Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria : How the battle for customer experience might mean the banking industry is changing forever

It was a view shared by Colella, who said: 'We think of this as industries to ecosystem, but others still think of it in terms of is it financial services, or is it tech. But the most forward looking companies in the world are not thinking of these artificial mental barriers, and about 'are we supposed to provide this kind of service or that' or are we supposed to build this programme or that, they are thinking of what does my client really need and then solving it.'

And that, she added, meant they are not burdened by having to produce just one 'type' of product, but rather the products and services their customers actually want. She added: 'We will increasingly see a move towards ecosystems that make it hard to classify companies as being in one sector or another.'

Closing the session, Marous asked whether it was hard to create in banking, given the focus on costs.

But for White this wasn't the key driver. He said: 'Honestly, the mindset at BBVA is different. We realise that if you focus on the client, and if you design for their needs in a beautiful way, then the costs of doing that take care of themselves.'

And that, he concluded, meant the battle centred less around who was moving into which industry vertical, but rather that the focus needed to be entirely on whether you are predicting what the customer will want, and then building it - irrespective of whether it was a product linked directly to money, or a product designed to help the client better understand the data they generate.