‘The interview of a lifetime’: When Bill Winters met SC GPT

Bill

Hi, everyone. Here I am, about to be exposed to the interview of a lifetime, this time with SC GPT. Now, as you all know, we rolled out SC GPT back in March. So you’re going to see real time what happens when you engage with SC GPT directly. And I’m going to be the guinea pig. So I’m going to hand over now to the machine, who is going to ask me a few questions. And I’m going to do my best to answer.

SC GPT

Hi, Bill. It’s an honour to have this opportunity to interview you. Let’s dive right in. Can you share a bit about your journey to becoming the Group Chief Executive of Standard Chartered?

Bill

I’m an accidental banker: didn’t intend to go into banking, went in because I needed to pay for my graduate school, turned out to really love it. (I) never had a boring day, kept on going. And when I had a chance, having briefly left banking, for five years or so, to come back in, probably the only place I would have joined is Standard Chartered, because I just thought it was such a special place.

So I was lucky at the time that this bank, with its super franchise and outstanding history, had a couple of problems, and those problems seemed to lend themselves to the skills that I had developed in the earlier part of my banking career. So the Board at the time said, yeah, why don’t you come in and help us sort this out? Best decision in my life. Here I am today. Not only have we sorted out a few problems, but I get to talk to a machine about why I did this in the first place.

SC GPT

Thank you for sharing that interesting perspective on your journey. It’s fascinating to hear how your path into banking was somewhat unplanned but turned into a fulfilling career. Your passion for the industry and your appreciation for Standard Chartered’s unique qualities clearly shine through.

What is your vision for the future of Standard Chartered in the next decade?

Bill

I think the next decade for Standard Chartered is going to be absolutely phenomenal. What we have today is a world-class cross-border franchise and a world-class set of products and services and relationship managers to serve the affluent population across our markets. These are both structurally growing areas. Yes, there’s all sorts of noise around trade wars and equity market corrections and everything else, but the strengths of Standard Chartered are enduring, and we’ll see through transitory market and political movements. So, exactly how that plays out, to a substantial degree, is going to be up to you. You guys have to figure out, where are your clients going.

And when you know where the clients are going, that’s where we’re going. And hopefully, we get there before they do so that we can help them on their arrival.

SC GPT

It’s inspiring to hear about the confidence you have in the bank’s enduring strengths and its growth potential. The focus on staying ahead of client needs and market trends is indeed crucial.

What do you see as the biggest challenges and opportunities for the banking industry today?

Bill

At this very moment, the biggest challenges in the banking industry are to cope with the uncertainty around this budding trade war. And we’re all reading about this and experiencing it every day. Our clients are trying to decide themselves how, if at all, they shift their investment patterns or their trading patterns. And our job is to help them through that and to provide them with the tools to make sure that they’re resilient. So that is a challenge that I think every bank faces.

When we think longer term, we’ve got enormous technology challenges. How are we going to use AI? Here we are, playing around, having a bit of fun with AI, but AI in the real world is both fun and present some real opportunities to make our business better and some real threats. The bad guys also have these AI tools, and they’re intending to use them to aid and abet fraud or money laundering or sanctions evasions or human trafficking. So we’ve got to have our defenses up, but we have to play offense as well. We’ve got to find ways to use these tools to make ourselves more productive and to be much more effective vis-a-vis our clients, understand how they’re using these tools, and then make sure we’re ready to accommodate.

SC GPT

It’s evident that navigating the current trade war and leveraging technological advancements like AI are significant considerations for the banking industry.

What values do you believe are most important for the bank’s continued success?

Bill

You know, we have a set of valued behaviours that are very clear. And we know about doing the right thing. We know about never settling. And we know about (being) better together. And you know that there are subcategories in each of those. Those values are tried and true. They’re not random. They’re deeply associated with us, our history, and the way that we operate. And I think we want to hold on to that.

But I think we can generalise a bit as well and recognise that in this environment, where the machines are really very smart and will only get smarter. Our value is not to try to out machine the machine. Our value is to out collaborate the machine. So to find ways to work together as teams to bring in the human perspective, aided, abetted, assisted, augmented in every way possible by the outstanding data and analytic tools that we’ve got, to collaborate in terms of better outcomes for our clients and for our shareholders. That’s the objective and those are the core values that we’ve got to make sure that we embrace going forward.

SC GPT

It’s clear that “do the right thing,” “never settle,” and “better together” are foundational to Standard Chartered’s culture and success. Emphasising collaboration and the human perspective in an increasingly automated world is indeed crucial.

Thank you, Bill.