Standard Chartered PLC (STAN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Morgan Stanley's Asia Bank's Digitalization Virtual Conference. Thank you very much for joining us. My name is Nick Lord. And I cover Hong Kong and ASEAN Financials for Morgan Stanley. I'm very happy today to be joined by Deniz Guven, who is the CEO of Mox, which is Standard Chartered's Hong Kong-based virtual bank. Deniz has been running the Mox project for Standard Chartered for a little over 2 years. And prior to that, he was the Global Head of Digital at Standard Chartered. Prior to Standard Chartered, he's had senior roles at BBVA, Garanti Bank and has also worked with HSBC, QNB and DemirBank. Deniz, thanks very much for joining us this morning.

Thank you, Nick.

Thank you. So we're going to have a chat for about 20 minutes, 25 minutes or so, and then we'll open the session up to Q&A. So my first question to you, Deniz, is can you talk a little bit about the business case for Mox? And can you talk a little bit about what you think you can achieve with Mox that Standard Chartered couldn't achieve as a stand-alone brand or as a banking business on its own?

Sure. Thank you very much. Nick, as you said, we started the business as a project 2 years ago. But of course, in the last 2 years, we did a lot of different things to build this new bank, Mox. We started as a separate company. This was really a small company, I'm talking about a couple of people. And then we apply for the license. We got our license. We found our new JV partners. We built the bank from scratch with the new technology stack with the new culture and with a lot of new things to create Mox. Mox Bank, actually, we launched it 70 days ago, almost 2 months ago. Today, we got more than 50,000 customers. And we are getting a lot of traction from the market. Every day, many people, they download, and they start to use Mox directly. The idea of Mox, in the beginning, of course, now it's Standard Chartered, now we have a huge and very strong franchise in Hong Kong. And Hong Kong is extremely important for us. But on the other hand, of course, now we saw a lot of opportunities, also trends for Hong Kong. In 2017, HKMA announced this virtual banking licenses, we decided the discussion of this, and we asked 2 questions to ourselves. The first one is, can we defend our market from non-traditionals with our existing model. And also, the second question was, can we attack this market or other markets with our existing model. I think this was enough starting points. And at that point, we decided to create something different. And the most important thing is people, when you look at different markets, not only Hong Kong, they call us virtual bank, challenger bank, narrow banks, digital banks, but how we call this, it's a bit different because this is our future operating model. Yes, we are using digital. We are using technology intensively, but we are in the trust business. And to be honest, what we are doing is it's a future operating model.

Okay. And this is a future operating model for the entire bank, do you think? Or some in the build-outs for Mox?

I think at Standard Chartered, we are also in testing right now, and we are seeing the opportunities here. When I look at Mox right now, I think there are really interesting steps that I can share with you. For example, in Hong Kong, opening a bank account, sometimes it can be quite difficult. And to be honest, we heard a lot of different things and different problems and pain points from our customers. And our starting point was how can we understand the real pain points of Hong Kong and we did a huge ethnographic research in Hong Kong in the beginning, and we identified more than 80 different pain points in retail banking. And one of them, for example, was in an onboarding process or opening a bank account. Today, if you want to open a bank account in Mox, the average time is 8 minutes. But just 2 weeks ago, one of our customers, he onboarded himself in 2 minutes 47 seconds. So imagine, you can open a bank account in less than 3 minutes, and this bank account is not a prepaid account. I'm talking about a proper banking account with a card, with the transactions, with a saving account, with many different features. I think that is one of the most important thing that we see in the market. Why? Because we are also learning from this new operating model -- future operating model, and I believe that we can implement some of the things to some other markets in Standard Chartered. So this is the idea. But as a separate operating model here, we are trying to achieve something different, of course.

Okay. And when you do your survey, I mean, you just spoke about, I guess, service pain points across the region. And I guess or across Hong Kong -- and I guess when you look about retail banking business, there's also, I mean, somebody would argue pricing pain points as well for a lot of traditional retail banking in Hong Kong. Where do you think the opportunity for you is? Is it the service? Or is it the pricing? I mean, how do you think about that balance?

