Disruption is a word that is now becoming synonymous with modern business. The finance industry has not escaped it – from fintechs to established brands, disruption is rife as initiatives like Open Banking look to shake up the market place and create even more opportunity.

The traditional reaction is to gear up for the fight. But what if you could be your own disruptor? Using a unique framework lens and drawing on examples from the finance industry as well as others (some highly unexpected), this session will be a journey of what disruption really means, how to define an existing strategy and find the hidden gems in alternate positions.

Disrupting your own brand and the industry at the same time is full of opportunities, challenges and roadblocks. But being your own competitor is a strategy that can pay off handsomely and already has for some in the finance industry.

Hear from finance services expert Peter Turner, who has worked with finance brands the likes of EFTPOS, American Express, firstdirect and RICOH Financial Services.

“On 20 July 2017, the Hon Scott Morrison MP commissioned the Open Banking Review, chaired by Mr Scott Farrell who was asked to recommend the most appropriate model for Open Banking in Australia. By giving customers greater access to and control over their banking data, Open Banking has the potential to transform the way in which customers use and benefit from the banking system,” reported Treasury.gov.au.

That report was completed to generally overly positive reviews when it was released in December 2017. Open Banking promises to even the playing field of the competitive set of banks, give consumers more choice and make it easier for them to switch if they feel it appropriate.

Essentially liberating customer data, it has the potential to make the job of the marketer in the finance industry even more key to the overall success of the business than it already is.

So what should marketers be aware of when it comes to the establishment of Open Banking in Australia? Can we learn anything from the UK? What do we already know? And will finance marketing in the near future become an all out war amongst brands as they grapple to keep fickle customers if Open Banking is rolled out in Australia?

The way consumers deal with finance has inherently changed over the recent past, let alone the last few decades. Cashless payments, online banking, apps, controllable super, the list goes on. Now Open Banking looks like it could completely shake up the market.

Despite this, there is an outward lack of focus from financial services in terms of marketing to children and young adults. The days of the Happy Dragon Club and the Dollarmites are still here. If they were cartoons they would be some of the longest running cartoons in history.

So what is the youth market like for financial services? Is there a reason why it is being overlooked? Does Open Banking mean it is now more important than ever to focus on long-term customers, which means building relationships with them early on?

In this panel, industry experts with financial youth marketing experience will discuss the current environment, how important young consumers are, how they can be attracted and whether the industry is overlooking them.

Marketing and product are no longer separable, particularly as the finance sector moves forward into a bold, new era.

Sharing evidence of observed consumer behaviour, this session will look at the way financial services businesses need to evolve their approach to create meaningful connections with a skeptical audience.

What are the key tactics? How should the industry leverage new technology platforms and offerings? What are the key customer concerns and how does the industry solve them?

A panel of experts will look at the expectations and needs of the new value-driving consumers and overlay best practice from both traditional financial organisations and fintechs.

Last year was the year cryptocurrency came of age – the year that your next door neighbour was just as likely to have bought into the market as a tech-savvy finance fanatic. It’s down to a number of exchanges that have been set up to make trading cryptocurrency easier for average consumers.

Despite this, the world’s major banks and financial institutions are still fence sitting when it comes to cryptocurrency. Recently Lloyds Banking Group, JP Morgan, Bank of America and Citi all announced bans on their customers purchasing cryptocurrencies with their credit cards.

While the Commonwealth Bank is the first Australian bank to follow, many other local banks made brief statements about the US and UK bans and left the door open for future action. From an outside perspective, it may seem like this is traditional publishers shouting down digital opportunity all over again, but is it?

Finder.com.au co-founder, Fred Schebesta, recently launched HiveEx.com, a cryptocurrency over-the-counter trading brokerage service that works with some of the world’s largest cryptocurrency liquidity providers and deals in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Ripple.

In this session, Schebesta will explain what the opportunity in cryptocurrency is from the perspective of an entrepreneur, how he has marketed the services of HiveEx.com, what the challenges are in working with cryptocurrency and why the big financial names have dealt with cryptocurrency from a distance.

It’s no secret the financial services industry’s reputation is under scrutiny. In a Royal Commission year this is only set to increase, with greater focus on what consumers want and expect from the organisations they trust with their most prized commodity, money. With leading businesses already under the spotlight, what does this mean more broadly for the financial services industry and the brands within it? At Mumbrella Finance 2018, WE Buchan would like to present its session; Brand Positioning is Dead: Why The Finance Industry Is Ripe For Dislocation.

