Change is the New Currency: How Banks Can Thrive, Not Just Survive
Background:
In a world where data is the driving force of progress, adaptability becomes the biggest assets. To stay ahead in the evolving economy a roadmap is to be drawn for clarity, creativity, and competitive advantage for which banks need to fuel innovation along with integrity. The journey toward purposeful transformation happens only if we are able to visualize and forecast change accordingly.
There were birds who used to carry message from one place to another; there were horses who used to carry people from one place to another; there was barter to exchange goods and services from one place to another; now things have vastly changed. Due to technological advancement, most of the things are handled by various apps we use in our mobile. Social media platforms like X, Tiktok, Facebook, Instagram play the major roles in communication; mobile features do the work of brightening and whitening images and transmit images and videos like professional; on-demand mobility apps like Uber, Pathao, Indrive, Yango, play major roles in transportation service; Fintech like Alipay, Amazon, Esewa, Fonepay plays major roles in exchange of goods and services with easier payment facilities; ChatGPT, DeepSeek, has replaced the role of expert’s advices; so are the changes we vividly see in digital platforms that has changed the way people behave.
Due to emerging significance of big data and collective approach on technological innovation, we see unbelievable changes everywhere. Future belongs to those who dare to rethink the present. For instance, let’s have a look in remarkable changes seen in AI driven automobiles today. Emerging technology in self-driving cars include sensors such as cameras, light detection and ranging, point mapping, sonar, radar, lasers and so forth. A human eye can see about 76 meters at night assisted by headlights, but a robocars radar can see about 250 meters today, and across 360 degrees. Machines can react to a potential obstacle on a dry road in about 0.5 seconds, compared with the typical human who takes on average 1.6 seconds. Some autonomous vehicles today are capturing around 1000x more information than our visual cortex is capable of processing. All this suggests that in 10-20 years, when the technology is truly matured, no human driver will be as safe as AI driven automobile. A self-driving car can process more data much faster than a human brain. Only after broadening our vision and accepting change, we can bring out remarkable progress. However, if we stay in normal situation, no progress can be made.
Re-imagining Banking:
Adaptability and resilience are the changes we live in, we make in and we strive with a huge response. From this article we will be able to articulate how visionary companies differs from its comparison companies as well as what underlying factors lead it to extraordinary position so that we can re-imagine what banking ought to be. In such a complex and unpredictable economic scenario, what’s it inside the visionary leaders that sets themselves apart will be discussed in detail from the examples of world’s renowned product like Meta Platform, Domino’s pizza, Tesla and Nepalese popular app, Hamro Patro from various perspectives. Applying lessons from these visionary industries will certainly ease banking transformation.
Meta Platform
Meta (formerly Facebook) epitomizes how companies can stay ahead by embracing this constant flux. We may not know about our preferences, but our social sites read our likes, comments, shares, subscriptions and forecasts our need before we really think we require it. Precisely because technology is at its highest pace and the flow of information has become a new religion, we can’t exist in current economy without accepting and adhering changes.
Rather than competition, we got to work with proper coordination with associated parties and analyze the psychological moonshots more vividly. This is exactly what was done by Meta platform, to make itself unstoppable industry among the rest. Meta acquired 91 other companies including Instagram, ConnectU, WhatsApp, Thread and more. Mark Zukerberg, an American Businessman who co-founded the social media service facebook and its parent company Meta platforms of which he is the Chairman, CEO, and controlling shareholder, once said, ‘we have not once bought a company for the company. We buy companies to get excellent people… In order to have a really entrepreneurial culture one of the key things is to make sure we are recruiting the best people. One of the best ways to do this is to focus on acquiring great companies with great founders.’
This is what world class leading companies does. They analyze what is in the trend and hire the most trending companies as their own companies so that it can make the company more innovative and reduce competition in the market.
Key Takeaway for Bank and Financial Institutions (BFI’s):
Digitization in banks are at high pace. Integrating innovative technologies, such as AI and machine learning, blockchain, cloud computing and digital channels into the banking industry has been essential. The importance of digital transformation in banking lies in its ability to enhance customer experience, streamline operational efficiency and drive business growth.
Collaboration between fintech companies and banks has been a contributing factor to enhancing digital solutions and improving customer experiences. This can be made more effective by continuously exploring customers likes and preferences and their behavioral patterns through digital gateway. Hiring data scientists, behavioral psychologists, AI engineers and proactive IT professionals can help in adopting to cultural changes. Designing our products to match customers changing needs and creating ease of access to the products can have a profound impact on BAFIs.
