Year: 2022
Winner: Scotiabank
Consolidating gains
In 2021, LatinFinance recognized the efforts made by Scotiabank Chile to digitalize its
operations by granting it the Digital Transformation of the Year award. Having consolidated
the re-engineering, the investments have borne fruit in the past year and its achievements have
earned it the award for Digital Bank of Year in 2022.
Over the past 18 months, the bank has focused on the implementation of a modernization plan
with the aim of automating traditional banking activities using technologies such as robotics
process automation, artificial intelligence and data analytics. The bank now has the
infrastructure in place to offer ever more digital products and services to clients, according to
CEO Diego Masola.
“The challenge is to remain at the top. We need to disrupt and not be disrupted,” he says.
The task of steering the modernization was given to a newly created department that reports to
Masola. Progress has been fastest in the retail side of the business, where more than 80% of all
sales are done via digital channels. Ninety-two percent of all account holders now use digital
banking.
Scotiabank Chile is now able to react quickly to market trends and launch products designed to
increase its efficiency. One example is a modular app that will be available early in 2023 and
that will enable clients to select the products they want digitally, creating menus that are tailormade for their needs.
A series of one-step solutions is also being launched gradually to allow clients to perform tasks
traditionally handled by branches. All it takes is for the customer to press a button on their
mobile banking app, Masola says. There are already five such buttons avail-able for digital
clients, and the number will soon rise to 30. Once the system reaches full-throttle, 80% of all
branch services will be accessible this way. The feature has already improved NPS ratios by
18% and contact centers receive 25% fewer calls than they did prior to its implementation.
Digitalization is important for attracting and serving new clients but also for boosting
efficiency, and Scotiabank Chile’s efficiency ratio has improved, falling to 38.5% from 40% in
one year, the CEO says.
“When we replace an analogic with a digital process, we decommission the old one. This way,
we accelerate the benefits brought in by the new process and increase efficiency,” Masola says.
The upgrades also help to reduce the cost of transactions and services. Scotiabank has a pilot
project with Apple Pay to issue digital cards, and expects to make it available on its app soon.
Once that happens, Masola says, digital cards will be issued in just three minutes and at a cost
of less than $10.
Another example of the agility Scotiabank Chile has gained through the digital transformation
is that cur-rent accounts in dollars can now be opened digitally.
“In 60 days, between September and November, we designed a product, launched it, and
opened 90,000 accounts. Before that, we had 8,000 dollar accounts,” he says. “We want to be
as efficient as a fintech. This is a process that takes many years and must be pursued
continuously. We need to always find new ways of doing things more efficiently.”