During the Asian Banker’s Retail Excellence conference that I attended recently, my friend Emmanuel Daniel posed the question: Who do you trust more: Facebook or the Government? Bearing in mind that this was in the week of the Cambridge Analytica leaked data storm, where everyone was screaming to #deletefacebook and Mr. Zuckerberg had to come…
I am struck every day by the disparity in financial structures I see worldwide. Recently, I’ve visited Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia for example, and am bemused how none of these countries has a strong mobile wallet operator. Instead, the nations seem to be 100% cash-focused, as my credit cards got hammered by their country’s…
I hosted a dinner focused upon Open Banking recently and what it means to FinTech firms and start-ups. There were no bankers at the table, but a lot of firms who consult, provide systems or are deploying new businesses in FinTech at the table. The general consensus around the table is that Open Banking is…
I’m not a financial analyst but a technologist and so, unsurprisingly, I got called out by some pedantic accountants over my simplistic assertion that Ant Financial is 35x more productive than banks like Barclays, as I was simply using their revenues per employee to make comparisons. Similarly, in previous discussions of platforms versus banks, using…
The main blog headlines are … The Big Digital Banks: JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs I was having a chat about Artificial Intelligence (AI) in banking the other day. It was an interesting conversation, although most of the examples were for customer service via Chatbots, which doesn’t impress me much. I know that systems like Erica,…
I was having a chat about Artificial Intelligence (AI) in banking the other day. It was an interesting conversation, although most of the examples were for customer service via Chatbots, which doesn’t impress me much. I know that systems like Erica, short for Bank of AmErica, are up and running to make life easier, but…
I was super impressed by an article written by FinTech friend Bradley Leimer for International Banker the other day, and asked if I could share on the blog. Bradley kindly said yes, so here you are. Enjoy the read! The Invisible Hand of Financial Services by Bradley Leimer, Managing Director and Head of Fintech Strategy, Explorer Advisory…
There’s a lot of discussion about FinTech and what it means to banks. Originally, everyone was talking about disruption, disintermediation and dissing banks. Then the discussion went to incumbents versus start-ups. Then it ended up last year about partnering and co-creation. I personally believe most of the discussion is off-beam and off-track. For example, there…
The main blog headlines are … What is the real difference between a challenger bank and an incumbent? I was reading about banks being average to poor at marketing, and wondered about it. Banks’ advertising generally is about either being cool or in love with you. Here are a few examples from British banks. Lloyds:…
