Bank Innovation

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.)

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Check back on Finovate.com for the videos of all of the presenters.

Next up is FinovateEurope in London on February 11 & 12, 2014. I’ll be there live, plus the Bank Innovators Council also will be hosting a day-long Innovators Workshop in London immediately afterward on February 13 at Level 39, the largest FinTech accelerator in Europe.

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Notes on methodology (via Finovate):
1. Only audience members NOT associated with demoing companies were eligible to vote. Finovate employees did not vote.
2. Attendees were encouraged to note their favorites during each day. At the end of the last demo, they chose their three favorites.
3. The exact written instructions given to attendees: “Please rate (the companies) on the basis of demo quality and potential impact of the innovation demoed.”
4. The four companies appearing on the highest percentage of submitted ballots were named Best of Show.
5. Go here for a list of previous Best of Show winners.

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 their financial promise remains elusive.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.                            

 – Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Why?

One of the reasons is that so many of our industry’s innovations have been about improving transactions, not relationships. 

We can access our accounts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We can move money from point A to point B with speed and precision. We can access tax, investment and financial planning advice from software and online experts.

So what?

Sometimes we still can’t find what we’re looking for. Sometimes we don’t want to do it all ourselves. Sometimes we want a little help. Sometimes we want to just talk to a professional who will actually listen.

Customers today have many choices, and merely offering the usual menu of products and services will not create a compelling reason for them to choose your financial institution from the sea of similar offerings.

It’s not about your branch, or your ATM network or even your mobile banking platform. Those are just “dumb pipes”.

From Transactions to Relationships

But what if we spent just a little of our innovative energy on improving the relationships customers have with their financial providers?

What do we need to do to move from transactions to relationships? There are four imperatives:

1. We have to shift our mindset from execution to diagnosis. In healthcare terms, it’s shifting from handing out prescriptions and treating symptoms to really understanding the underlying causes.
2. We have to consciously build trust and loyalty with our customers. We have to think beyond the transaction, or even a successful series of transactions, and take the necessary steps to have our clients perceive– and believe— that we are worthy of their trust and loyalty.
3. We have to move from product development– you know, that process where you launch a product that your team has been asking for, then point fingers internally when the financial results fail to meet expectations– to customer development. Customer development is an approach that makes sure that you are solving a problem or meeting a need that your paying customers actually care about.
4. We have to engage the ecosystem. No product or service exists in a vacuum. Before we launch anything, we need to make sure that we are solving a problem our customers want solved, we have to understand the role our internal and external partners play in the process and we have to know what the value chain looks like and where we fit in. We also want to make sure we avoid any co-innovation risk and adoption risk along the way.

It’s not rocket science, but it is a big change from the way most financial institutions do business. If we can do those things well, we can begin to create value in our relationships and we can innovate new paths to profitable growth.

Last week during Finovate Fall 2013 we launched the Bank Innovators Council. More than 75 bank innovators, entrepreneurs, CEOs, bloggers and industry analysts joined us on a Manhattan rooftop to celebrate the launch of the first organization designed by bank innovators for bank innovators.

We are proud to be creating a platform to bank innovators do together what they can’t do alone. Join us at BankInnovatorsCouncil.org

Finovate Fall 2013 wrapped up a whirlwind two days of FinTech innovation in New York on September 10 and 11. Eight of the 69 presenting companies were voted Best of Show by those in attendance.

Five of those eight winners had direct or indirect applicability for the investing/financial planning/wealth management space (LearnVest, MoneyDesktop, Motif, TipRanks and Yodlee).

Rising Above a Difficult Venue

This year’s venue at the Manhattan Center (which includes the historic Hammerstein Ballroom) was not the best for this kind of show. Finovate  is really two simultaneous events– the eight sets of back to back to back rapid-fire 7-mintue demos (no slides or Q&A), and the longer one-on-one interactions with the presenters at each of their booths for those who want to learn more and/or make connections. Past venues provided sufficient separation between the stage and the presenter booths to allow both to co-exist. That was not the case this year, and unfortunately both parts suffered a little.

Beyond rows of chairs close to the stage, better seats with tables were placed around the two balconies, with remote viewing via video screens also available on the 7th floor and its balcony (plus a press room in the basement) . This split up the crowd a quite a bit and did make it more difficult for the ongoing conversations and networking that are so valuable at a show like this. There were also a few audio glitches that detracted, but the WiFi was much better than last year at Javits Center.

Still,  it was great to see all of the newest innovations, meet the innovators behind them and catch up with my growing list of friends at these must-attend events.

Bank Innovators Council

(In a semi-related note, we held the launch party for the new Bank Innovators Council on the middle night of Finovate. More than 75 bankers, partners and thought leaders joined us on a Manhattan rooftop to kick off this new organization designed specifically to help bankers innovate together in ways they cannot do alone. More on this in a future post)

Finovate Fall 2013 Best of Show Winners

(in alphabetical order):

Read the entire story on finovate.com, where you will also soon be able to see videos of all 69 presentations from Finovate Fall 2013.

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