Bank Product Development in Emerging Markets: A How-To Approach

Welcome to Bank Product Development in Emerging Markets: A How-To Approach. Whether you are reading this for your own education, or are using the book as a base for preparing a training class on product development, you will find the approach useful.

It was written after I conducted dozens of product development training classes with banks in the developing markets of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Republic of Georgia, Vietnam, and Bangladesh. Most of those training classes went well, and we usually came out of them with multiple good new product ideas for the banks involved. But, there was always a sense of frustration among those involved that there was insufficient time to truly understand the development process. Everybody wants to jump straight to product suggestions, but that is only going to work as long as the consultant is there for the training class. Once the consultant leaves, if the bank has not also been left with a total understanding of the process, then the development function will never be ingrained into the bank’s culture. Soon, they will again be behind the development curve.