The banks are in the media spotlight just now as open banking starts to roll out and the debate gathers steam. Are the banks ready? How are they faring in the brand new open banking space where everyone is jostling for room? Read more
When new technology bursts onto the scene it is almost always received in two different ways, by two different camps of people – those who are excited by the new opportunities it opens up and those who are resistant to change. Read more
Where we stand today the Big Four Banks have more than 70% of the personal current account market and 85% of the business current account market. I’m sure most people would agree that there’s room for some competition in this market. In pretty much every area of life, the more competition there is, the better it is for the consumer. Read more
Last week, it was reported in the press that British parents will lend or give more than £6.5 billion this year to help their children buy their first home. This figure is up from £5 billion in 2016. And it seems that the phenomenon is here to stay. It already has its own acronym. BOMAD. The Bank of Mum and Dad. Read more
This month, Facebook launched Messenger Day, a feature that lets you post pictures and videos with a 24 hour shelf life. Snapchat may have got in there first with the broad concept, but Facebook has given it a twist by formatting the feature to encourage users to get together offline. A billion people worldwide use Messenger and Facebook has identified a way to deliver additional value to them. Read more
Last week in this blog I flagged up Radio 4’s The Bottom Line’s interesting debate about the impact of fintech on the banking scene. If you had time to tune in, you will also have heard Anthony Jenkins, former CEO of Barclay’s Bank talk, in almost apocalyptic terms, about the accelerating fall in branch traffic. He quoted customer traffic as falling by 15% per annum and said: ‘If you walk into a branch in central London now, you can see the tumbleweeds rolling through the aisles.’ Read more
On Saturday afternoon’s The Bottom Line on Radio 4, Evan Davis asked Anthony Jenkins, former CEO of Barclay’s Bank, what he thought the next big thing in banking would be. Jenkins replied: “In the very short term I think the better use of data to make lending and credit decisions and marketing decisions.”
Of course I couldn’t agree more, as this is exactly what we are already doing with The Affordability Passport. Read more
Richard Branson is a big fan of the back of an envelope approach to creativity and I agree with him that “if you can’t write your business idea on the back of an envelope – it’s rubbish.” And he’s not saying anything new. Einstein was making the same point when he said “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” And who wants to argue with Einstein? Read more
Hidden Figures, in cinemas now, is the story of Katherine G Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, three female African-American mathematicians, or “computers”, working behind the scenes at Nasa in the 1960s. The story is set in Virginia where racial segregation meant that black and white Americans working for Nasa had to use different entrances, different toilets and different coffee pots. Read more
The business world moves fast, fintech possibly even faster, and every year there’s a raft of new technological developments and a whole new vocabulary to describe them. In 2016 we downloaded the Uber app, and we possibly dropped the term “unicorn” into conversation when we were talking about Uber, Snapchat and other hugely successful billion-dollar tech start-ups. Read more
