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A few years ago, I was invited to talk with Equitable Bank in Canada about digital banking. Since then, they’ve launched their digital bank called EQ Bank. So I was pleased when Simon Wahl, who heads up marketing at Flinks, sent me a podcast interview with Andrew Moor, EQ Bank’s CEO, along with a transcript…

I wrote my blog about the bank branch being dead the other day, just as a new report called for banks to stop trying to be cashless and branchless because it harms society. This is from the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce), an association founded by William Shipley in…

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…

The main blog headlines are … Banks need to be technology giants I got into one very interesting discussion with a digital banker. He was underscoring how important data is in banking, and referenced the fact that banking started with data. It started as a ledger system a thousand years ago so that pilgrims could…

I got into one very interesting discussion with a digital banker. He was underscoring how important data is in banking, and referenced the fact that banking started with data. It started as a ledger system a thousand years ago so that pilgrims could travel to the Holy Land under the wing of the Knights Templar….

I often talk about changing core systems, and most people tell me I’m mad. It doesn’t have to happen. You can have an overlay of middleware to deal with it. You don’t need to change those old systems. It’s too risky and too costly. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And yet nearly every digital bank…

One of the issues I have with financial services is that it’s frightening. You might not think so, but I grew up in a world of cushioned money. I didn’t know much about money at all. The most I knew about money is begging for more pocket money. The Bank of Mum and Dad was…

I claim that most of the banks embracing true digital transformation and not just treating digital as a channel, are led by people who understand technology. They have a leadership team who are passionate about digitalisation, and see it as a core raison d’etre of the bank’s future. Not just an add-on. So, I took…