Digital Bank

Ever since I started working in business process re-engineering and transformation a while ago, before most millennials were born I should say, I learnt a lesson early on. Transformation will never work without a crisis point. You cannot make the whole company change if profits are good, objectives are being …

I found it interesting to hear that many of the banks focused upon digital are studying, visiting, talking to and hiring people from the Big Tech firms. People with experience at Netflix, Alibaba, Amazon and Tencent are in strong demand, especially those who can code. I always  remember the comment …

Another key factor of the digital banks I’m talking to is that the customer is their primary focus. Not the shareholder, the investor, the quarterly bonus, the dividend yield or the cost-income ratio. The customer. This is something I’ve found quite rare in most banks, as the retail customer is …

Another key factor in building a truly digital bank is commitment. Commitment right from the top and, by the top, I don’t just mean the CEO and the leadership team, but the Board of the bank. Quite often, a digital transformation of a bank requires years of commitment during which …

I’ve been grappling with what sets apart the banks that I think are truly digital from the rest, and realised the other day that it is because they have digital to the core of the bank. They don’t just think the bank has to adopt digital or do digital, they …

For years, I’ve been wondering why people in business operations couldn’t align their needs with the people delivering technology in the organisation. The CIO would sit outside the business, watching and responding to requests. The requests would get prioritisation and be delivered in sequence over time, sometimes a very long …

So, I’ve been summarising other people’s views of the year ahead from a variety of sources, but I also wrote two outline pieces for my friends at The Banker magazine and Jim Marous’s The Financial Brand. Just to finish off my week’s blogs about this year, here’s what I wrote. From The …

There has been a lot of thinking and rethinking during 2018 about blockchain, cryptocurrencies, bitcoin and everything digital currency related. I wrote about the challenges getting blockchains implemented for example, and was surprised to find myself enduing up as a network meme. The power of the pundit, ay? Last year …

I was listening to a great discussion about innovation (again) amongst a group of innovative bankers. As the conversation progressed, it made me reflect on a few things. In particular, how the conversation about innovation has changed over the past decade. Just before the financial crisis hit, innovation was big …

I present regularly to retail, commercial and investment banks, wealth managers and fund managers, insurance companies and more about how technology is transforming everything. I often can feel a sense of cynicism in the room. We’ve heard all this before and yes, I’ve pointed this out several times: The boy …

Another day and another discussion about digital transformation with a group of bankers. As the conversation progressed, several of the attendees touched on a subject in different ways but the core of what they were asking was this: when will we know we’ve done digital? I find this question quite …

I just got back from Russia recently where I was interviewed by one of their leading journals. The journalist had read Digital Human, and took a very Russian take on it. His first question was along the lines of: if we are automating so much, then the people who own …

I haven’t given away my slides and presentation for a while, as it’s part of my unique armoury, but I’m bored with my latest slide deck so here it is.  Open Banking Strategy and Business Model from Chris Skinner And just in case it doesn’t make sense, here’s a …

In a final write-up on leadership, there was a fantastic presentation about the lessons DNB had learned in trying to make digital change happen. Solveig Hellebust, Group Executive Vice President for People & Operations at DNB or, as she called it, POP, talked about the five things that make the …

Another interesting factor in leadership is communication. When I ask people who they think are great leaders, they often name people like Steve Jobs, Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill and more. What is common in all of these names is that they are great orators. Their speeches are marked …