Читать книгу Transactional to Transformational - Christer Holloman - Страница 11

In 2018, Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) announced the next three‐year phase of their strategy, designed to set the group up for success in a digital world. In establishing the activities to deliver this strategy, they recognised the potential of investing in fintechs using their balance sheet to accelerate their own transformation and even to unlock new business model opportunities.

They recognised that in order to realise this opportunity they would need to develop the Group's partnering capabilities; for example, creating a shared approach to pipeline development, getting the right tooling in place and building a group‐wide narrative around it. A particular critical part was determining the correct partnership structure for each opportunity.

To deliver their ambition they mobilised innovation working groups in each major part of the Group alongside a central fintech team. Together, these groups adopted a shared language and approach for pipeline management. Whilst this went some way to mobilising their pipeline, this consistent view also allowed them to identify common bottlenecks, which they needed to address to make the aggregate pipeline more robust.

Lloyds also used key pathfinder opportunities, such as their partnership with Thought Machine, to develop, surface and agree some important principles at more advanced stages of their pipeline. This included their equity investment rationale. Here they established two main principles: firstly, to only make investments where they expected to sustain a strategic relationship with a fintech; secondly, they required a clear articulation of the necessary strategic benefits of investment relative to what could be achieved through a commercial contract alone.

Whilst the bank acknowledges that it has more to learn and develop with regards to how to best invest in fintechs, the early results have been positive. Their capabilities in emerging technologies have been significantly advanced through this approach and several new customer services have been launched.