Digital Bank

You have an idea. Let’s say that it’s to make nice wooden caricatures of famous politicians.  Something that historically would have been a niche trade for the odd craft fare.  It still is, but when you go to a craft fare, the usual practice is cash only.  Not any more.  Just in a few short…

We talk a lot about bank branch closures and, to be sure, there are a lot bank branch closures.  The UK has seen 1 in 10 bank branches disappear over the last two years whilst the USA is seeing a similar trend, albeit at a slower pace.  That may be scary for some as we see…

I wrote a piece recently about the challenges of being a challenger bank.  It coincided with the news that my friends at solarisBank had just achieved a Series A funding round of €26 million.  Neatly, co-founder of solarisBank Marko Wenthin spotted my post and decided to send a reply.  Here is his thoughts on being a…

On Wednesday the American Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC)* followed up on its promise last December to introduce a national bank charter for Fintech bank startups by issuing a white paper on how to apply for a licence, the evaluation process and what will be involved.  It’s a massive move towards allowing…

I remember organising my first banking conferences in the 1990s and there was a regular mantra amongst the memes of the folks speaking on stage. There is more change coming and you’re going to be dead meat unless you change. It was a common theme to hear the word disintermediated being used in these speeches. …

Building on my challenger bank discussions, there’s some interesting points coming out of a new report by Price Waterhouse Coopers (or Playing the Wrong Cards as they’re now called, after the Oscars) on challenger banking.  It’s well worth a read, especially as they found that having branches is more important than mobile apps.  The survey showed…

I got a laugh the other day when I referred to Grade II Listed Banks, but I was serious.  For overseas readers, we have a system in Britain of listing heritage buildings.  They have various grades which restrict what you can do with them.  Grade I means you can’t really change the building at all, whilst Grade…

Seven years ago, the first new retail bank in almost a century got its licence to open: Metro Bank.  Now, there are so many new banks starting up in Britain (and across Europe) that it’s sometimes hard to keep up with it all.  There are app-only start-up banks (Atom, Monzo, Starling, Tandem); foreign exchange payment cards (Revolut, SuperCard); personal…

I heard a rumour the other day.  The rumour goes something like: are you not surprised that banks grow into big beasts, as it’s government supported?  Governments want banks to be big and regulated, because governments can then access the data the bank is keeping about their clients.  IT’s access to data for tracking financial…

The first job Tom Blomfield (left in photo) ever had was delivering leaflets for estate agent Wilson Heal. He  lasted one day in the cold December rain before convincing the guys that leaflets were old school and they really needed a website, which Tom then built and still exists today. That opened up the world…