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Innovation – Finance – Technology

Author: Christoffer Hernæs

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Christoffer Hernæs

Open banking: Getting the business model right

APIS are at the heart of open banking. If executed correctly propose to increase innovation, foster collaboration, extend customer reach and lower costs compared to existing legacy systems. A key concept in the open banking paradigm is to use open source technologies to enable third-party developers to build financial applications on top of the banks’ exisiting infrastructure. To succeed with an open banking strategy without rendering oneself obsolete, finding the right business model is imperative.

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Christoffer Hernæs

Open banking: The nature of digital ecosystems

The banking industry is facing many of the same perils as the telco and media industry has been though in the latter years, and the primary challengers are the same ones that have been feasting at the media and telco’s profit margins for more than a decade. These are the four horsemen of the incumbents apocalypse (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon). While they are vastly different in many ways, they all share the traits of a succesful digital ecosystem.

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Christoffer Hernæs

How did we end up here?

Like many other Europeans I woke up today to the shocking news of Donald Trump winning the presidential election. As a browsed through every news resource I could come across on my phone hoping that someone had gotten this wrong the media coverage was eerily similarity to what followed the Brexit referendum back in June. What just happened? Why didn’t we see this coming? How did we let this happen?

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Christoffer Hernæs

A talk with ThoughtMachine on VaultOS and the future of core banking

Core banking is considered for many as the gordian knot in the digitization of banking. As a result, a vast majority of fintech companies are innovating around the core, leaving legacy IT to the banks. However, some entrepreneurs are audacious enough to attempt to renew core banking from scratch. I had the pleasure of meeting Tristan Fletcher of ThoughtMachine in London earlier this fall, and used the occasion to ask him a couple of questions of which problems ThoughtMachine is attempting to solve with VaultOS.

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Christoffer Hernæs

Intelligent automation and the future of finance

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is likely to provide opportunities to deliver smarter solutions for end users and transform the banks processing capabilities. Last week, UBS invited leaders and experts from the financial industry, fintechs, academia and regulators come together to discuss the future of Intelligent Automation and start to build a common understanding of what a successful approach would look like. I had the pleasure of attending this event and we explored the most relevant issues covering where, when and how this will happen.

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Christoffer Hernæs

Open banking: An introduction

The landscape for financial services is changing, and the jury is still out on how the endgame is going to play out. One of the concepts shaping this future is open banking. This development emerge out of the payment area where a perfect storm of shifting customer behavior, regulatory changes, the threat from digital ecosystems such as Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, and the quest for new business models are driving banks toward the open banking paradigm.

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Christoffer Hernæs

How AI will reshape everyday banking

The greatest fear for banks in the changing landscape of financial services is to lose grasp of the customer relationship and become utility commodity providers, or “dumb pipes”. This fear is strengthen by changes in consumer behavior and expectations, regulatory changes such as PSD2, new business models and new technology. Artificial intelligence is one of the technological paradigms that is set to transform financial services in the years to come.

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Christoffer Hernæs

The potential benefits of artificial intelligence in the compliance function

Artificial intelligence is one of the technological paradigms that is set to transform financial services in the years to come. This includes every aspect of the bank, ranging from customer interaction through chatbots, process automation and risk and credit assessment just to name a few. However, the compliance function is one of the areas where AI will have a profound impact on banking.

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Christoffer Hernæs

We have reached the second half of the chessboard

We should expect to see technology having a huge impact on every aspect of society in the years to come from everything to artificial intelligence, widespread adoption of blockchain technology, gene editing and human augmentations just to name a few areas. This will shape customer behavior, business models and required skill sets and leadership in a new business environment where speed and agility are the primary competitive advantages.

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Christoffer Hernæs

The ethics of transhumanism

When I was growing up, my father often told me that Andy Warhol once said that he wanted to be a machine, and that it would be a lot easier to be a machine. If something broke, you could just replace it. I am not even going to try to answer the many ethical, moral and existential questions raised by transhumanism. The only thing I know is that it is inevitable that advances in robotics, bionics, artificial intelligence and genetics will affect the next phase of human evolution, and we should not underestimate the ethical and social implications.

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Christoffer Hernæs

Brace yourselves for the next wave of fintech

After an all time high for fintech funding of USD 16 billion in 2015, followed by a strong Q1 of 2016 with global investments of USD 5,7 billion, investments suddenly dropped in Q2 2016. Despite a drop in Q2 investments, KPMG claims that 2016 is on track for another all time high for fintech investments. While some speculate that UK fintech funding could have been affected by Brexit uncertainty, another explanation could be that we are now seeing the undertow before the second wave of fintech.

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Christoffer Hernæs

Core banking – fintech’s final frontier

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. This idiom has acted as a rule of thumb for core banking solution for several years. While analysts has claimed repeatedly that legacy IT is slowing incumbents down, the existing and sometime ancient core banking systems still work flawlessly. Although, even if something works an upgrade is due when the world around is moving at an increasingly rapid pace.

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Christoffer Hernæs

Are challenger banks a challenge for incumbent banks?

Will challenger banks lead to a revolution in digital banking or are they merely digital lipstick? Banking as a platform is an inevitable scenario and clever use of technology will most likely change the face of retail banking where user experience and simplicity is integral. Challenger banks with an app-only presence are not limited to the constraints of traditional online and mobile banking interfaces in the same way direct banks benefited from not having any branches 15 years ago.

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Christoffer Hernæs

You can’t have financial inclusion without digital inclusion

One of the most exciting aspects of fintech is the promise of delivering financial services to the unbanked and underbanked population of the world. According to the World Bank, 2 billion people are still unbanked in the world today. Even though this is a high number, it still is a decrease of 20 percent since 2011. Of the unbanked population, 1,5 billion people are unbanked due to their inability to prove their identity through a valid birth certificate, passport, proof of residence through utility bill or some other means to fulfil traditional KYC-procedures.

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