As a few fintech companies like Lending Club, Betterment, and others have run into some rough patches lately, it has been interesting to note some of the reactions, especially amongst bankers (that’s just shorthand, I’m looking at you too, credit union leaders). Some...
Banking / Finance
Recent Articles
Strategic planning: Stacking the odds in your favour
It’s midyear already. Halftime. Two quarters down and two to go for 2016. For many financial institutions, it’s also the start of the 2017 strategic planning season. That time when boards and senior leadership teams sit down to hash out next year’s budget; working...
Is UBI the next big thing in insurance
UBI, or user based insurance, may become the new basis for personalized premium prices, as the IoT continues to grow and connect increasingly advanced technology. According to SMA Research, 36% of auto insurers will use telematics UBI by 2020. Acenture’s 2015...
A data-driven approach in insurance – How to get started
Advancements in technologies, bigger data sets, and predictive analytics have changed the game for the insurance industry. For those who want to compete, data-driven marketing approaches must drive every customer engagement strategy. According to research by Applied...
Note to banks: say “hello” to big data or “goodbye” to your customers
What is the most difficult task for a bank? Acquiring customers? Retaining customers? Growing share of customer wallet? No. Being customer centric is the most difficult task for any bank. But why is being customer centric so important? The answer is simple. A customer...
Banking on the IOT – Is this possible to combine the two?
There’s a lot of talk about the potential uses for the Internet of Things. From smart homes to connected cars, IoT offers convenience in ways that once never existed. Yet one area where the IoT hasn’t been fully realized is the financial services industry. With fewer...
Innovation is an act of leadership in fintech & banking
The average lifespan atop any corporate leaderboard, whether it’s the Fortune 500 or any other peer group listing, is getting shorter and shorter. Business cycles are growing increasingly brief and volatile. Yesterday’s top companies are soon long forgotten, and...
The Masters of Big Data – Interviews with five big data experts in banking
For decades now, banks have been able to retain their customers through traditional channels. However, recent shifts in the industry are threatening this historically stable customer base. Today’s consumer is used to engaging with retailers and expects his needs to be...
How the banking sector can leverage the potential of big data
Big Data is more than just a technology trend; it is an important paradigm that is defining how online business will be conducted in the next few decades. To get an idea of the sheer magnitude of data being created and collected these days, consider this estimate by...
How Block Chain is disrupting many industries
Until recently, Blockchain was a term only known to geeks and specialists. But in the last six months, it has become a buzzword. In very simple terms Blockchain is the act of recording events in a database. The database itself is referred to as the Blockchain. Once...
9 inspiring quotes from experts shaping the future of banking
Who doesn’t like a good quote? We come across interesting and useful quotes all of the time in literature, news media, entertainment, and so on. A potent, succinct quote that underlines a key point or supports an important truth can be like gold. Often the value of a...
The role of big data in the banking industry
The banking industry has evolved by leaps and bounds over the past decade, when it comes to operations and service delivery. Surprisingly though, most banks have failed to utilize the information within their own databases. However, that’s all about to change as the...
In conversation with Tim Kobe, the iconic designer behind the original Apple Stores
Manu: Tell us a little about yourself, outside of the information that is publicly available online? Tim: I am from California. I got started in business 25 years ago. I studied Bachelor of Science, environmental design at art center college of design, at Pasadena. I...
“We’re witnessing the creative destruction of financial services.” says banking expert, Arvind Sankaran
I recently interviewed Arvind Sankaran, Global business leader. We talked about FinTech startups, innovation in the banking industry, big data analytics, and wealth management. He also shared about his experience working with banks like CITI, HSBC, and Barclays. Read...
The three pillars of insurance analytics
The insurance industry is all about assessing risk and managing the same successfully. Life insurance industry operates intrinsically by balancing risk assessment and risk management. Compiled with a large volume of data the insurance industry operates with, arriving...
The four people who ruin innovation in fintech & banking
Innovation is fun. Except when these types are around. How many do you know? The Hypemaster The Hypemaster is, well… a master of hype. Everything they’re working on is amazing, and you must absolutely drop everything and check it out. Right now! “Hey we’re getting...
Your fast follower strategy is riskier than you realize
In my last post Leaders, Learners and Laggards I talked of banking leaders who describe their approach to innovation as being a “fast follower, and how my typical retort is that they are half-right— most of them are definitely followers, but there usually isn’t...