Hong Kong is still, and it was -- it's a mature market in terms of products. And also pricing-wise, of course, there are a lot of different things are happening in Hong Kong right now. But at the same time, when I look at the market, we can find a lot of products from a lot of different banks. However, when I look at the market, it's really difficult to talk about the end-to-end digital services. So service mentality, it's super missing here in Hong Kong. And the banks, mainly the financial institutions, they have digital channels. So this is important, Nick. Why? Because we are not talking about channels right now. We are talking about a separate stand-alone businesses. So that's why there was a huge opportunity for us to create an end-to-end digital service. And of course, not under this ethnographic research, what we saw people in Hong Kong, they want to start to save. They want to spend differently. They want to invest differently. So that's why we saw a lot of different things. And what we are doing we are building -- Mox is a service-led bank. It's not a product-led bank. We are doing micro innovations on the product level. For example, our cards. Right now, we have numberless cards in Hong Kong, and it was Asia first. And why we did that? We need that there was an extra sensitivity on the customer side, especially on the security. So that's why we gave our customers numberless cards. There's no CVV, no expire date. And honestly, right now, customers, they love these cards, they love using it in a different way. And the mobile app itself, it's like in a remote controller for them. There is one thing we learned that I can share, as an example, from our ethnographic research. We look at the things not separately or in a silo way. How we look at the things, honestly. So savings and spending, it's one thing that we try to give the customers because while you are saving, you are saving for the future spending. While you are spending, you are thinking about your savings. So that's why our service approach, we combine all these things. We are giving our customers the flexibility that they can get interest rate every day. Every day, every morning, we can get the interest rate. You can see it on your app and with a gentle notification plus. And also, while you are spending, you are getting cash back directly into your saving account, and you can start to save with that spending as well, spending cash back. I think what we are trying to do, we are trying to combine the things together instead of creating silo internally in the organization, also on the customer's mind.

Okay, okay. And then when you think about competition, and we can go back and talk a little bit about the products later on. And the service point, I mean, who is your competition? Is it that you can take a lot of share from the existing traditional banks because that service culture doesn't exist in the same way? How much of a threat do you think you're going to encounter from the virtual banks? And to what extent is there a customer base you're attacking as Mox different from a traditional bank sort of customer base? I know are you therefore finding you end up day-to-day competing more with the other virtual banks that have been launched?

Yes. So as Mox Bank, we are targeting mass and emerging customers, traditional segmentation model. But of course, when I look at the customer base right now, we have a customer of 18 years old. We have also a customer who is 88, okay? So I think the new business models, new operating models, they are a bit less seamless. So that's why now we call it generation box. You can be 18 or 80, it's not important. People they come and use it. And especially the COVID time, in every market, everybody starts to use this kind of digital service. And also every age groups, they are okaying of using this kind of digital services right now. Back to your question of competition. Of course, there are some -- there are traditional banks now who are quite big and also they are strong here. Also, there are some new players in the market, non-traditionals coming from -- mainly from Mainland. Our competition could be honest for us, the most important thing is getting the hard share before the market share, Nick. And the definition of hard share, for example, we are quite new, right, 2 months old. And today, when I look at app store, for example, we got 4.8 stars rating out of 5 stars. And there is no bank or any financial institutions in Hong Kong right now who has 4.8 stars. And same thing for Google Play. And this seems that -- this shows that there's an interesting and different experience coming from Mox. And how I see the competition? Of course, we are getting a lot of customers from non-traditional players. But the game is not like let's compete with the new players only. Of course, there's a huge potential and underserved customer base in Hong Kong. This underserved customer base, they are looking for new services, which are in a fully digital. And I think Mox is answering a lot of pain points of these underserved customers that they are looking for in our new services.

Okay. And I mean, when you think about Mox, and I guess you come from a banking tradition. And I guess, ultimately, some of the new virtual banks who probably come from a nonbanking tradition in terms of the onus ownership. And I know that you've got nonbank owners as well. So it's not like you're 100% a bank. And I guess, ultimately, the question is does your Mox proposition, which is, I guess, a stand-alone bank, however, innovative and customer service focused it is, how does it stack up when I'm offering other services around the banking service? And the risk that banking, I guess, fades into the background, and I get more tangible products out of a platform. How do you think about that in terms of stand-alone bank versus platform and which banking is just a part of it?

