Powerhouse Talks by DigiGem | Episode 02
Collaboration, customer intelligence, and trust-driven innovation
The financial industry is no longer divided into “traditional banks” and “innovative fintechs.” The strongest growth today comes from institutions that combine trust, technology, and deep customer understanding into one ecosystem.
For the second episode of Powerhouse Talks, I had an insightful conversation with Tigran Mkhitaryan, PhD, who brings nearly 20 years of international banking experience, including senior roles at HSBC, leading strategy at FastBank and currently transitioned into an independent investor role in self-directed portfolio management.
One of the first ideas that stood out during our discussion was how differently the future of banking is starting to look.
“Banks should not compete with neobanks and fintech companies but rather establish cooperation and partnership,” he explains. “Traditional banks and fintechs are interdependent.”
And honestly, that changes the entire conversation around fintech growth.
Instead of asking who will replace whom, the real question becomes: who understands customers better, moves faster, and builds experiences people actually want to use?
Today, customers no longer compare institutions only by reputation or regulation, they compare experiences.
Fast onboarding, transparent communication, personalized services, and seamless digital interactions are becoming the new standard.
Technology Alone Is No Longer a Competitive Advantage
Another point from the conversation that stayed with me was Tigran’s perspective on technology in banking markets where most institutions rely on similar infrastructures and systems.
In smaller markets especially, technological differentiation is becoming increasingly difficult.
Tigran compared this to a historical retail phenomenon:
“One department store introduced escalators to attract customers, but soon all stores installed escalators. Eventually, nobody gained a competitive advantage, it became simply the cost of staying afloat.”
The same dynamic exists in banking today. Core technology and digital services are quickly becoming industry standards rather than differentiators.
What truly creates competitive advantage now is customer understanding – how institutions analyze behavior, personalize services, and build products around genuine client needs.
Customer Understanding Is the Real Growth Driver
One of the strongest themes throughout our conversation was the importance of customer intelligence.
Financial institutions already hold enormous amounts of customer data – spending habits, frustrations, financial goals, behavioral patterns. Yet surprisingly little product development is built directly around those insights.
“The breakdown occurs when the connection between financial institutions and customers is weak,” says Tigran. “Very rarely is product development based on the data already stored in secure servers.”
The institutions seeing the strongest growth today are the ones investing deeply in customer journey analysis, feedback loops, and hyper-personalized experiences instead of building products based on assumptions.
And this is where many financial companies still underestimate marketing.
The real role of marketing is not only promotion. It is understanding people deeply enough to identify unmet needs before building the product itself.
Today’s Customers Expect Invisible Banking
Customer expectations have fundamentally changed over the last decade.
“The new generation prioritizes time efficiency, convenience, and round-the-clock digital services,” Tigran says.
Modern users want financial services that feel instant, intuitive, and effortless, without unnecessary complexity or hidden conditions.
With the rise of AI, decentralized finance, and tokenization, those expectations are accelerating even further.
This means the strongest financial products are no longer the ones with the most features, but the ones that remove friction completely.
During the interview, one idea became especially clear: the best products today feel almost invisible to the user. Not because they are easy to build, but because they are built around something real – real behaviors, real frustrations, and real needs.
As Tigran noted,
“Trust should be a default feature, as there will be no hidden terms.”
Why Strong Products Still Fail
Many fintech companies still build strong products that never gain meaningful traction. According to Tigran, the issue is rarely the technology itself.
“Exceptional products should effectively address genuine customer pain points. The demand for a product should drive its supply.”
The conversation naturally shifted into something many companies overlook: products fail not because marketing is weak, but because the connection between the product and the customer problem is weak.
When a product genuinely solves a real issue, customers naturally recognize its value.
Research, customer feedback, and data-driven product development are becoming essential foundations for long-term growth.
Or, as Tigran put it:
“Great products don’t need marketing – they already solve a real need, and customers feel that.”
The Future of Finance Belongs to Collaboration
If there was one central takeaway from this conversation, it is that the future of finance will not belong solely to the fastest banks or the most innovative fintechs.
It will belong to the institutions that understand people best.
The next era of growth will be defined by collaboration, customer intelligence, trust, and products designed around real human behavior.
Because in modern finance, growth no longer comes simply from offering more services.
It comes from understanding people better than anyone else.