Digital Bank

Jan 23, 2015

Convincing management to renew core systems

I’m often asked what I mean by a digital core and how to convince management to buy into it. What I mean by a digital core is that the bank has made itself cleansed and ready to join the new generation of fintech. It has renewed and refreshed its core systems by replacing them. They…

Dec 19, 2014

How one bank changed core systems

After blogging yesterday with my regular beat to get rid of old legacy systems, I then had another thought. Don’t get rid of them. That is a possibility. Maybe you don’t need to replace the core. Maybe you just need to create a new platform that is digital and gradually migrate customers across. In other…

Dec 19, 2014

How one bank changed core systems

Dec 16, 2014

The Banking Paradox: even bankers want to move to fintech

This post is stolen from Philippe Gelis's (CEO of Kantox) blog on LinkedIn, as it adds more insight to my similar post last week: Last week I was in Madrid where Actualidad Economica and CaixaBank awarded Kantox with a best start-up prize. It is paradoxical when I think back to 4 years ago. When I was looking for…

Dec 5, 2014

Apple Pay will be the mobile wallet of choice and here’s why

So Apple Pay finally launched in the USA on October 20 and there’s been mixed reviews. Some people couldn’t make payments, whilst some found they were double-charged. However, these are just teething issues and the overwhelming reports are positive. Even former Apple CEO and Financial Services Club keynote speaker John Sculley: I think Apple Pay…

Dec 4, 2014

In code we trust

I mentioned in a recent blog entry how processors are replacing third parties. The aim of these upstarts is to get rid of the bank-in-the-middle by placing the processor-in-the-middle (but hopefully not the man-in-the-middle malware attack!). This lowers margins considerably as the processor is doing the work of what would previously of been hands on desks. …

Dec 3, 2014

Creating conversations of relevance that build trust, or Full Service Facebook Banking (FSFB) if you prefer

I've spent the last few days talking with relatively young banks on their digital strategies in several countries, and it's intriguing to debate and dialogue with them how they want to work. By young bank, I mean banks in markets that typically did not have banks operating in the 1980s or, if they did, they…

Dec 2, 2014

The criticality of humanity in banking digitally

One of the big challenges in discussing digital is how to get there. It's a big leap for many banks hamstring by heritage and the question is can they get there? Should they start again? Should they launch digital as a separately branded bank, rather than trying to evolve the current organisation? These are all…

Dec 1, 2014

What is a digital bank?

This question arises fairly often and I guess it’s because some people think of it as the addition of mobile apps and tablets; others believe it is creating a paperless bank; whilst others talk about a digitalisation of processes and products. We had a debate about this on Facebook during the summer when Jin Zwicky…

Nov 28, 2014

Do banks really need to change?

One of the comments that floated on the network in the last week was: banks can ignore digital. That made me sit up and take notice and so I asked the person, a banker, what they meant. Their explanation was interesting and went something like this: Banks do not need to change and adapt and,…