I think, Nick, it's a very good question. We are a bank, right? And as I said, this is not a fintech, this is not a platform, we are a licensed bank and licensed new bank in Hong Kong. And what we are trying to do, we have a web product set right now, and we are building services on top of it. And we will continue to bring new products to this platform. We can talk about the products, what is coming for the next 6 to 12 months. But before that, I want to share one thing, what is important for Mox. And in the Mox operating model, what we see, there is one critical or really vital thing that we have in our JV partners. We are a separate entity. Yes, we got JV partners, one is PCCW Hong Kong Telecom, other one is Trip.com. I think they are bringing a lot of values to Mox. I can share 2 different things about the values that they are bringing. The first one is, if you're a new bank, if you're a new entity, if you're a new business, you need distribution channels. So distribution channels are super important, and Hong Kong Telecom, they have more -- PCCW Group, they have more than 4 million customers in Hong Kong out of 7.4 million population. So they are bringing a lot of opportunities to Mox to reach out to the customer base. Same thing from Trip.com. Unfortunately, travel is not popular in these days except to the occasion. But even on the occasion side, in Hong Kong, Trip.com and Mox, we work very closely. And to be honest, these distribution channels can be digital or physical, and we will see this -- all these things in the near future. The second piece, which we are bringing from the JV partners, that they are like a service provider to us, which we are building services together. The most important thing in the new banking model, Nick, you need to touch the daily life of the customers. As a bank, with omnichannel, can you touch the daily life of the customers? Or can you be like a normal payment company? You can't. So that's why these partners, for example, a telco player, and I'm talking about a full-fledged telco player, which is coming from landline, mobile, TV and everything, and there's a travel partner there. It's going to be easier for us to touch the daily life of the customers because these are the realities. We are using mobile, we are using phones, Internet and everything and also travel. Once it will be back, it's going to be an interesting journey for all of us.

Okay, okay. And I guess raises a couple of interesting points. I mean, ultimately, I guess, you're building a new brand, which is quite an exciting brand. It's a very different brand from a traditional bank brand, if you like, in terms of a color scheme, the lettering, et cetera, et cetera, I'd imagine, appeals to a different demographic. Is this ultimately something you can build outside of Hong Kong? Or does it remain a Hong Kong-based business view?

I think CEO of Mox Bank, I can talk about Mox in general. But how we see this in Standard Chartered. Of course, what we built, it's portable. Portable means not only technologically, portable in terms of value proposition, portable in terms of talent, portable in terms of many other things. If we can talk about risk, we can talk about compliance, we can talk about many other things. I think that was the idea starting from day 1. And what we want to do, if we were seeing some opportunities in different markets, there's a -- there will be no chance that we can port Mox to other markets easily. There's a public data I can share, of course, Standard Chartered is looking for something similar in Singapore, and of course, we are talking the Singapore, and we are trying to use the same things and try to port almost everything from here to there. I think this is critical. We believe that there will be a lot of opportunities in different markets. Sometimes as in full-fledged banks, sometimes specific verticals. But Mox as a platform, Mox is in a portability wise, I think it is ready to go in on some other places.

And I'm not -- I mean, you spoke about sort of what the joint venture partners bring. And I guess when you're talking about telcos, I mean, full-fledged telco, it touches everybody's life, whichever country in the world you're in. Maybe travel doesn't touch the life of people in Thailand or Indonesia in the same way, but it touches the life of people in Hong Kong or Singapore, yes. So do you need different touch points or different sort of JV partners for that model to work, do you have different ones in different countries? How does that sort of work itself out?

I think every market has different -- when you go to a market, you need to look at the pain points, again, you need to understand real motivations in that market, and you have to look at the right partners. We have great partners in Hong Kong right now. It's hard to say that in Singapore, there will be -- there can be in some different partners from market to market.

Okay. Okay. So the proposition does get changed. And then I think you've touched on this a few times in the discussion we've been having. But can you just talk a little bit about what's different in terms of how this business is constructed? I mean you mentioned technology stack before. Obviously, you spoke about service culture, but presumably, that requires a different sort of business culture, require different HR practices. I mean, you presumably have had to reinvent everything to create this business. So could you maybe just spend a little bit of time talking about how you've had to envisage this business differently from an infrastructure point of view than your previous roles working in a big bank?