Informed by WE Buchan’s own global proprietary research, Brands In Motion (BIM), our presentation will explore how the traditional view of brand positioning, which assumes a static view of consumer perceptions, is no longer relevant. Brand motion on the other hand takes into account the influence of broader environmental factors, underlying consumer expectations and technology enabled disruption.

We will expose four realities that financial businesses can harness for the mutual benefit of their brand and customers. Attendees will be able to use our interactive app to look specifically at the emotional and rational drivers impacting brand perception for the finance industry. This interactive session will enable marketers to get hands on with our Motion Matrix app and be able to create more specific communication strategies, influencing emotional and rational factors around them, and harnessing forward momentum to achieve a measurable shift in perceptions.

The team from Yell Creative exclusively reveal the results of this year’s survey of financial services marketers. 2018’s survey features updates on the trends around trust in financial services and looks at the current state of financial services marketing for women and by women.

It was almost 10 years ago that Greater Building Society (now Greater Bank) shocked the finance services industry, and the marketing world, by announcing Jerry Seinfeld as the star of its new commercials. For a global celebrity that barely did any paid brand promotions, appearing in a commercial for a regional Australian mutual bank was truly random.

The industry has changed substantially since 2009 when the first Seinfeld commercial aired and so has the bank, including its name change and new branding.

But what did Seinfeld do for the brand and what has it done in the aftermath to become what it is today? Can one person, no matter how famous, really take a regional bank into the mainstream?

In this session, Greater Bank’s Head of Marketing and Customer Experience, Matthew Hingston, explains the brand today, how it got there and what the results were of its sudden fame.

For as long as records go, New Zealand has always been the number one source of short-term visitors. Until now. China has recently claimed top spot, and a large amount of them are returning to stay.

With the ever increasing population of Chinese Australians, how are financial institutes engaging with customers in and from China? After all, they are often the first services that new long-stay consumers look for.

From marketing to new customers across multiple channels, to boosting engagement with existing customers, there is a lot to think about when it comes to communicating well with Chinese consumers. Cardless cash out via social media, personalised content marketing, mobile lead cross product promotions, WeChat mini-programs to manage personal finance and loan applications, family bundle bank accounts. The options are many but are financial services brands really engaging as well as they could with this growing demographic?

In this session, learn how Australian financial services can create deeper engagement and develop real customer relationships. Translating content into Chinese is only the beginning.

Australia has long been proud of its multicultural population. While the focus lately has shifted to an Asian migration, the statistics still show that multicultural marketing needs to encompass many backgrounds.

South Africa, Germany and Italy, for example, are still some of the largest migrant groups represented in Australia. Immigration in Australia goes far beyond one group.

In its latest campaign, ‘Australian as it gets,’ CGU Insurance shone a light on migrant small business owners and their contribution to Australia. The campaign was based off the ‘CGU Migrant Small Business Report’ which found that one out of three small businesses were owned by migrants and 83% of migrant business owners did not own a business before moving to Australia.

In this session, Kate Wellard, Marketing Director at CGU will discuss the findings of the report and the idea behind the campaign. Find out if it paid off and how CGU Insurance will continue to communicate with migrants to Australia.

It used to be one of the least thought about aspects of a consumer’s financial security until the Australian Government allowed consumers to choose their own super fund in 2005.

More than 10 years on, there is stiff competition between established players and more consumer awareness about their choices. But recently, fresh brands have begun to shake up the superannuation sector even more, offering an easy to use interface, promoting investment options that are simple to understand and doing it in a fresh and energetic way.

So what have these brands brought to the table, how have super funds in general developed consumer emotion and involvement around their products and what can financial marketers take away from this?

Are the super options we are seeing now really the super of the future?

Formerly GE Money, Latitude Financial has some big goals. It already has 2.6 million customers across Australia and New Zealand and is aiming to be the best independent financial services provider in the region.

The company offers a full suite of financing solutions across sales finance, credit cards, personal loans and auto loans through multiple distribution channels, including in-store through merchant partners, online, mobile, telephone and third party intermediaries.

At the end of 2016 it announced Hollywood actor Alec Baldwin would feature in its campaigns. He fronted TVCs, outdoor ads, print, digital and more for the business.

A year and a half on, has his presence shifted the perception of Latitude Financial and is it any closer to achieving its goal? What else has Latitude Financial done to increase its footprint in ANZ?

In this session, CMO Caroline Ruddick will explain the strategy, challenges and opportunities the brand has met along the way.