

{{00:12:51}}
away for five minutes, we've got a packed
schedule today, but if I can, I will

{{00:12:55}}
come and support you from the way out.

{{00:12:56}}
very much.

{{00:12:57}}
but thank you for taking the
time to speak with us today.

{{00:12:59}}
It's a pleasure.

{{00:12:59}}
Fascinating what you're doing
at Nationwide, and I hope

{{00:13:02}}
we can catch up again soon.

{{00:13:04}}
thank you for everybody
who joined us online.

{{00:13:08}}
I hope you enjoyed this conversation
with Otto Benz just as much as I did.

{{00:13:12}}
And if you'd like to find out more
about Money 2020 Europe this year

{{00:13:16}}
nationwide, and everything else that's
going on in FinTech at the moment,

{{00:13:20}}
please head over to FinTechFutures.

{{00:13:23}}
com until next time, goodbye.

Hello, everybody, and
welcome to FinTech Futures.

We are here today at day two of
money 2020 Europe in Amsterdam.

And today I'm very pleased
to be joined by Otto Benz.

It's great to meet you and to, to
have this quick discussion with you.

I know you've got a
very busy agenda ahead.

Before we get going on our discussion
and more into why you're attending

the conference this year Why don't
you give our viewers a little bit of

a breakdown of who you are what your
position is and which your company is?

Nationwide is the UK's largest building
society and we have a wide range of

products in the financial services
space, but mainly current accounts

savings and mortgages and I look
after all the payments processing

for Nationwide Cash, checks, all the
legacy stuff, more interesting stuff,

faster payments, fax, traps, and open
banking, and all the fun stuff too.

that is very, interesting, and yes,
it's a pleasure to have you here, as I

said, most notably because you're due
on stage quite soon, I believe, to talk

It's a leading topic, not just at
Money 2020 this year, but across

Can you tell us from your perspective, is
this a technology match made in heaven?

I think both of the elements have
real potential, but for us, We push

forward more at the moment on cloud
computing and a lot of our, reason

for using cloud is around resilience,
particularly on payments processing.

And what we're trying to do is we're
trying to look at the opportunity

to use AI alongside that to see
what advantages it can make.

And I think, we're making some
interesting  steps in that process.

I think that's, I think
that's a positive answer.

you've got a really good
mindset by the sounds of it.

and with a Nationwide board
service remit, there's really any

It's very, exciting to hear that you're
embracing that technology in terms of,

when the cloud meets AI, in terms of,
one technology interacting with the

How can that process be kept
both seamless and secure?

At the moment, I think we, we alongside
lots of other players in the industry

use cloud technology, in the core
processing and AI as part of that, the

big space that it occupies is around
fraud and financial crime processing.

So all of the classic use
of AI is in that space.

And, the way that you then implement
on, infrastructure, including

cloud, clearly that's fine in the
sense that's a known way forward.

The space where I think we're
less clear and where we need more

understanding of the actual use case
around the cloud, the AI environment

And the Gen AI tech capabilities
are, I think, a bit new.

Using Gen AI capabilities to assist,
the kind of co pilot world in co

that space, I think, whether it's on
cloud or not on cloud, it doesn't matter.

Most of the challenges around, as you
point out, around security, around

How do you make sure that the output
of the Gen AI capability is rational?

It's less clear what happens to, our data,
our customers data in that environments.

And those are the things that we
really need to make sure work properly.

I think in the more
traditional space, if you like.

using AI to help our financial crime to
help prevent against financial crime.

that's a space where infrastructurally
cloud is, the right place to help.

And, our core payments processing
we're developing on cloud.

We have with one of our partners,
we're redeveloping our faster

payments processing platform with form
three on a fully cloud environment.

and the AI type capabilities, How we
manage, those payments, how we understand

whether they're from or to fraudulent,
potentially fraudulent participants.

particularly in the new world in the
UK where we have to prevent against

That, APP fraud is, massive and it
continues to grow and it's, It's worrying

from our perspective within the industry
to see these forces be like, Oh, AI

is a really useful tool for lots of
things, especially for committing crime.

So it's as you say, sharpening the
blade in a different way and trying to

prevent AI being used against you in a
way, which is a fascinating, deployment.

In terms of, Nationwide's embrace
of cloud technology within its sort

of payments processing, how have
you seen, your capabilities change?

I, understand that's a journey that
you're still going on, but is there

any indication that you can give
where the cloud has been beneficial

Yeah, two things in
particular I'd point out.

One is around the ability to
scale the infrastructure to

with our new Faster Payments platform,
we've already seen, the way that, the

increased throughput and the increased
capability to take on transaction

processing volume is, significantly
better in a cloud environment, than

it has been on our legacy environment
where the infrastructure needs to be

And, and the other place where I
think, maybe not so much cloud, but

FinTech Futures

Case Study

Otto Benz, payments director at Nationwide Building Society, sat down with FinTech Futures at this year's Money20/20 Europe to explore the intriguing intersection between multicloud architectures and artificial intelligence (AI).
 
Here, the payments veteran discusses the combination's safeguards, Nationwide's updated strategy for AI and digital payments infrastructure renovation, and why the two innovative technologies are a match made in heaven for payments' pain points.