Yes. Let me start with technology very quickly, but I'm not going to push technology that much because what I believe is technology is an important part, but not the most important part. So we are a full cloud-native bank. We are one of the first cloud-native banking in Asia, Nick. I think this is important. Why? Because in the long run, we will see the benefits of -- on the cost side because running everything without server I think it's a great opportunity and we using of this opportunity with the help of our regulator here. And we want -- we are pushing it for the future. Of course, we are still in the investment phase. So that's why I know it's different. But in the future, this is going to be an interesting model for the banks. The second thing is, of course, technology, we build something different. We don't have a traditional core banking system. And honestly, starting from all these things, our structure is also different. Our delivery model, everybody is talking about agile need. We are not talking about agile. We are working like a different delivery model, which means 87% of this company -- entire company, 87% of the company, they are part of delivery, okay? They are part of delivery day-to-day. So this is super critical. Of course, I've got mine of support services in second line, third line and everything. But putting 87% of your team, your bank into delivery, it is extremely important. And this is a mental change. And this is also impacting positively your technology because we don't have any silos between core banking system to front end. In traditional banking models between core banking and the front end, there are a lot of layers, and every layer, technologically, it creates difficulties plus the people wise, it creates difficulties. What we have, it's a very, very combined structure and people -- they work very closely. But other than that, I think I can share 1 example. I remember 2 years ago, we were discussing the KPIs and everything for Mox Bank. And of course, we can discuss that the customer numbers, the profitability, revenue streams and everything. But I think for a new operating model like this, the most important thing is you have to identify the KPIs carefully and involving the culture, and involve your people properly into that KPIs that's super critical. What I told to the team, when we were in 16, 17 people, we have to onboard the customers in 3 minutes 46 seconds, okay? That was a KPI. Instead of saying we have to onboard 20,000 customers in 15 days. I think this is the mental change on the KPI side. So what they did, what they delivered is much better than that. But if you can give this kind of target, if you can give this kind -- set this kind of KPIs, you can change the mentality. Then innovation becomes a reality. Instead of just working innovation for innovation. Because innovation is a demand. If you can understand the demand, you can solve it in a different way and you can position your technology different there. And of course, in this business, the most important thing is people. And I know that all the -- any organization in the word, I'm sure they believe people is important. But in our business, we delivered a bank from home last year. So that was a reality. So that's why people, their dedication, their expertise, it is super important. And I think talent and people, if you want to build in this kind of new business models or operating models, you need strong people.

Okay. Perfect. Thank you. So we've been chatting for about 25 minutes. And I'm going to open up to Q&A. We've got quite a few questions already coming in. Just a reminder to the audience, there is a ask-a-question box on your screen, you can type in your question. It's on the left-hand side, and I will read those questions out. So the first question, Deniz, is what kind of products does Mox offer other than just the deposit savings account? And actually linked to that from the same person, what differentiates Mox from the other 6 competitors? Are all the virtual banks in Hong Kong now offering the same product?

Let me start from the product side. Today, we got deposits and our debit cards. Of course, we got the interchanging of revenue. We got spending. We got funding merchants. And we got -- I think we have the best experience in Hong Kong. But the thing is, right now, we are testing -- I think I can share this, we are testing our credit card on the sandbox, which is here, you can see. So credit cards is coming in -- soon, actually, of early 2021. We are working on some other lending products, which they are going to be available in the market. So which means we are going to -- we will start creating the portfolio. And I think we will create -- we will start to see the balance sheet grow in a different way, not only with deposit. But of course, meanwhile, we are going to focus on fee-based services, which they are going to be super important, especially in these days, unfortunately, the interest rate is not helping. So that's why there will be the fee-based services that we want to deliver to our customers. And of course, there will be no FX and also some smooth and simpler wealth management solutions for the people in Hong Kong. When I look at the competition, I think the -- many of the virtual banks, there are 7 of them right now. They are giving similar things, almost similar things. I think we are different in terms of experience. The second one is we are different with our partners because we are bringing different values with our partners. And the third one is, I think this is the most important thing. We are backed by Hong Kong Telecom. We are backed by Standard Chartered. And I believe that trust is the most important business for the new banks, and we are coming to this bank to this market with the trust.

