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Digital Bank

Is the bank talking or walking digital?

I’ve been blogging about digital transformation and one commentator asked me to qualify what I actually meant by a bank ‘transforming’ versus the others. This is something I intended to blog about but Bill Streeter over at The Financial Brand beat me to it in his reporting of research by BDO, the American assurance, tax, and…

EQ Bank, Canada: a customer-obsessed bank

A few years ago, I was invited to talk with Equitable Bank in Canada about digital banking. Since then, they’ve launched their digital bank called EQ Bank. So I was pleased when Simon Wahl, who heads up marketing at Flinks, sent me a podcast interview with Andrew Moor, EQ Bank’s CEO, along with a transcript…

Why banks should stop closing branches

I wrote my blog about the bank branch being dead the other day, just as a new report called for banks to stop trying to be cashless and branchless because it harms society. This is from the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce), an association founded by William Shipley in…

Oliver Wyman recommend banks don’t try to be digital? What rubbish!

There was quite a bit of coverage of an analyst report last week, putting forward the notion that big banks should forget converting the existing organisation, systems and structures, and start over. This one is from Oliver Wyman and, for me, it goes straight into the same bin as the Gartner forecast that most banks won’t…

Is the branch dead?

A regular discussion of mine has resurfaced in recent days: is the branch dead? Why it has returned is due to the announcement of Santander closing a fifth of its UK branch network: The Spanish-owned bank, which has one of the largest high street networks in Britain, will shut 140 branches, leaving 614 after the closures, which…

Banks need to be technology giants

I got into one very interesting discussion with a digital banker. He was underscoring how important data is in banking, and referenced the fact that banking started with data. It started as a ledger system a thousand years ago so that pilgrims could travel to the Holy Land under the wing of the Knights Templar….

How to get rid of the legacy

I often talk about changing core systems, and most people tell me I’m mad. It doesn’t have to happen. You can have an overlay of middleware to deal with it. You don’t need to change those old systems. It’s too risky and too costly. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And yet nearly every digital bank…

The CEO and Chair make digital banking work

I claim that most of the banks embracing true digital transformation and not just treating digital as a channel, are led by people who understand technology. They have a leadership team who are passionate about digitalisation, and see it as a core raison d’etre of the bank’s future. Not just an add-on. So, I took…

Digital banks have fast and regular communication

A further aspect of the digital banks I am talking with is that they have reviews all the time. Not formal reviews, but fast meetings with the business people, designers, developers and even audit and compliance all around the table. It is quick, frequent and informal unlike the old industrial organisation which has long, annual…

Don’t just bring one, bring all

Continuing my conversation about implementing digital transformation, one of the biggest issues all companies face with transformation – digital or otherwise – is bringing the people with you. Some would say that anyone who does not join the journey can leave, but that’s quite a tough stance. If you don’t get with the program, you’re…

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