Scotiabank is launching a new “Digital Factory,” as it seeks to redefine banking in the digital age.
The innovation hub in downtown Toronto will be fully operational by mid-2016. It will house around 350 employees including newly created roles such as user-experience designers and data scientists. Core teams, such as an analytics team, will be housed at the Digital Factory long term. Others will come in for a limited time to develop specific initiatives.
According to Scotiabank, the Digital Factory will allow the bank to collaborate with FinTec providers and start-ups, so they can deliver “reimagined customer experiences in financial services.”
“Technology has become so critical to meeting our customer expectations that we felt business as usual just wouldn’t do,” said Michael Zerbs, executive vice-president and co-head, information technology at Scotiabank. “We needed a more fundamental change in terms of how we use technology and deliver against those customer expectations.”
Scotiabank has already begun work in this area with its three “Rapid Labs,” in which business and technology teams work on making banking easier for customers. One initiative that came out of Rapid Labs was a digital solution to improve the mortgage application process, which is currently being tested in a number of branches.
Having a separate space outside the bank’s headquarters will also help Scotiabank attract new talent, said Zerbs. “While we need new talent, we also recognize that some of those team members require a different working environment,” he said.
“We felt in order to attract new talent, the concept of the factory, creating a new collaborative work environment, and offering a different way of developing and co-creating together with the business was really important as well.”
Scotiabank isn’t the only financial institution in Canada to create an innovation hub. Earlier this year, CIBC partnered with Toronto’s MaRS Discovery District to develop new banking innovations, from mobile and digital to process improvements and future concepts.