Yes. Okay. Okay.

Did I miss something, Nick? Or...

No. So we spoke about products. We spoke about differentiation. So another question that's come in. It's quite a long one. How will the unit economics at scale look for digital virtual banks? If the products and pricing are similar, is the model premised solely on lower OpEx and better digital service? Or is it possible that using technology, you can underwrite credit better to lower credit costs? If it's the latter, can you explain with some intuitive examples how you can underwrite credit better? And what sort of alternative data sets and technology can you use to do that?

Yes. I think it's a very well question. How I think let me start from the credit space. I think this is a part of the technology how we use the technology, how we use data and how we use partners. Especially on the credit side, I think it's not -- it's a very well-known practice. We see these kind of examples in different markets. But alternative scoring models are super important to understand the customers and the -- also the credit case carefully. And we have a partner, a telco partner. We have a travel partner. We have -- these partners are super important to create and understand the landing needs of the customers and assess the credit scoring in a different way. I think starting from assessing the credit risk and understanding the needs with the data and position it contextually, I think it will change the market differently. When I look at traditional banking models, yes, there are a lot of lending products that you can see. But are they contextual or are they transactional? So you are going to a bank, open your -- something in the mobile Internet or go to a branch and you apply for that. What we are trying to build, we want to understand when you need that money, is it going to be rainy days for you for the next 2 months, 6 months, 12 months, 15 days? Understanding of the need, do the right assessment of that credit risk with alternative models and give the credit immediately almost real time. I think this real-time thing also is important, as you know. Everything is real-time on Mox right now, everything. So that's why now it's going to be almost real time, and we will give this service to our customers. Technology is helping us, yes, definitely. And without our technology, I think it's really difficulty of building all these kind of things. And I believe that we will differentiate with all these things with this contextual approach and also with the understanding of data, with third-party data, second-party data and combining it with our data.

And so if I can just ask a little bit more on that. I'm just trying to -- just -- if you don't mind elaborating on the last point, when you're talking about -- I mean, are you talking about pushing product declines, when you talk about anticipating their needs. What exactly do you mean by that?

I think not pushing, but while you are spending, for example, or in a while you are I can easily now assess what you have and what you are spending. And I can easily tell you what you need for the next couple of months or in the next couple of days. I think this is going to be smart insights that we are going to bring. And depending on all these things we want to bring in of services. It can be a lending service, it can be a credit service or it can be a different savings service. Or if they want to grow their money, we are going to provide enough related services.

And I guess that brings an interesting point. I mean, obviously, at the moment, Mox is a digital distribution channel. I mean does ultimately, when you're sort of anticipating people's needs and you're, I guess, trying to bring the new products, I mean, does that get pushed through the mobile phone or do you need some form of human interaction at that stage to sell that product?

We are mobile person only, and we will continue with mobile. But I think the new banking, open banking model, I think all the digital assets, for example, my partner's digital assets can be my assets as well. So which means if Hong Kong Telecom has a really strong mobile app, and in that mobile app, if they are selling mobile devices, I think Mox will be there as well to help the customers, if they want to buy in a different way, with different installments. I think -- and also, we can do the same thing physically in physical shops. So what we are doing is the main channel, the main platform of Mox is our mobile. But on the other hand, we can use other platforms to port ourselves and bring our services.

Okay. Just a reminder to people who are listening in, you can ask a question at any time, use the ask-a-question text box on the left-hand side of your screen. I've got another one here. Can you talk about the ability to build a deposit franchise longer term at scale? Is it easier for us to understand that a better digital experience helps with onboarding and small balances? But how do depositors build trust of the bank long-term and increase their deposit balances? Is the only way to achieve this is to target small business current accounts and cross-sell working capital credit by leverage transaction data better than a traditional bank does?

