Telecommunication and Banking: Intertwined Sectors.

Byline: NAZIR AHMED SHAIKH

Currently, the telecom industry is facing new opportunities and challenges presented by a dynamic regulatory, technological, and competitive environment. These trends are shaping the telecommunications industry, from more competitive broadband markets to cyber security in the 5G era. The telecom sector continued to make progress in augmenting its network capacity with additional fiber and wireless deployments to meet the constant demand for higher-speed networks. The potential for more competitive broadband markets. Faster mobile and fixed wireless connections create more viable alternatives to wired connections and new opportunities for bundled service offerings and business models for service providers. With ever-expanding options for high-quality communication and internet services from telecom, cable, wireless, and satellite internet providers, consumers will enjoy enhanced flexibility in purchasing and consuming services in the coming years.

In the third year of a global pandemic, the financial services industry appears to be acclimating to a new reality. Many temporary measures put in place are now poised to become permanent, and a new industry structure is emerging. While the industry may have averted a major crisis, it is still underperforming its pre-financial crisis levels. It has lagged many other industries-and a host of new competitors-in several dimensions, including financial performance, customer experience, and embracing new business, operating, and collaboration models.

Retail banks have been eager to push digital channels, such as fixed and mobile, as an important part of their operations. Today, all banks are facing the digital age with a broad set of solutions, from pure channel adaptation to radical changes in their business models. In parallel, telecom companies have been adapting their customer relationships or converging communication and media offerings. With such an ambition they've been offering a full array of additional services to their clients, including financial services such as money transfer, payment or ticketing. However, this integration of financial services into the portfolio of telecom companies has been slower and less successful than expected. Part of this non-dynamic convergence has been due to the barriers to entry to the banking industry, especially considering the deposit insurance system and regulation, control over flows of capital (payments) and capillarity of the branch networks.

However, these...