Innovation

Dec 19, 2012

2012: Technologies create the Perfect Storm

The #1 buzz phrase that everyone has grown to hate (especially Ron Shevlin) is Big Data. Sure, you may hate it, but it is still pretty important, as I blogged a wee while ago. A second area that has become so over debated that it is dull is Mobile. Add Cloud and Social to the…

Dec 14, 2012

Risk is a many splendored thing

I was asked to give a pre-dinner speech by SAS for a group of Chief Risk Officers (CRO’s) in Amsterdam recently. Here’s the speech. Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I wasn’t sure how to start this evening, and decided to begin with the collective noun for a group of CRO’s. You are collectively known as a…

Nov 29, 2012

Can banks meet the hybrid challenge?

It’s taken me a while to work out why social media and stuff is such a fundamental change for banking, but I finally think I've got there and it's clearer. It started with the rise of blogging and social media such as YouTube. I still retell the story of McKinsey’s Chief Executive who was side-blinded…

Nov 29, 2012

Can banks meet the hybrid challenge?

Nov 23, 2012

Too fast to innovate, too slow to change

As mentioned yesterday, the regulator tries to keep up with the banks who try to keep up with customer, and I said that banks often innovate too slowly. There are many examples of this, but the one that I come back to regularly is Chip & PIN. Chip & PIN has been an enormous success,…

Nov 22, 2012

Why should we innovate?

I was talking at a conference and a regulator was on the panel. The panel chair asked him: “should we think about innovation first or regulation?” and he responded by saying: “It is not a question of regulation or innovation. I would rather ask the question: why do we need innovation at all? Who is it…

Nov 14, 2012

Virtual currencies will explode thanks to mobile games

The European Central Bank (ECB) has just issued a report on Virtual Currency Schemes, with case studies on Second Life and Bitcoin (both previously covered in depth here). In the report, the ECB calls Bitcoin “the most successful — and probably most controversial — virtual currency scheme to date.” The ECB goes on to say that the…

Oct 12, 2012

A truly social bank advisor is the key

This week has been fascinating with lots of discussions about branch versus no branch and financial advisor versus product seller. I was going to leave it at that, but feel one final blog post worthy of discussion and this is about the role of social media. We all talk about Facebook and Twitter in the…

Oct 8, 2012

The future of the cash machine

I’ve blogged about the cash machine of the future before, with BBVA coming up with the idea of side-facing screens. Very nice too. Recently I saw some other variations of the cash machine, such as the new video ATMs being rolled out by banks such as Dollar Bank in America. And I thought ATM stood…

Sep 27, 2012

The future of the payments terminal

I’m speaking at a conference on the future of payments today for one of the world’s largest suppliers of payments terminals. They asked me my views on the future of the point-of-sale, and I said that it would disappear. Not a good position to take when you’re the keynote speaker at a conference for a…