Yes. Let me start from retail piece. I know I can jump to SME part. I think the retail piece, deposit business, stand-alone solo deposit business, it's really difficult, right? Because when I look at the other challenger banks in the world, what they are trying to do, they are trying to pushing of deposits, plus they are trying to make money from interchange fee. What I believe, I think solo deposit business is not enough. You have seen a build in our balance sheet. That's why we need lending business, and you have to balance it and match it properly. But how we are going to do that, and it's not going to be a traditional model. As in the question, we heard it, right? Onboard to customers immediately, give them a different service. I can give you one example on it. For example, we talk a lot of customers here and still talking with the customers almost every day. And before Mox, people, they were thinking that if you got, let's say, HKD 5,000, I cannot start to save because it's a small money or, let's say, HKD 10,000, HKD 20,000, HKD 25,000, because it's still a small money. Right now, people also know they are learning that, okay, even with this small money, I can start to save. I think this is the mental change that we are trying to create. And if you are giving this comfort and trust to your customers, then it's becoming more than pricing because pricing is not enough strategy. Pricing is not sustainable. We know it. And we are giving fair pricing, and we don't have any predatory pricing in this market. But what we are doing is, you are opening the account immediately. You do not need to think about what -- which tenor or which deposit rate, et cetera. We are giving the rate directly to you and you are gaining your interest rates tomorrow morning even for HKD 500. And starting from here, if you can build in the right trust and comfort on the customer side, your deposit stickiness, and I'm seeing even today after 2 months, our deposit stickiness, it's a bit different than normal banks. And if we continue like this, and then we are going to bring in the lending products, that is going to be a good combination, and we can manage the business appropriately. But again, solo deposit, it's a difficult business. SME, there are a lot of opportunities in SME. As Mox Bank, we are only focusing on retail bank right now, retail banking. In the future, we can look at opportunities. And I believe that especially on SME side, SME lending and also helping the SMEs to manage their cash flows is super important. But again, Mox is focusing on retail bank-only in Hong Kong.

Okay. And I mean, just coming back on the deposit question, I guess. And I can see what you say. You provide the service, you provide the rates and people deposits become more sticky. I mean, how long does it take for those -- a person you spoke HKD 5,000 deposit of you to say, right, obviously, you know what, I'm going to move my salary over to you or I'm not going to trust you with large amounts of money. I mean, is that a 1-year process, 2-year process? Is it a 15-year process? I mean, what do you think the evolution...

I hope not 15 years, Nick, I think a fair question. But when I look at this kind of new services, new banks, there's a trajectory that we have to follow and we have to understand how we are going to reach there. With this kind of products and also in our view, there are a lot of -- there are a lot of new products in Hong Kong, but these new services, we are coming to market like second bank or a third bank of the customers. But interestingly, we are seeing, in our small customer base, which is more than 50,000, 10% of them, I think they are -- they have already started to use Mox as a main bank, and they are requesting new services from Mox Bank, and which is very normal. And this 10% are seeing similar trends from different markets and from different challenger banks. What will happen? We will continue with the trust. We will bring the other sticky products that we can cover the daily life of the customers. And what I believe that starting from 18 months' time, Mox Bank will become the main bank of many customers in Hong Kong. But again, it's not going to be 100%. Most probably, let's say, 40%, 50% of our customer base will use us as a main bank after 18 months. But we still need to deliver the right services to reach that.

Okay. And so in terms of a customer acquisition strategy, I mean, I guess we saw this with DBS' digiBank in India. You guys were a face of adding a lot of customers and then you have to work out which those customers you want to keep. I mean, is that how you see it happening for Mox?

It's very targeted. We are not doing a mass marketing. We haven't started any mass marketing. No TV, no paper, no magazines or in a radio. We are doing people-only digital marketing, and it's very, very targeted. And we are trying to target our customer groups and customers in a top clusters to get the right customer groups to Mox. What I believe, scale is important, but scaling should be sustainable in terms of how you know getting of customers inside, how you manage them and which customers that you are taking. Because at the end of the day, scale comes with the cost. So that's why we have to be careful. We are scaling up, but we are also now getting -- we are also trying to get the right customers know inside. Honestly, now, I think I can share this. This is a public data we shared before. So the average deposit balance in Mox Bank right now is more than HKD 80,000. So if I compare this with other banks, challenger banks, even the banks so HKD 80,000, which means USD 10,000 average. So you cannot see this kind of a deposit balance in U.S., U.K. or Germany or in other markets from challenger banks. This is also showing that we are getting the right traction. The most important thing is these customers, they need different services that we have to bring immediately. I think that's the trickier piece.

