The landscape for financial services is changing, and while some trends stand out as inevitable, the endgame is still unclear. Fintech is not one single discipline, but a collective term descibing diferent ways of improving and/or disrupting traditional financial services through use of technology, hence the term FinTech. Payments is still the biggest and most mature field within fintech, what is the state of payment innovation, and how is this affecting incumbents?
People have long dreamed of building machines that can think and act like humans.
Today’s advances in computer science and other fields look set to make this dream
a reality. But what is artificial intelligence, and what can it do for us?
Our digital data form the basis for new digital products and services, but the competitor is only a click away if consumer trust is not managed properly.
I usually try to confine my blog to industry related subjects within finance, technology and innovation. But every once in a while I feel that am faced with such great levels of ignorance that I an unable to restrain myself. With all the information in the world only a few keystrokes away, one should imagine that the ability to distinguish rumors, gossip, propaganda and beliefs from facts and scientific proof should be a natural trait for everyone with a smartphone and an internet connection. Unfortunately that is far from the case.
Early December, Facebook finally unveiled their newly acquired licenses for e-money and payment services out of Ireland. The rumors of Facebook entering the payment space in Europe has been going on for a while, ever since it was reported that Facebook applied for a money transfer license a while ago. Facebook is already in a unique position to disintermediate retail banks as the most powerful digital ecosystem out there for consumers. The key to Facebooks powerful position is the ability to evolve alongside changing user behavior, and so far, Facebook is excelling at this. According to a study conducted by pwc, 68 percent of bankers are concerned with losing control over their customer interface. A regulatory compliant Facebook should definitely make those concerns turn into worries.
Omnichannel is the king of the buzzwords in retail banking. It’s the idea that “customers should receive a consistent seamless service across all channels”. In this utopia the branch, phone, web and mobile app all come together as one. But if you’re a fan of omnichannel, you might want to sit down, because I’ve got some bad news.
A new breed of digital-only challenger banks is on the rise, and they are all going after the incumbent banks revenues. While the jury is out on whether these new entrants pose a real threat to the established banking industry, the challenger banks should not be underestimated.
Another exciting year for fintech has passed, and I will once again attempt to say something about the how fintech and the future of financial services will develop in the coming year. By now it is clear that the changing landscape for financial services is an evolution rather than a revolution, and many of these as well as my 2016 predictions will have a long-term perspective before we see any potential impact. No matter the case, attempting to predict the future is a surefire way to be mistaken.
2016 has been another memorable year when it comes to fintech in Norway, where fintech suddenly caught mainstream interest. Where 2015 was a busy year for fintech investments in Norway, this is by no means slowing down and the sheer number of fintechs emerging out of Norway is accelerating at an incredible rapid pace.
As competition increase in a digital world, fast and frictionless onboarding becomes crucial for customer acquisition.
It has been a while since the bitcoin community claimed that bitcoin was the one currency that would replace fiat currencies. For many people, the idea behind bitcoin was to decentralize the traditional financial system, favoring a fully decentralized one. However, it’s quickly became very unlikely that the world will ever switch from using government-issued money to using bitcoin. The last two years has been all about the blockchain. Now, bitcoin is gaining momentum as a potential new asset class.
Alt som kan digitaliseres vil digitaliseres og smart bruk av teknologi kommer til å gjennomsyre alle funksjoner i samfunnet. Denne utviklingen er eksponentiell av natur, og det er nødvendig å tilvenne seg stadig raskere endringstakt. Det som anses som innovativt i dag er morgendagens hygienefaktor, og dagens unge er ikke automatisk morgendagens digitale vinnere. Digitalisering er ingen engangshendelse, men en kontinuerlig prosess. Det samme gjelder for kompetansebehovet i en digital verden.
There is nowhere to hide in the changing landscape of financial services, and asset management is no exception. With the rise of robo advisors and intelligent automation, asset managers and financial advisors are potentially facing the same fate as the retail stock brokers. According to a survey conducted by the CFA Institute, the majority of respondents, which included more than 3,000 chartered financial analysts around the world, view asset management as the industry most at risk from disruption.
Imagine there was no paper. Would you design your processes the same way as you have today? Most likely you would utilise the possibilities given by technology to design a frictionless process with as few steps as possible. This is unfortunately not always the case when it comes to digitisation of legacy business processes.
Ever since the first generations of game consoles, the concept of console wars has been prevalent by both fanboys and industry analysts. The first occurrence of console wars was Intellivision vs. Atari VCS in the early 1980s, but the concept gained public attention during the rivalry between Sega and Nintendo in the 90s with catchphrases like Genesis does what Nintendon’t. For every generation of consoles this has been repeated in cycles. Now, this pattern seems to come to an end.
In the world of technology, achieving a billion-dollar valuation has long been considered the ultimate achievement. But as investors no longer pursue the quest for unicorns with the same level of interest, it may be time to revise valuation strategies as well and look for underlying values rather than inflated expectations.
The landscape for financial services is changing, and the jury is still out as to how the endgame is going to play out. One of the concepts shaping this future is open banking. For this topic I have chosen to invite Chris Skinner from the Financial Services Club, Brett King of Moven, Matthias Kröner of Fidor and Pascal Bouvier, venture partner at Santander to join the discussion. Tune in to this free webinar on Brighttalk December 7th to hear some of the worlds leading experts on digital banking discuss what they are saying, doing, and planning when it comes to open banking.
In order to fully grasp the business potential of open banking, it is useful to have some insights in the technical concepts defining the open banking paradigm. This is meant to be a short introduction to APIs for non-technical people.
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.
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.