Domino’s pizza
Successful companies care for the tiny details, bring out tiny little variations than others and work out more on creating long term value chain without compromising on quality and supply chain. Domino’s believes in doing the right thing by putting people first, creating inspired solutions, championing customers and growing and winning together. It has established itself as a leader in the pizza delivery by adhering to its core values of quality, convenience and innovation.
In 2008, Domino’s pizza experienced an interesting operational and customer experience challenge. Customers who were waiting longer than they expected for their pizza would phone Domino’s to ask where it was. The whole process of making pizza would then be interrupted because the person making pizza would be asked why there was a delay by the person who had answered the phone, and the customer would ultimately be given a vague and uncertain answer.
Some pizza chains responded to this challenge by investing in warming bags to keep the pizzas hot, hiring more staffs and drivers, launching money back guarantees on delivery times and offering free breadsticks for slow deliveries, but their phone carried on ringing.
What they were all missing was the psychological frustrations at the heart of the problem. People didn’t want faster delivery, they wanted less uncertainty about their delivery. Domino’s understood that and by using Domino’s pizza tracker which shows customers exactly where their order is, angry phone calls plummeted, customers satisfaction and retention sky rocketed and Domino’s saved and made hundreds of millions in the process. This small psychological insight and innovation it produced changed Domino’s business.
Key Takeaway for Bank and Financial Institutions (BFI’s):
Banking is not where we go but what we do. Today banking functions are embedded in every life rather than traditional banking we experienced. Banks must become tech companies that serves as a software delivering services in real time rather than a mere provider of existing products and services. Facilitating customers by understanding their needs and offering the right products without any uncertainties of delay might give them a bit more space for financial breathing. It can be done by offering personal financial advice, helping with managing money, anticipating spending and saving and forecasting credit assessment on behalf of client.
Tesla
There are lots of sophisticated vehicles but Tesla has become the smart choice. Tesla’s software design is a state of the art that can update vehicle software over the air as if apple updating an iPhone. As car’s became more tech-savvy, Tesla is in the lead. When Henry Ford made the cheap reliable cars people said, what’s wrong with the horse. That was a huge bet he made and it worked. Started in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, Tesla has grown into a major player worldwide. Tesla embarked on its journey with a bold decision to revolutionize the automobile sector through the production of electrical cars. Elon Musk, the visionary entrepreneur passionate about sustainable technology, came on the board as an investor and chairman of the board on 2004 and lead the industry as a CEO since October, 2008.
Tesla models are equipped with a driver assistance system called autopilot, which enables semi-autonomous driving. Tesla’s strategic plan shows how organizations can achieve faster results. It focuses on accelerating the worlds transition to sustainable transportation and energy by recycling, reducing, reusing, repurposing and recovering batteries to preserve raw materials and minimize toxic wastage disposal. Though its advertising is zero, it invests huge volume of its revenue on Research and development activities.
Employee satisfaction is one another major concern Tesla makes in addition to innovation, redesigning and transparency. In a fraction of the time that it’s taken some of their competitors, Tesla has become one of the world’s best-selling car. Tesla doesn’t need to advertise because it’s a brand driven and defined by its absurdity. It is riddled with intentionally absurd features to make in customers, the media and the public talk, laugh and spread the word about the car.
Key Takeaway for Bank and Financial Institutions (BAFI’s):
Having known the essence of change, we can easily invest our time and energy for the global good through any organizations we work from. Banks need to work on creating and working on new ideas continuously, improve quality as an ongoing process, give a personal touch in everything it does, fostering an environment where employees take ownership, challenge conventional thinking, and execute with speed. Sustainable growth, greater profitability, happier clients and better retention are all achievable through a sound data assessment, data governance and data management frameworks to understand and control data. Data has become the new currency that are not listed on balance sheets but is the biggest asset to the BAFI’s. The more we know about our customer’s behavioral pattern, we are able to create best possible customer experience, it can bring out higher customer loyalty.
Hamro Patro
Hamro patro is a Nepali app that has evolved over time from a simple Nepali calendar to a super app offering many services founded by Shankar Raj Upreti in 2010. Its aim was to help Nepalese who were living abroad to keep track of dates, holidays and festivals in the Bikram Sambat (lunisolar) calendar. Since then, it has expanded its services to include Nepali calendar with festivals, Panchanga, Nepali keyboard, Health consultant, News, Radio/ FM streaming, podcasts, horoscopes, astrology, forex rates, vehicle tracking for school buses and so more.
