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60% of UK bank branches have closed in 8 years

I was reading stories over the weekend of hundreds of branch closures planned by banks. This has been forecast for years – back in the 1990s, it was clear that branch based distribution was unsustainable and costly – but it has finally hit. When I was a lad, for example, there were over 20,000 bank…

Neobanks running accounts for a tenth of the cost of old banks

I’m always looking for innovations in new banks and spent some time with MYbank, the bank created by Ant Group in 2014. My first visit was in 2017, and the bank was doing well. Focusing upon SMEs, the bank shot to massive growth volumes, making a staggering $30 billion in loans in first quarter 2022…

Why is Goldman Sachs dropping the Apple?

The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple has sent Goldman Sachs a proposal to end their partnership within the next year, leaving Apple to find a new backer for its financial products. The Apple Card program was launched in 2019 to great fanfare but, within a year, Goldman Sachs was lamenting losses and costs for the partnership….

The big four drivers of the bank of the future

At another recent conference McKinsey presented. Now it is easy to take a pop at McKinsey but they have produced some useful reports recently, specifically: McKinsey’s Global Banking Annual Review 2023 Fintechs: A new paradigm of growth So, I was interested in their presentation. One slide in particular stood out, titled: the four key drivers…

Digital transformation is more to do with inclusion than banking

Space … the final frontier … these are the voyages of the challenger bank Trekkie. Our mission: to boldly go where no bank has gone before. Today, we landed on planet Earth and decided to look at financial inclusion, and the role of banks in ensuring everyone has access to an account. In some countries,…

Why do retailers focus on customers and banks do not?

I just chaired a major retailers conference in Malmo, Sweden. Not a payments conference or retail payments conference or merchants payments conference. A retailers conference. It surprised me how much of the discussion was about loyalty, customer engagement and customer retention, as those discussions rarely come up at payments conferences. In fact, when I listed…

When we talk about customer journeys, what do we mean?

I was struck by one slide in a presentation the other day. The slide stated this: I need a mortgage … to buy a house Why did this strike me? Probably because you realise, from the customer view, that financial services has nothing to do with money. It is 100% to do with living a…

What keeps a bank CEO awake at night?

I was thinking about what it would be like to be a bank CEO right now. That happens quite often, and I often attend meetings where these things are discussed and the challenges that bank CEO’s face. The last great presentation I saw such insights was when we had the CEO of the British Bankers’ Association…

Can we delegate compliance to technology?

I’ve had a lot of thoughts recently about how much automation can go. In most banks, one or two people look over the shoulder of those doing the work to make sure they comply. If we could get rid of all those people checking the checkers, there would huge savings which made me beg the…

Massive innovations in SME finances using the latest tech #SFF

In case you didn’t notice, this week was the week of the #SingaporeFinTechFestival. Although I was in Asia last week, this week I’ve been invited to be in America and so could not attend. Nevertheless, my good friends at Ant Group have been there and made some major announcements A good example is this one,…

Intelligent Money - Chris Skinner Keynote @ Pay 360 conference 2024

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