One of the main talking points of Money 2020 Europe was how tech firms need to be more regulated, especially if they want to move more into financial services. In other news, another disruptor has reached a new milestone: digital-only bank N26 has doubled its customers to over one million in just nine months.
Don’t mess with data
One of the things that kept coming up at Money 2020 Europe, one of the largest fintech events in Europe, was that tech firms need more regulation, fintech expert and influencer Chris Skinner sums up.
Think about this: if there are global tech companies, why is there a lack of global financial institutions? For the simple reason that regulation is and remains local, and a global bank faces some form of regulatory change a staggering every twelve minutes. Also, if data is money, then it should be regulated like money. If tech firms are eyeing the financial market, banks have every right to demand that the same rules apply to them.
Are you on board?
About 28% of retail banking consumers are now digital-only, but they are the unhappiest among all customer segments, according to this year’s J.D. Power Retail Banking Satisfaction Study.
The lower satisfaction scores found among digital-only clients are in part because of poor performance in new account opening. Banks without an advanced, digital-first onboarding strategy will continue to face scanty satisfaction scores, The Financial Brand warns. Not to mention their effects on the balance sheet.
N26 reaches one million, eyes expansion
German digital-only bank N26 has doubled its customer base to more than one million in the past nine months and crossed the €1 billion mark in monthly transaction volume, the company has announced.
And it shows no sign of slowing down. N26 expects to have over five million customers by 2020, and it’s entering the UK and the US market later this year.
Technology is not the answer to everything
“In banking, we can safely predict that it won’t be blockchain or APIs or AI that transform the industry. Instead, it will be new business models empowered by those technologies,” Ben Robinson, CSO at Temenos, writes.
But just because the technology exists, doesn’t mean you should put it into action right away. In fact, implementation without a clear idea of the future business model can cause more harm than good, cementing existing practices. But there are as many as five models to the rescue.
