Sber’s transformation into a tech company becomes key topic at Sibos 2021

The world’s premier financial services conference, Sibos 2021, takes place on October 11-14.  David Rafalovsky, Sberbank executive vice president, Sber CTO, and head of Technology,  participated in this year’s event. He held a conversation about how Sber transformed from a  financial institution into a tech company.

During the conversation Rafalovsky spoke about Sber’s experience of building its own  ecosystem, offering clients a variety of services, from ordering taxis to watching movies.  According to Rafalovsky, growth opportunities are limited in banking, so financial institutions  have to go beyond offering standardized financial services in order to grow. Against a backdrop  of global digitalization, it is not enough for clients to simply have quality banking – they need  more, both at the product level and at the emotional level. One of the tools to achieve this is  through virtual assistants.

David Rafalovsky, executive vice president, Sberbank; CTO Sber; head of Technology:

“The decision to design our own Salute virtual assistants, who help clients carry out complex  transactions between bank channels and create a unique customer experience, had a  synergistic effect. It was important for us to establish a connection with the client at the emotional level, which was made possible with a multimodal architecture in which voice, touch,  gesture, and computer vision are brought together to provide amazing user experience”.

Rafalovsky also noted that assistive technology will be omnipresent in a few years. Virtual  assistants will be available on various devices and are likely to take on a more complete form,  e.g., they may appear as holograms complementing a voice. These are assistants people will  trust, nurture, and be friends with.

Sibos is an annual international conference, exhibition, and networking event organized by  SWIFT for the financial industry. The event aims to discuss the most relevant issues facing the  financial community. Sberbank is a traditional participant at Sibos. In 2021, the topic of the  conference is Recharging Global Finance, addressing how the financial ecosystem can  reassess and reenergise to meet client, regulatory and societal demands of the future.