Digital Bank

I was having a nice relaxing Sunday, when alerted to a tweetfest taking place between industry heavyweights Simon Taylor (an ex-banker) and Mariano Belinky (a banker).  It all started with: Fintech didn’t disrupt banks but banks are slowly dying. Creating an ever growing opportunity for #fintech — Simon Taylor (@sytaylor) September 18, 2016 @sytaylor low…

I’ve spent a lot of this week talking about marketplaces.  We have a growing number of financial marketplaces appearing.  Lending marketplaces, credit marketplaces, payments marketplaces and more.  A marketplace is the bazaar.  Market stall holders gather to meet with prospective clients, and the digital version of the marketplace is the focal point for many FinTech…

I was at a conference the other day when the presenter showed this quote from the Wall Street Journal: The question is so simple it seems silly: What is a bank?  Of course you know the answer. A bank pools savings and then allocates that capital. Simple, right? But that’s just the start.  In 2016 a…

As mentioned last week, the CIO’s role is changing from running an empire of maintenance engineers to organising a distributed development organisation. The change in the role is one from a hierarchical control structure, where everything is proprietary and internal, to a flattened organisation that is open and broad. Much of the developments will come…

Building on yesterday’s blog (Do bank’s need a CIO?) , the key misunderstanding is the role.  Most banks thing the CIO is there to run the technology.  They’re not.  That’s what they used to do.  That’s not the job for the future. First and foremost, the person leading technology developments in any incumbent bank of…

Someone recently equated banks and their systems and structures, to the underground in London.  It’s a lot of pipes, wires, cables and tunnels that were built in the Victorian times and are still operating today.  You have engineers on the tracks every night and day, trying to keep the systems running, whilst also trying to…

On Tuesday the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), a UK Government Agency, told British banks that they must digitalise or suffer penalties.  In a report entitled Making banks work harder for you, they have ordered the UK banks to digitalise within two years or face regulatory fines. The key headlines include, under what the CMA…

In 2009, I coined the word BaaS.  No, nothing to do with sheep!  Instead, BaaS stands for Banking-as-a-Service.  In 2016, everyone is talking about this: Banking as a Platform (BaaP), The Financial Brand, March 2016 Banking-as-a-Service: Common play of banks and fintech, FinTech Rankings, March 2016 ‘Banking as a Service’ for Fintechs Seeking Scale, American…

Talking with the leader of a large bank the other day proved illuminating.  He said to me that he could see the digital revolution happening, and wants to embrace it.  All well and good.  He continued then to say something that I hear quite often: “but what do we do about the people”. Just as…

I can remember a few years ago that the UK pound was almost at the level of being valued at $2.  Two dollars to the pound.  Amazing.  I brought a lot of American stuff that year.  Yesterday, I bought something and it was $1.30 to the pound.  Shoot.  The dinner for $100 that a few…