By todays date, Hamro Patro has crossed 10 million plus downloads on Google pay making it one of the most downloaded Nepali apps. Recently, Hamro Patro have launched Hamro Pay in February 2023, which is a digital wallet. Hamro Pay is licensed by Nepal Rastra Bank to operate as a Payment Service Provider (PSP). It offers fund transfer, QR payments (through Nepalpay), utility payments and, mobile top-ups. In addition to being accessible via hamro patro, Hamro Pay has been made a standalone pay app. It has the potential to become a strong contender in Nepal’s fintech ecosystem, especially leveraging the user base of Hamro Patro. In addition to this, Hamro Patro applied for its registration under relevant law in September 2025 as per the directives from Government of Nepal about unregistered social media platforms being banned. It is known for its reliability and smooth user interface.
When English typing was the only option for Nepalese to communicate in digital platform, Hamro patro along with Hamro Keyboard simplified the conversations in Nepali language. Even grandparents who doesn’t understand English could communicate well by making use of Hamro Keyboard. They ask their grandchild to make phone calls visible in Nepali so that they themselves can make a call. As many functions like date, day, time, tithi, date converter, zodiac, news, astrologic guidance are offered by Hamro Patro. Apart from this, hamro pay, hamro health, hamro mart, foreign exchange rate, hotel booking facilities, rate of commodities like gold and silver, details of stock market, accessibility in cost of vegetables, blogs, in-cinemas and upcoming movies are all embedded in a single app because of which Hamro Patro has become popular to Nepalese among all age group. It has also played a good role in financial inclusion.
Key Takeaway for Bank and Financial Institutions (BAFI’s):
By partnering with emerging apps like Hamro Patro, banks can broaden its coverage by providing micro loans, micro saving and bring unbanked or underbanked customers into the formal financial ecosystem. Bankers can leverage digital engagement to better customize services and anticipate user needs. When software is simplified, localized and made easily accessible, most of the banking services can be conveniently delivered through a single channel much like Hamro Patro. People seek banking services, not merely banks. Therefore, banks should design their products and services to ensure frictionless process that balance regulatory compliance with client convenience, creating a seamless and hassle free experience.
Conclusion:
When others see confusions and chaos, some sees clarity on the same thing. Change should not be based on a snapshot of one point of time but a longitudinal period of time. It should be visionary and farsighted. Once people change the way they behave, economic theories become obsolete and new phenomena arises. The rise of artificial intelligence and biotechnology has transformed the world faster than ever before. Humans are rarely satisfied with what they already have. The most common reaction of the human mind to achievement is not satisfaction, but craving for more due to which they are able to attain more daring goals. The mainstream companies which fueled GDP, like General Electrics, Exxon and the Banks are still profitable, but compared with the tech giants like FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google) and BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent), they aren’t going to see the results like they had in the 80’s again.
Members of productive teams should make the effort to understand each other, find a way to relate to each other, and then try to make themselves understood so that they can be more purposeful in serving their products in best possible way. In any organization, understanding and embracing change is crucial to success. Through data-driven strategies, transparency, and customer-centric innovation, companies can achieve not only profitability but also lasting impact and sustainability. Comprehensive cyber security measures to assist digital security and legal frameworks, effective AI and machine learning integration for automation and customer insights and adherence to data privacy regulations are crucial while paving our gateway to digitally inclined economy.
In nutshell, bold industries focus on creating a reality distortion field by making people believe in possibilities that seem beyond current reality. These are done through innovation with persuasion as elaborated in above examples. Those industries operate on the principle that nothing is entirely new but it can always be reimagined and improved. Success often lies in choosing actions that delivers the greatest value with the least effort. When banks design and refine products and services that are simple, efficient, and genuinely valuable, they naturally attract customers and inspire quick action. By learning from industries like Meta, Domino’s, Tesla and Hamro Patro, Banks and Financial Institutions can not only survive uncertainty but thrive amidst the chaos of change through similar practices.
References:
Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari
The Diary of a CEO, Steven Barrtlet
Bank 4.0, Brett King
The laws of human nature, Robert Greene
Various case studies made on Tesla
The Guardain, Stuart Dredge, 18 March 2015
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/list-of-merger-and-acquisitions-by-meta-platforms
https://www.hamropatro.com/apps
