Digital Bank

I picked up a few innovative changes taking place this week within banks. In fact, I should point out that banks are not static beasts, as many claim. They are changing all the time, doing things all the time, adapting all the time. The question is: are they adapting in the right way? Charles Darwin…

Really interesting interview here with Ana Botin, Executive Chair of Santander, on Bloomberg. It starts with talking about how Santander can make a difference on climate change with Ana claiming that the bank is voted the most sustainable bank in the world. But when the interviewer, Erik Schatzker, asks her how Santander is making a…

In the last month, there’s been a wave of announcements from Facebook, Apple, Google and Amazon about banking. We’ve seen Facebook’s major activities in trying to create a digital currency called Libra, and Apple’s move into finance with a credit card from Goldman Sachs which, in just a month, offered a $10 billion line of…

I always like to hear what bankers think about the future of banking – it’s probably more accurate than what janitors or futurists think – and so was pleased to see two items in my in-tray this week, one from HSBC and the other from Wells Fargo. According to the summary of HSBC’s report: In…

I’ve said for a while that the Big Tech giants will not become banks. Amazon and Alibaba will do a lot of bank-like activities, but they will never move into full-service banking, as in offering deposit accounts. Why won’t they? Because that’s full banking activity which has all of the audit and compliance overhead that…

I attended the New Statesman’s FinTech Summit yesterday. I gave the opening speech and was followed by the indomitable Anne Boden, CEO and Founder of Starling Bank, who talked about the path to profitability. She asserts the bank will deliver profitability next year, but her presentation focused upon a number of what she sees as…

I’ve a number of great friends in the industry, and enjoy their company and contribution. One of those friends is Gijs Boudewijn, Chair of the Payment Systems Committee at the European Banking Federation who kindly quoted me in his recent presentation on Open Banking. He has also kindly allowed me to share his presentation with y’all…

I’m acutely aware that so many people write and talk about how big banks are dumb and stupid and don’t get digital, that I try to avoid that mantra personally. People do accuse me of being a bank basher, but I’d rather say that I’m a bank challenger (not a challenger bank). I challenge the…

Last week I blogged about Chime’s issues with their third party partner Galileo going down, blocking payments and cards for their five million users for a short time. I made the comment: I would still claim that using cloud native third party partners in a technology ecosystem is far better than trying to do everything…

A few talking points last week, but two hit me in particular. The first is a McKinsey report that reckons half of the world’s banks are not viable. Their cost of equity is higher than their return on equity. Should another downturn hit … well, they’re gone. “Every bank is uniquely bound by both the…