According to a recent PwC U.S. CEO survey, 84% of CEOs plan to increase their investment in digital transformation.1 This investment is especially important in the financial services (FinServ) industry, where legacy systems often impede the smooth and speedy flow of data that is necessary for transaction processing. According to a recent Economist Intelligence Unit report sponsored by Snowflake, "The persistence of data silos puts a unified view of data out of reach for many FinServ firms. And that, in turn, makes it hard for them to achieve strategic goals such as offering individual and institutional customers a personalized experience across departments, channels, and touchpoints; meeting global regulatory standards; detecting and protecting against risk and fraud; and increasing overall operational efficiency." Snowflake's Data Cloud equips banks, brokerages, insurers, and financial technology startups with the power of unified data that is easy to share securely.

A new generation of consumers connecting with their friends via messaging platforms expects the same conversational tools from their favorite brands. Financial services firms are giving it to them. Western Union joined MasterCard and Wells Fargo among the financial services leaders to announce chatbots for Facebook Messenger at the social network giant's F8 Facebook developer conference last month. The company's money transfer bot allows Facebook Messenger users in the U.S. to digitally wire money to more than 200 countries and territories using 130 currencies. In embracing Messenger, Western Union hopes to capitalize on the broad exposure afforded by the ubiquitous messaging platform, which has 1.2 billion monthly users, says Khalid Fellahi, senior vice president and general manager of Western Union's Digital Ventures unit.