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 those scary people who want to try unproven ideas. As banks worldwide hurriedly launch accelerator programs, […]
FinTech
Sorry, but Disruptive Technology WILL Kill Banks
Some of them, anyway. You just won’t read that on their tombstones. John Authers recently wrote an article in the Financial Times entitled “Disruptive technology will not kill banks” that was commented on by two people whose analysis and opinion I respect (Chris Skinner and Jeff Marsico). The subheading that read “Banking is too heavily regulated to be […]
Recap of FinTech Week in New York
Recap of FinTech Week in New York After spending two weeks meeting with bankers all across the Southeast United States on our Bank Innovators Road Show, all of that activity reached a crescendo with FinTech Week in New York last week. Monday September 22 Bank Innovators Lab Day After stops in London and San Jose, the Bank Innovators Council’s third […]
Innovation Versus Efficiency
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 seems that banks may […]
FinovateEurope Recap
OK– so this post is less than timely. FinovateEurope ended two weeks ago (on February 12), and it was great, but I was doing double-duty in London with our Bank Innovators Council Lab Day the following day, with a whole lot of follow-ups since then, not to mention already working on our next event in […]
FinovateAsia Best of Show Winners
The second annual FinovateAsia 2013 wrapped up last week in Singapore, with 35 FinTech companies presenting their latest offerings. The audience-selected Best of Show winners are listed below in alphabetical order. (Thank you to Julie Schicktanz from the Finovate blog.) _________________________________________________ BehavioSec, for its behavioral biometrics-based authentication method Live blog post _________________________________________________ IND Group, for […]
Defeating Robo-Advisers Will Take More than a Pulse
A “robo-adviser” joined MoneyGuidePro founder and chief executive Bob Curtis on stage at this week’s T3 Enterprise conference and proceeded to melt down when Mr. Curtis asked it qualitative questions like “I’m worried I won’t be able to retire when I planned, can you help me with that?” During his opening keynote, Mr. Curtis was […]
How Banks Can Compete in The Future
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 companies couldn’t really dominate in more than one. None of these are exactly optional, but their […]