Client Intelligence Hub Qorus Reinvention Awards - MEA 2025 - Winner

Hope fuels lives and business growth fuels an economy. With more than four million registered businesses in South Africa, our economy is heavily dependent on the success and growth that emerge from the business sector. South Africa's economic outlook is challenging. Moody lowered its GDP growth forecast to 1.5% for 2025. Despite our businesses operating in an increasingly difficult and uncertain environment, the nation's dreams remain unchanged. Businesses are still expected to grow and remain the haven for the livelihood of many homes. What each business chooses to do next may be an essential step to accelerate their growth and impact many lives meaningfully.

Understanding the need for relevant and timely financial advice, Standard Bank is intentional about how data and machine learning technology can be used to simplify and accelerate growth for business across all landscapes in South Africa. Data and artificial intelligence have changed the financial services landscape and enhanced our ability to partner with our clients in a manner that makes them feel unique and appreciated.

In the past, significant reliance was placed on cumbersome processes and the cognitive abilities of our Relationship team to identify and service our client's needs. With limited access to data and large client portfolio sizes, this approach limited our ability to see a consistent and wholistic view of our clients’ business and potential opportunities. The result was an uneven client experience.

Inspired by the transformative potential of data science, behavioural science and artificial intelligence in financial services, we recognised the opportunity to revolutionise our client engagements to simplify business growth for every client. Client growth is a true partnership, enabled through proactive and personalised engagements, which is deeply embedded in the values of being a people-driven business.

To meaningfully advance our ability to provide every client with a unique growth experience, we've developed an analytical and personalised platform, called the Client Intelligence Hub: This powerful platform was designed to provide the user with a seamless experience to view the client through two custom layers.

1) The client recommendation layer is called, Smart², providing intel in the form of personalised and behaviorally informed client conversations. A holistic view of individual client needs is derived from internal and external data sources to enable proactive client and portfolio management. Since its launch in 2019, clients gained access to ~ 90 types of personalised client recommendations, including near real-time events, with the assistance of the Relationship team.

2) The client insights layer is called, SmartPage, visualising comprehensive data and client insights to provide the user with an in-depth understanding of their client portfolios. With more than 20 different types of client insights, compiled from various data sources, this platform enables thorough preparation for meaningful client engagements.

We released significant advancements to the Client Intelligence Hub in 2024 and 2025, incorporating more than 20 strategic additions.

1) We launched an omni-channel capability, leveraging new GenAI capabilities, to enable more frequent and satisfying personalised engagements. 2) We introduced data-driven acquisition and retention recommendations. 3) We included bespoke lending recommendations to support business opportunity and growth 4) We elevated Behavioural Science principles on the platform to enable our Relationship team to better relate to our clients and their unique environment. 5) We enhanced built-in capabilities to promote and simplify collaboration among our business partners to service each client uniquely and efficiently. 6) We enhanced built-in measurement capabilities to enable more effective adoption and focus on execution. 7) We redesigned analytical components to provide a viewing experience that is more flexible and visually intuitive, using principles from Behavioural Science.

The Client Intelligence Hub delivered strong commercial outcomes in 2024, supporting the growth of 160 000 businesses in South Africa, through client engagements that were proactive, client-centric and frequent to promote an excellent client experience.

Smart^2 provided approximately 500,000 relevant client engagements and contributed approximately 30% of New Account Revenue, positively impacted client entrenchment, and had a 4x impact in lowering client attrition rates.

The adoption metrics on SmartPage has further substantiated our approach, with 80% of our Relationship teams actively using the solution, and 70% citing that it provides valuable intel to prepare for their client engagements.

The Client Intelligence Hub is a product of Personalisation, designed to simplify and accelerate business growth that would fuel the South African economy.