A new image
Although eCoin wasn’t successful, the team wasn’t disbanded; on the contrary, everyone involved was kept in the company. This was a policy that Chen insisted on.
“Innovation doesn’t necessarily guarantee success, but there will never be success without innovation.” Chen believes that innovation is just an entry ticket to the game. When a company continues to confront the challenges, opportunities will come. And the power to challenge comes from nurturing creative talent.
“How does a firm attract talent with innovative power? It’s simple. Let it become known for innovation, and then people will come of their own accord,” says Chen. When Google or Apple recruits new staff, they don’t need to emphasize their innovation because everyone knows they take innovation seriously. As long as a company continues to pursue innovation and change and maintains a good level of performance, it will attract the creative talent necessary to progress. This creates a positive cycle. It not only meets customers’ needs and generates profits, it also creates a good image for the company. And that attracts more talented people, providing the driving force for continued innovation.
The bank also insists on cultivating its own technical team. E. Sun Bank doesn’t outsource IT projects to other companies as many of its counterparts have been doing. “Outsourcing is certainly more economical. But the people whose talents we foster are able to integrate into the company culture, maintaining and passing on experience. The value we gain is incalculable,” says Chen.
Integrating the physical and virtual
Chen believes that in the future, only older people and those with substantial assets will visit brick-and-mortar banks. They don’t care about high-tech, but they do care about the ambiance in face-to-face meetings. In order to meet the needs of such groups, E. Sun Bank is transforming its brick-and-mortar branches, aiming to integrate artworks and provide more open spaces, expanding VIP service areas, and generally enhancing the good feelings generated by personal service.
What these customers really want is quality human interaction, but not just for their business needs. “To be frank, they’re looking for someone to chat to, or even sometimes to open their hearts to,” says Chen. In this new era, banking employees require not only financial, scientific and technical knowledge, but more importantly they need to be human. They should be able to chat with their clients on anything from investment advice to the arts, from family issues to people’s real-life dramas.
But the younger generation is very different. They tend to avoid brick-and-mortar banks like the plague. They accept new technology and so are willing to try a variety of digital financial services. With Internet technology advancing daily, and the bank’s innovation team continually developing new products to make use of that technology, customers are able to conduct almost any kind of service online except opening a new account.
“In fact, I hope our online users don’t come to our branches,” says Chen. WIth real estate prices and wages continually on the rise, pushing up the costs of running a physical branch, the bank hopes to handle most basic services over the Internet. It’s the future: counter services will be transformed to better serve the VIP client, and customers will be divided into two streams: face to face and virtual.
E. Sun Bank’s Sinbantecyu Branch in Banqiao, New Taipei City, is the bank’s first concept branch, with high ceilings and open spaces that encourage clients to appreciate the artworks and decor. There are no visible touch screens or other digital devices. Instead the emphasis is on face-to-face personalized services, using art and interior decoration to enhance human interaction—and to raise personal banking to another level.
Enhancing security
With innovation, the bank needs a long-term perspective. Behind the integration of face-to-face and virtual services, Chen is extremely concerned about maintaining the security of the bank’s huge database and information platform.
“I once received a threatening letter from a potential hacker demanding a huge sum of money, in return for which he would tell me about a flaw in our security system,” says Chen. But Chen refused to compromise. He personally led the technical team working around the clock for several days until they had located all potential defects and secured the system to his satisfaction.
As well as attacks from hackers, natural disasters also pose a significant threat. During Typhoon Nari in 2001, for example, the electrical systems in the building housing the bank’s information department were destroyed by the serious flooding in downtown Taipei, and the servers were completely shut down. The bank immediately launched emergency backup systems, so that within 24 hours all data had been transferred to a backup facility on the outskirts of the city, and service was restored. “The day after the outage, the only bank on Nanjing East Road providing online services was E. Sun,” says Chen proudly.
Apart from traumatic incidents like these, issues such as ATM connectivity and network congestion often cause Chen severe frustration. But he’s learned a lot from his experiences. On November 11, 2014 (a major shopping day in mainland China), online trading volume exceeded RMB57.1 billion (about NT$287.4 billion) in a single day. With the benefit of a wealth of experience, the bank coped easily with the vast amounts of data passing through its networks.
There are no formulas for inspiring innovation, avers Suka Chen. The path to creativity begins with a continuing investment, but the goal is achieved only through the experience gained from trial and error.