Know the story about how to boil a frog? Something similar is happening in banking.
‘Amazon Bank’: it’s happening
That’s right, Amazon already takes deposits from Indian customers who prefer to pay for deliveries in cash through the Cashload feature of Amazon Pay. Is this a sneak peek into what’s to come in America? Probably, says The Financial Brand. In fact, Amazon’s already at it.
While financial execs are losing sleep over figuring out the retail giant, the gradual nature of their experimentation can camouflage the sheer scale of what they’re up to in banking. Financial Brand thinks it’s like boiling a frog — do it slowly and it won’t realise what’s going on.
Your ultimate data privacy guide
When it comes to data security, there are plenty of things that can go wrong. NGDATA has put together a thorough guide to help banks get the hang of the nitty gritty of data privacy, from how it affects the way they do business to the potential consequences of not protecting sensitive customer data properly.
What has a Star Wars toy got to do with the future of banking?
The world’s changed. Even a great toy, like the BB-8 droid from Star Wars, can end up on a kid’s shelf with the other “not interesting any more, but don’t throw away” items. Unless it can be tailored to the child’s exact needs, warns Nenad Rankov, product manager at Asseco-SEE and the father of a six-year-old.
Watching his kid play, Rankov could see the future banking customer, a digital native with programming skills, who wants to personalise everything by himself. In other words, banking app features won’t be developed by the bank, but the clients themselves. “This is the personalization our future customers expect,” he writes.
Monzo wants to be the next fintech ‘unicorn’
UK challenger bank Monzo is set to become the latest European fintech ‘unicorn’ with a new round of fundraising, which is expected to raise its valuation to up to $1.5bn, the Financial Times has reported. The digital-only bank tripled its user numbers to 750,000 over the year, but its losses more than quadrupled to £33.1 million.
Monzo told FT that in the long run, their main revenue stream will be commissions from helping customers manage their money better, such as recommending them a savings account with a higher interest rate or suggesting a cheaper gas, power or internet provider.
