Digital Bank

I find life interesting. Themes recur over and over and over again. Will big banks survive? When will we, will we be cashless? Oh when, will we, will be branchless? Can we really replace the City with a trading network of algorithms? And more. One of my favourite recurring themes …

I was in conversation with a banker the other day and we got around to regulations and regulators, as many conversations with banks tend to do. There were some interesting reflections in that dialogue, however. I guess it falls into three categories: the way regulations used to be; the way …

I find it interesting when I read perspectives on FinTech, money and banking. Going digital, getting rid of branches, becoming cashless seem to be the main themes, and yet this ignores that every part of the world is different. It’s hard to go digital if the country has little infrastructure; …

I used to blog about blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) almost once a week … four years ago. Today, I hardly blog about it at all. I guess it just shows what’s top of mind and what’s not at any time in FinTech and, right now, blockchain is not …

So, I blogged last week about women in FinTech and whether we care, and got lots of replies … from women … who said yes, we care. Interesting that there were not so many replies from the other gender, but hey what do you expect? One interesting insight is that …

One of the greatest challenges in digital transformation is the cultural change, that has to be led with passion and commitment from the top-down. As I’ve already mentioned, that means a Board mandate and the Chair and CEO being fully on board. But what about the C-team? And the level …

A year ago I blogged about invisible banking and that I have some issues with it, namely that the bank brand disappears and the customer finds it too easy to spend without thinking. Now, I read more and more about embedded banking, contextual banking, frictionless banking and more, and I …

I can understand why bankers can be sceptical about what technologists say. For years, technologists have been telling them that their business is threatened by technological change. They’ve been shouting that they will be disintermediated; they say that the bank must change and change fast to keep up; they argue …

I’ve mentioned quite often that you cannot sort out all of the banks systems and structures overnight. It has to be a slow burn and often takes more than five years. It also appears to take place in three phases. The first phase is to sort out the basics. If …

There are five camps out there. The first is the FinTech camp. This camp sit around the campfire and go “down with banks, down with banks”. They believe banks are out-dated legacy firms who have no idea about the modern age of technology. They believe banks are money-grabbing Shylocks, purely …

There’s a lot of talk about trust when you meet with people in finance. Customers trust us with their money … there is trust in banks … we are trusted when it comes to advice … our brand is a trusted brand. I usually keep quiet as most of that …

I’ve talked a little about TechFin in the past but, in my presentations, I talk more and more about TechFin versus FinTech. FinTech is doing what we’ve always done, cheaper and faster and better with technology. TechFin is reimagining everything with no idea of what’s been before with technology. It’s a …

We were having a debate about brand loyalty in a mobile world. The discussion began with talking about how it used to be complex with dealing via branch and call centre; then it was branch, call centre and online; now, it’s branch, call centre, online and mobile. How do you …

I just had a week down-under in the land of the roo, and discovered that the RBA – Reserve Bank of Australia – has done an about turn in the last couple of years and encouraged some innovation in banking (at last!). As a result, I was pleasantly surprised to …

Another interesting nuance of the FinTech Bank is the integration of business and technology. I’ve referenced this a few times, but wanted to be explicit that these banks think technology is business and business is technology. This is clearly demonstrated in their microservices team structures and agile thinking. Auditors, compliance, …