Future

This is an old but true story of my very own. Back in the day, I worked for a computer firm that had a unique piece of hardware and software called the Contents Addressable File Store, or CAFS for short. I was the marketing manager for this remarkable piece of technology and, for the benefit…

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 provide a consistent, omnichannel (vomiting…

I’m just reading a new book recommended by a banking friend AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order by Kai-Fu Lee, and the opening got me thinking. Kai-Fu refers to the Google AI machine AlphaGo that beat Ke Jie, the world’s best Go player, as a sputnik moment. For those old enough,…

I just picked up the London Business School’s quarterly journal, with lots of articles talking about Artificial Intelligence (AI). There are two in particular that stand out, with some interesting views. The first is by Julian Birkinshaw, Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, who argues that people will be integral to the future of business, just…

I often point to a banks’ executive leadership team and ask the question: who can tell me the difference between blockchain and distributed ledger? If anyone even goes there, I then ask them to tell me the difference between artificial intelligence and machine learning. Few ever come out of that well and you may ask:…

Yep, there’s a clickbaiting title if ever I saw one. But it seems to be true. Ten years ago, we had a global financial crisis. Now, ten years later, the banks are heavily regulated, their risk-capital ratios stabilised, their leverage reduced and the regulators breathing down their necks, promoting competition and supporting technology innovators. The…

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…

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…

I’ve got lots more to write about digital transformation and the things I’m learning from banks engaged in doing it but, to give you a break, I also have a couple of fantastic guest submissions which are worth sharing. Today’s share is from Simon Taylor, he of the blockchain fame from 11FS. Simon recently wrote…

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 Banker: Why ‘real time’ will…