Leaders, learners, and laggards in banking and fintech innovation
I talk with a lot of banking leaders who describe their approach to innovation as being a “fast follower. My typical retort is that they are half-right— most of them are definitely followers, but there usually isn’t anything fast about their approach. Pioneers are the...
Banking stats on customer experience, mobile banking & personalization
Technologies like big data analytics, digital personalization, and marketing tech have gone from early-adopter novelties, to main stream essentials. It's therefore no secret that the banking landscape has changed dramatically over the past few years. 30 interesting...
Positive effects of big data in financial sector
The past number of decades have seen more and more of our world move into computers. Rare is the doctor’s office with file cabinets full of alphabetized patient folders or a company researcher hanging out at the library to get data for a client report. Today, our...
From transactions to relationships: Innovation’s next horizon
There has never been a better time for innovation in financial services, yet most financial institutions struggle to build lasting, profitable relationships with their customer base. New ideas abound, yet actually implementing those new ideas, let alone realizing...
Banking: How the pursuit of efficiency kills innovation
While banks are on a quest to improve efficiency ratios, I’ve noticed a recent increase in the use of the word “innovation” in more and more bank job descriptions and even in bank job titles. I view this as both good news and bad news. Good news because at least it...
Bank innovation through collaboration – It’s better together!
I have been a little behind in my writing because I have been spending a lot of time on the road with some great innovators lately, at FinovateEurope and the Bank Innovators Council Lab Day in London, the FinTech Partnerships Conference and the All Payments Expo in...
5 ways to simply kill your innovation initiative
I often write and speak about the “Business Prevention Department” that lurks inside banks. Devoted to sniffing out and stamping out anything that looks “risky”, the Business Prevention Department is staffed with members committed to “protecting” their banks from...
Innovation is more than the next big idea in fintech and banking
During the last 15 years, 47 fintech companies grew from startups to “unicorns” (valued at $1 billion or greater), with another 38 companies quickly approaching that level, as Jim Bruene posted to the Finovate blog. This has caught the attention of investors, who...
Interview with Eric Schneider, Asia Pacific Head of MasterCard Advisors
Tell us a little bit about yourself. I’ve been with MasterCard since 2001, and I am currently heading MasterCard Advisors, the professional services arm of the company, in the Asia Pacific region. The most exciting aspect of my job is to witness and be a part of the...
5 new year resolutions for innovators in banking
Here are some New Year resolutions for the growing group of bankers who are adding “innovation” to their do-to list in 2016. Getting these right will greatly improve your chances for success in the new year. 1. Define your innovation goals So, what do you want to get...
Top ten retail banking trends and predictions 2016
For the fifth consecutive year, we have surveyed a panel of close to 100 global financial services leaders for their thoughts around upcoming retail banking and credit union trends and predictions. The crowdsource panel including bankers, credit union executives,...
Top 10 retail banking trends and predictions for 2016
For the fifth consecutive year, we have surveyed a panel of close to 100 global financial services leaders for their thoughts around upcoming retail banking and credit union trends and predictions. The crowdsource panel including bankers, credit union executives,...
10 branch banking innovation strategies for 2016 and beyond!
Non-banking industries like hospitality and travel are deploying futuristic technologies and processes to enhance their service experiences every day — conditioning consumers with higher face-to-face service expectations. When these other industries ‘raise the service...
Bridging the customer experience gap
The prevailing view of most financial industry leaders over the past decade has been that internal innovation was optional at best, and probably harmful to the way they’ve been used to doing things for so long. Meanwhile, innovation bloomed on the edges and outside of...
Seven pillars that form the base of an information-centric bank
As consumers, each of us is fully cognizant of and deeply entwined with the "Information" economy. Whether we use Google to search, shop on Amazon, connect with friends on Facebook or hail a cab using Uber, we hardly give a moment’s thought to the "building blocks"...
How banking sector makes use of big data analytics [Infographic]
The Banking industry generates a huge volume of data on a day to day basis. To differentiate itself from the competition, banks are increasingly adopting big data analytics as part of their core strategy. Analytics will be the critical game changer for the banks. In...
Five things banks can learn from startups
Most bankers don’t spend a lot of time with start-up companies. The need for bankers’ loan decisions to be right 99% of the time tends to not mix well with most start-ups’ risky and voracious appetite for capital. Outside of a few bankers in Seattle, Silicon Valley,...