Okay. And then coming back to sort of a question we asked earlier, actually. And I think it links into the answer you've just given. What will be economics at scale look like? I mean, obviously, at the moment, I presume you're loss-making, and I don't know if that's public information. So I don't know whether you want to answer that. But if a bank is operating at 40%, 45%, traditional bank is operating at 40%, 45% cost income ratio, where do you think you operate?

Thank you. Tough question. Of course, we have some targets. But let me share you a couple of things. First of all, yes, we can discuss. Like, is this loss-making or is this an investment for the future? I think we have assessed very carefully. And how we see in Standard Chartered, this is a very, very important investment for the future. Because technologically, we have a new technology stack, which can be scalable and portable and we can try in different markets in the future. We have a different talent set here right now, which we kind of use in a totally different, and we have a lot of different assets. So that's final, I see this as an investment to the future. On the other hand, the cost income ratios and everything, it's too early to say something about cost income ratios or profitability. There are some common practices coming from challenger banks that they can make money or reach a breakeven in 4 to 5 years. But again, it's difficult to say something for Mox right now. What we are focusing on, Nick, we are focusing on getting highest hard share. Can I have 4.8 stars for the future, for the next 1 year? Can I get the highest NPS score in the market? Can I get the best feedback from the customers? And I think these are the targets. We have also revenue targets. But again, profitability, breakeven, cost income ratio, it's too early to say something.

Okay. Okay. Okay. That's great. And can you just talk a little bit about if we get -- I mean, we spoke a little bit about new products, and we spoke about credit products, and we spoke about sort of wealth management products, and all the things you're going to roll out in the different areas we're going. Is there anything truly sort of differentiating or groundbreaking that you can come up with this model but doesn't exist in banking environment. So I'm thinking on the lines of, if you go to sort of open banking or banking, is there a much more of a service proposition that you can push, but would reimagine banking from where we are today?

I think there's only -- it's a difficult question. Everybody is trying to solve and answering for this one. And how I see this. For example, in these days, we are talking about digitalization -- mainly digitalization. But what I believe, I think if you can create something, production of services, that you can port yourself to other platforms. And if you can be everywhere, anywhere that your customers are, then you know you can be -- you can differentiate. And there are some innovation to do that. So that's why we're picking our JV partners instead of going with solo instead of going stand-alone. I think this is the main differentiator. Other than that, services, yes, I can't talk about services. We were doing a really, really -- we were doing really different. But honestly, services, experience, and this partners, the combination of all these things will create the difference. Other than that, there's no 1 answer or 1 formula that you can correct the banking.

Okay. And then I guess one final question because I'm conscious of time. Obviously, you launched -- you set up this business or you set up this project just over 2 years ago. You ended up launching probably in a very different environment from the one you could have imagined when you started them, right? So how have the events of the last 6, 7 months, have they benefited the rollout of your type of proposition, or are they neutral? Have they thrown up extra obstacles that you've had to overcome?

There are 2 things, Nick. I think when we started this, I think there was a different interest rate environment. There were a lot of different things. And today, it's different. This is the first thing. The second thing is, of course, the COVID situation. If you ask my opinion, it's not a blocker for us. Macro wise, yes, because at the end of the day, the interest rate environment, it's not helping that much. But on the consumer side, on the customer side, it is supporting us a lot because everybody is keen to use digital banks directly. Again, like I said, we did some interviews with the customers. And I told 2 customers personally, and they were more than 45 years old. And honestly, they are okay. And previously, they didn't want to use this kind of digital banks. Right now, they are okay because they -- no, they do not need to go to branch, they do not need to sign anything. I think the environment right now, it's helping us. And I believe that it will continue like this.

Okay. Cool. And then I just have had 1 more question come in from the audience. Based on your internal targets, at what time frame will Mox require equity again?

I have to answer it, but I think I cannot answer it right now.

Okay, perfect. Deniz, we're coming up to time. Thank you very much for the discussion today. It was very interesting, very informative. Look forward to watching how Mox develops over the next few years. But yes, thank you for joining us.

Thank you very much. Thank you, everyone.

Thank you. And thanks to everybody on the call who joined us. Obviously, we've got lots more meetings coming up on the virtual bank store that we're doing over the next couple of days. So I hope you'll join us for a few more of these. But thank you for joining us and enjoy your...