During #Money2020Europe Tink, the Swedish challenger bank, interviewed me on my opinions about all things finance and technology.
It’s only five minutes and think it’s probably worth the viewing as people are picking up on various comments I made, such as:
“The leadership team has to be completely committed to digital transformation as a structural change … that is focusing on customers, innovating, destroying all the rules that are stupid, and becoming much more agile. If you can’t build a culture and put digital in the DNA of a bank, you’ll never be successful.”
Those who read my blog know that I believe this, as I talk about it so often:
- Banks are failing digital due to legacy and leadership (Harvard research)
- Banks’ leadership teams are fatally flawed
- Banks need to change their bonus structures (to include technological leadership)
- The biggest banking challenge is leadership
And so on and so forth. The key comment I’m making here is whether the leadership team has digital in their blood, their DNA, their breathing, their every waking moment. If not, they will fail to transform the bank to be a digital bank.
The other quote that was picked out is this one:
“A chasm is growing between those banks doing digital transformation right, and those who aren't. The new mentality of how you make money in a bank is about enriching the customer experience with advice based on data and insights.”
This is strongly related to the first statement, and is all about the data flow which I’ve been blogging about recently too:
- How new banks differ to traditional banks
- The difference between FinTech and TechFin
- Banks are losing the data war
- What does the future bank look like?
The key here is that if a bank has organised itself around the customers’ data, then leveraged a structure around that data for delivering digital services, then they are more than fit for the future. I’m just disappointed that so few banks get this, because they lack the leadership ability to understand what this means.
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...