Digitization enables hyper personalization of banking services: Nitin Chugh
1. What role do you see digital initiatives play as the banking industry is increasingly shifting from commodity banking to that of personalized, customer services? How are such e-initiatives changing the playing field? All the technology led changes in banking-the...
Traditionalists vs. Trailblazers – Innovation in banking and fintech
Late last year I was asked by my good friend Jim Marous of The Financial Brand to contribute to his crowdsourced list of 2015 Digital Banking Trends and Predictions. My prediction was that we would see an increase in the current trend of banks investing in innovation....
Reimagining bank product design in the experience economy
When B. Joseph Pine II and James Gilmore wrote a book called “The Experience Economy,”they built on the work of Alvin Toffler (“Future Shock”) and others on the value of creatingexperiences. They cited Disney, Starbucks, Nordstrom and other leading brands as examples....
Can today’s banks become the ‘Bank of the Future’?
Why are so many banks yet to develop a real-time, digital customer engagement offering when there is an acknowledgment of the importance of this capability? The key challenge lies in legacy systems, with nearly all banks (89%) mentioning the challenge of overcoming...
How banks will compete in the future with one another!
Back in 1995 Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema wrote a book called The Discipline of Market Leaders, and in it, they broke down the three critical strategic domains of any business– Customer Intimacy, Product Leadership, and Operational Excellence. They argued that...
Sorry, but disruptive technology will kill banks
Allegedly, John Authers recently wrote an article in the Financial Times entitled “Disruptive technology will not kill banks“. I say allegedly because despite the article being cited and commented on by two people whose analysis and opinion I respect (Chris...
Banks have to upgrade, or risk being burnt to the ground – Interview with JP Nicols
For decades, banks have only competed with one another, on the same terms. As an industry not very used to change, the banking sector is currently undergoing a radical transformation. JP Nicols, a veteran from the banking sector, has spent twenty years in the space....
“Building the Amazon for Consumer Finance” – Alexander Graubner-Müller, CTO of KREDITECH
As the founder and CTO of Kreditech, Alexander strongly believes that algorithms and statistical data are the building blocks for the next Industrial Revolution. Kreditech, one of Germany’s most data-driven FinTech companies, is a testament to that belief. Before...
In search of competitive advantage in banking and fintech
Next week I’ll be in Las Vegas for Money 20/20 the huge payments and financial services innovation conference, and as always I’ll be on the lookout not only for cool ideas and technology but in particular those that can bring a competitive advantage for financial...
It’s too late; banking is already being disrupted
Bankers may be taking undue solace in Chris Skinner’s blog post, “Like Airlines and Pharma, Banking’s Too Big to Disrupt.” I was party to the specific round of sparring he cites in his article over whether financial technology startups will overthrow the banking...
How banks can power their loyalty programs
I read an article on The Huffington Post the other day, about how unhappy Canadians are with their banks’ loyalty programs. It got me thinking about what Crayon is offering to the world, and just how much the world needs it. There are a lot of loyalty programs out...
Big Data in Banking – How can Banks derive greater value from customer data?
Dealing with information and data is turning out to be a preeminent grindstone in every sector. This is the age of big data, where every professional relies on Data Analytics for accessing, managing and altering huge volumes data. Big data analytics has found greater...
Big data in banking: Banks better see big data as an opportunity
Using Big Data in an efficient way is a crucial success factor for banks. Since banks have been sitting on a data gold mine, they have substantial capacity to turn Big Data into knowledge that can be used to unlock new revenue opportunities. There are a few banks that...
Undeniable impact of big data on companies and their reputation
Big Data’s undeniable impact on companies’ goodwill and reputation has permeated the landscape of corporate valuation. Recent research confirms that companies need to face the new normal whereby corporate reputations suffer after mishaps with data under their control....
Internet of Things: Connecting anything and everything in Insurance
Companies want to innovate and release more and more new products faster and faster these days. This has led to machine-to-machine interactions replacing man-to-man interactions. Smart devices such as smart phones, laptops, and tablets have begun to outnumber the...
Eight reasons why insurance companies should move to cloud
Cloud technology is nothing but hosting the applications, data storage, and software in a cloud and accessing it through internet so that it is made available to multiple users and reduces the local storage. The data or applications could be shared by multiple...