After discussing Metro Bank yesterday, the other presentation that caught my attention at innotribe Belfast was from Fidor Bank. The two presentations are like going from one extreme to another however – Metro with their branch based focus compared with Fidor with their GLoSoMo (Global-Local, Social Mobile) approach. I interviewed Fidor Bank CEO Matthias Kröner…
I had an interesting dialogue over lunch yesterday. One of my colleagues had just got his iZettle dongle. iZettle is a Square for Europe, offering Chip & Signature payments on smartphones (Square reads the mag stripe). It was originally going to be Chip & PIN, but the PIN terminal detail is too costly to rollout…
Whilst in Russia last week, I was lucky enough to be there when good friend Daniel Gusev launched a new bank initiative for OJSC Promsvyazbank (PSB). PSB is a privately-owned universal commercial bank. Founded in 1995, PSB currently ranks 10th by assets among Russian banks and Daniel is innovation advisor to the Board. The concept…
Whilst in Russia last week, I was lucky enough to be there when good friend Daniel Gusev launched a new bank initiative for OJSC Promsvyazbank (PSB). PSB is a privately-owned universal commercial bank. Founded in 1995, PSB currently ranks 10th by assets among Russian banks and Daniel is innovation advisor to the Board. The concept…
I’ve been struck by many nuances of culture and creed lately. There are many examples, but it all comes down to dealing with the customer as a unique entity, not some mass market. For example, why does Spain have so many bank branches? Spain has around 43,000 bank branches, about half as many as the…
Everyone’s now talking about mobile payments and mobile banking. I was talking about that effectively as a core strategic area back in 2004. So it took about five years to become the mainstream bank conversation. Now, I talk about social payments and social banking. I’ve been talking about this as a core strategic area since…
There’s a strong dialogue about why new services such as PayPal and Square take off so fast, and the answer is a combination of usability and accessibility. If something is easy and it works, then it can gain critical mass fast. That’s true of Facebook, Twitter and other social media. The more intuitive, accessible, easy…
I’ve spent my life working with banks and technology firms, trying to align technology with business strategy and vice versa. And yet it was only yesterday that I realised that these two industries are ripping each other apart. The fact is that banking was managed in a risk averse way for centuries through diligent book-keeping…
I’ve spent my life working with banks and technology firms, trying to align technology with business strategy and vice versa. And yet it was only yesterday that I realised that these two industries are ripping each other apart. The fact is that banking was managed in a risk averse way for centuries through diligent book-keeping…
I did a webinar on innovation yesterday. It's a one-hour session, which you're welcome to watch if you have the time: Alternatively or, in addition, here are the slides I presented if you want a quick view of the info provided. Innovation in financial services View more presentations from Chris Skinner. As you will…
