Artificial intelligence and robo-advisory, distributed ledger technology and smart contracts, data analytics and cloud computing, are only some examples of the available technologies to build the digital bank of the future. Of course, as supervisors, we need to make sure that financial stability and prudential soundness are preserved, while at the same time allowing for technological innovation. Dedicated interfaces (or Application Programming Interfaces as they are widely known), need not remain just a regulatory requirement for banks, built to "tick-the-box". These interfaces, could prove to be much more than just a regulatory requirement to serve payment institutions, due to their ability to seamlessly integrate banking services into an e-commerce experience, providing additional outlets for banking products and opportunities to enhance one's customer base. Their "open architecture" nature enables such services to become scalable and economically sustainable even when they are offered through small e-commerce sites with a limited sales volume. In addition to rationalising the cost structure, banks need to identify avenues to enhance their income capacity. 4/5  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  Last, but no least, consolidation can further enhance efficiency through reaping costcutting synergies created through economies of scale. Nevertheless, this will be determined by market forces and the shareholders of credit institutions. Let me now conclude. The transformation of banks' business model towards digitilisation may give them the opportunity in the long term to enhance their profitability by rationalising their cost structure and providing more efficient, tailor - made services to their customers.
Digitalisation in banks could be the solution to a number of issues, such as containment of costs and also keeping up with the new profile of consumers which are more technology-savvy and have less time to spend for making bank visits. Widely available digital innovations such as e-IDs, e-signatures and digital on-boarding solutions are available to facilitate the digitalisation of banks. To this I would like to note an initiative I undertook at the CBC to create a digital customer onboarding platform for banks in Cyprus. After a number of bilateral meetings with banks, a large number of them have confirmed they will join lt. The technology we will use will be scalable. The Central Bank of Cyprus is aiming to publish the tender for the technology provision in the very near future. EU-based banks should optimise their customer experience altogether, bearing in mind that the Single Market is borderless especially when it comes to digital services. For digitalisation to really deliver on efficiency, the digital strategy needs to be part of a wider reshaping of the business model and a streamlining of internal organisation. There aren't many examples of banks which have taken sufficient advantage of the Single Market opportunity, but, on the contrary, quite a few EMI's have done so and have acquired an important market share outside their home member-state, with the Cypriot market not being an exception.