Dr. Sutapa Amornvivat, CEO of SCB Abacus, attended the 2019 IIF Spring Membership Meeting, which was recently held in conjunction with the G20 Ministerial meetings in Tokyo, Japan, to discuss with over 500 high-level executives of public and private sectors from the G20 countries. The panel discussion focused on issues such as the world's segmented financial supervisory, sustainable finance, technological innovation in the financial sector and ways to overcome the challenges related to global demographic changes.
The only Thai panelist on the forum, Dr. Sutapa Amornvivat, Chief Executive Officer of SCB Abacus Co., Ltd., contributed her perspectives on the topic of "Views from the C-Suite: Asia" along with senior financial executives from across Asia. The panelists discussed the challenges and opportunities in the economy, trade uncertainty, China's Belt & Road initiative, regional cooperation and the rise of financial technology.
As the representative from Thailand, which assumes the chair of ASEAN for the year 2019, Dr. Sutapa initiated the panel discussion by addressing two key economic challenges currently facing the ASEAN region. According to the CEO of SCB Abacus, the first challenge is how economic integration and connectivity within the region can be leveraged to maximize ASEAN's potentials as an exporting hub since such integration has played an important role in facilitating the free flow of goods and services, capital and labor, as well as of information and data across the region. The other major challenge in the ASEAN region that needs to be tackled, according to Dr. Sutapa, is the lagging in terms of technological adoption and digital literacy. Both government and private sectors can take part in identifying appropriate technologies for different industries and providing demonstration to accelerate the spread of technology adoption.
Regarding the AI technology which has become increasingly significant to developmental actions across the globe, Dr. Sutapa, as the leader of a pioneer in applying AI and machine learning solutions to tackle the needs of Thai businesses, revealed that automation has been replacing several manual operations in various industries. According to Dr. Sutapa, organizations with data skills are expected to gain leadership in the market, as it has happened in the United Stated where firms with data and technical talent accumulate market power. As of now, industries with the highest adoption of AI are high-technology, telecommunications and financial services. Soon, the AI technology can also be potentially applied to a range of other industries, such as education, agriculture and logistics.
"The current financial revolution with AI is a result of active competitions in the markets. Other tech-related businesses have also noticed the opportunities of AI application and a massive amount of consumer data as key enablers that allow them to enter into the financial sector. Meanwhile, financial service providers are using AI to design solutions that meet specific needs of customers in the financial market, including product personalization, credit scoring, target marketing, and fraud detection. Several leading banks have realized how AI can add values to their current services, and therefore invested enormously in the technology to make sure that their business keep pace with disruption. These financial institutions also support FinTech startup companies rather than seeing them as a threat or competitor. However, great power comes with great responsibility, these firms need to focus on sustainable innovation and responsible execution in order to maximize the benefits of such technologies." Dr. Sutapa concluded.