ICON IN THE MAKING

AN INDEPENDENT SUPPLEMENT BY MEDIAPLANET MEDIAPLANET 11
COMMERCIAL FEATURE
Creative workspaces are invaluable for promoting a collaborative culture and accelerating growth ©PHOTOS : NATIONWIDE
Nationwide’s Innovation Lab
fuels effective partnerships
Greater collaboration between traditional financial services providers and those seeking to disrupt the industry is the
best way forward for both consumers and the industry, as Nationwide has discovered with its flourishing Innovation Lab.
Nationwide is the world’s
largest building society
with 15m customers and
is no stranger to financial
services innovation.
It was the first brand to offer
internet banking in 1997, the first to
offer a wearable banking app which
has been rolled out to Apple Watch and,
in 2014, it became the first high street
provider to offer 24/7 customer service
via Twitter.
Its Head of Group Innovation,
Daryl Wilkinson, leads Nationwide’s
Innovation Lab at its head office in
Swindon. The Lab has pioneered a
number of projects harnessing emerging
technologies including next
generation biometrics, wearables,
future payments, artificial intelligence
and beacons.
“Innovation is vital to the future of
FinServ and essential for the UK economy,”
he says. “There is a richness of
entrepreneurial flair in this country
and now plenty of government support
to progress the significant changes we
are seeing in financial services.”
The Lab is Nationwide’s centre of
insight where new ideas to make
people’s lives better are originated,
prototyped, tested with customers, and
fine-tuned. Wilkinson leads a team of
FinTech innovators whose skills range
from commercial strategy to social
anthropology and software engineering.
Daryl Wilkinson
Head of group innovation,
Nationwide innovation lab
“Innovation
is vital to the
future of
FinServ and
essential
for the UK
economy”
The Lab also hosts FinTech seminars,
debates and one-off events all
designed to nurture and exploit the
industry’s culture of innovation and
to mentor new talent.
Nationwide as a business and
Wilkinson himself have established
relationships within London’s Fin-
Tech heartland and further afield in
Silicon Valley. These global connections
are inspiring disruptive thinking
and partnerships so Nationwide
can effectively mentor exciting
FinTech start-ups in early stage
proposition development and bring
new solutions to market.
“The Innovation Lab is helping
us to accelerate our digital agenda,”
says Wilkinson. “I saw significant
changes ahead in this market
when I joined Nationwide more
than three years ago and since
then we have been responding to
these opportunities, delivering to
the changing expectations of our
members, whilst contributing
to the progressive evolution of
retail banking.”
Working together
In the Lab there is creative space for
FinTech innovators to work collaboratively
alongside the experts within
Nationwide. The building society
wants to co-create and co-invest
in entrepreneurs’ financial service
solutions to help them scale up their
businesses much more quickly.
“It is exciting to talk about FinTech
versus traditional banks and building
societies but this is not the best
approach,” says Wilkinson. “Startups
need incumbents to scale faster
and help them navigate regulatory
requirements, and traditional
players need the start-ups to access
creative thinking and a more
liberated and agile approach. Our
Innovation Lab is an area which
has the processes and necessary
pre-approvals to get things done.”
Nationwide remains an active supporter
of Accenture’s FinTech Innovation
Lab London. This is a 12-week
mentoring programme which helps
early and growth stage start-ups
accelerate their businesses with the
assistance of industry experts.
Of course the measure of any
initiative such as the Nationwide
Innovation Lab is whether it is
delivering real change.
“Innovation is the tool to improve
things for our stakeholders, whether
that is for a customer or start-up,” says
Wilkinson. “I judge success by the
number of fresh business ideas we
generate, driven by insight, which
then go on to help move the market
forward. Has an idea solved a problem
and taken us forward? Is it bringing value
to the customer and the business?”
He cites the success of Nationwide’s
low-cost N.Band trial which allowed
customers to make contactless
payments using a wristband.
“We rolled this out to gather data
on how people would use wearables
to pay in a contactless way. It
told us we needed to be in this space
and provided the confidence to get
in early with Apple and bring Apple
Pay to market quickly.”
Being a building society rather than
a bank is also helping Nationwide
to build lasting relationships with
disruptors. “Some start-up banks
come to us because they feel we share
the same values and like what we are
doing. Our mission to move the market
forward for the benefit of consumers
doesn’t have to compete with
the needs of shareholders.”
So, what about the future?
“Nationwide is committed to making
its members’ lives easier and
finding ways to help them manage
their money at a time, in a place and
in a way which suits them,” says
Wilkinson. “To do that, innovative
thinking is essential.”