Bankable Insights Stephen Walker

For our seventh episode, we're delighted to be joined by Theodora Lau, author of "Beyond Good: How Technology is Leading a Purpose-driven revolution", for a discussion around the "S" in ESG; or: "financial inclusion".

Many of the most successful digital banks in the world are about the economics of financial inclusion, such as WeBank and MYbank in China, Nubank in Brazil,  Digibank in India, Current and Chime in the US.

Further, as fintech funding declines, financial inclusion continues to perform well, with investors pouring money into many markets where mobile penetration is high, but
bank population low, especially LatAm, because financial inclusion is big business.

Yet closer to home financial inclusion often takes the form of highly segmented new digital banks like Daylight, for the LGBT community, banks in the US for black Americans, or Hispanic communities, and even anti-woke banks.

Most of these have already failed, but there’s still real opportunity for incumbent banks to cherry pick those most “killer” features which can unearth a whole new customer segment.

Our conversation covers where those
opportunities are most real (i.e. commercially), and where they are more likely about identity politics and virtue signalling.

For our sixth and final episode of the year, we take a look toward 2024 industry predictions and trends, with a focus on three key themes: the quest for profitability, financial inclusion, and yes, you guessed it, Gen AI.

We start with Doug Blakey, editor of Retail Banker International (RBI), for five minutes of scene setting, then get to our expert panel: Leda Glyptis, author of Bankers Like Us, and Chief Client Officer at 10X; Theodora Lau, author of Beyond Good, and Mayur Vichare, Director of Strategy and Value Consulting at Backbase.

Conversation runs to just over 40 mins, and goes great with a large glass of mulled wine. Enjoy, and Merry Christmas!

For our fifth episode, we’re delighted to welcome Gavin
Littlejohn, founder of Money Dashboard, an early PFM in the UK, in 2006, and CEO until 2015, before going on to play a key part in the open banking negotiations in the UK, and advise many countries on similar initiatives worldwide since.

The conversation is part retrospective on how open banking came about and part current state assessment, with fascinating insight from someone who had a front row seat through it all, covering how difficult it was running a direct to consumer fintech proposition back in 2006, how big banks behaved during the initial open banking negotiations, and what other countries can now learn from the UK/European experience.   

Time stamps as follows:

01:20 - Gavin sums up his experience as CEO of Money Dashboard and the barriers to entry he experienced at that time

04:00 – Gavin talks about the subsequent role he played in
the open banking negotiations in the UK, and the two key strands of that

07:15 – Gavin comments on how the big banks behaved during the initial open banking negotiations  

10:14 – Gavin comments on some of the implementation details of open banking in the UK that changed the shape and form of what the UK fintech community expected  

16:15 – Gavin comments on why he thinks banks missed initial implementation deadlines and why it continues

20:15 – Gavin comments on which banks went on the longest journey to deliver value from open banking to their customers

22:15 – Gavin comments on who are the biggest beneficiaries of open banking - banks, consumers or new
entrants - based on last five years

25:46 – Gavin comments on current adoption numbers in the UK, and whether that’s above, below, or on expectation

28:50 – Gavin comments on Account Information services versus Payments, and where the real opportunity is

32:00 – Gavin opines on how the rest of world looked at the
UK case, and what could be improved.

32:50 – Gavin comments on prospects for open finance
worldwide based on conversations he’s had

36:40 – Gavin comments on who he thinks has delivered the best open banking, why and how

39:00 – Gavin comments on whether next gen open banking will deliver disruptive new business models or primarily help incumbent banks improve existing operations

Our fourth episode is with John Painter (or JP, as he’s more commonly known), Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Cloud and Financial Services at Amdocs.  

Amdocs is a dominant player in the telecommunications space but is now making a big push into financial services. Some early client wins include ABN Amro, Bank Hapoalim and Union Digital bank in the Philippines.

This discussion runs to approx. 45 minutes and is intended for a non-technical audience. We start with some basic definitions and survey data on bank spend on cloud, then get into migration issues, "lift and shift" versus re-factoring, with some war stories of big migrations gone wrong, but also JP’s personal experience at the centre of DBS’ extraordinary cloud transformation program. We finish with insights on how cloud can enable new business models, such as embedded finance.  

Time stamps as follows:

01:20 - JP introduces himself, his background, and the acquisition bringing him into Amdocs

03:30 - JP provides a working definition of “cloud” and “cloud transformation in banking”

05:36 - JP responds to GD exec survey data showing that “cost reduction” is less of a spend driver in cloud now (2023) than before (2021-2022)

11:03 - JP responds to CTOs at new digital banks claiming cloud is “the best and worst of technologies”, as benefits can be great but take time to realise

15:43 - JP comments on examples of banks going all in on cloud but then stepping back from that, as Dropbox has done

19:02 - JP comments on considerations between “lift and shift”, infrastructure as a service, and platform as a service in the context of legacy modernization

22:30 - JP provides examples of benefits banks can get from “life and shift” versus refactoring

26:40 - JP talks us through the top three ways big bank migrations typically go wrong

31:20 - JP talks us through prospects of big bank migrations going wrong again, as per the TSB Bank scare story

34:57 - JP talks through how cloud migrations can make it easier to pursue new business models

38:15 - JP talks through DBS’ cloud program, and what they achieved and how

41:22 - JP comments on concentration risks of working with only a handful of cloud providers

44:30 - We thank JP for his insight and guide listeners toward relevant GD research

Our third episode is with Conrad Ford, Chief Product and Marketing Officer at Allica Bank.

Allica is one of the very few profitable challenger banks worldwide, profitable in just over two years, and without accessing the government backed COVID-lending scheme, which makes it a particularly rare breed. However, Allica is going after different SME sub-segment, more “m” than “s”, and with quite a
different philosophy. Allica sees it self as a bank, and firmly believes that’s what it’s customers want from it. There’s no talk of marketplaces, platforms,
or other Consulting buzz words, but there is a lot of front line banking experience in the bank’s executive team, including Richard Davies, current CEO,
former Oaknorth COO, and Conrad himself, former COO of Barclays’ Innovation Unit.  

It’s a fascinating conversation overall that weaves its way through the distinctive elements of Allica’s strategy, it’s target customers, key competitors, and what the changing economic environment means for fintech, and UK banking landscape overall.



Time stamps as follows:  

 

00:00: We introduce the podcast and Conrad Ford.  

01:45: What did running a start-up and being COO at Barclay’s Innovation Unit help Conrad bring to Allica.

03:10: What specific SME sub-segment is Allica targeting.

04:40: Why do incumbent banks struggle with this segment.

06:30: Who do Allica see as their primary competitors.

09:44: What does it take in terms of people to build a profitable new challenger bank.

11:44: Allica started life as Civilized Bank, then lost it’s license. What happened there.

13:00: What early technology bets did Allica place.

16:50: What role for non-traditional banking business models / alternative monetization at Allica.

19:50: What, if any, digital value-add services does Allica offer.

22:22: How does Allica compete against accounting software providers and e-comm platers in SME financial services.

25:20: What gives Allica competitive advantage in the commercial property lending market.

31:00: What does the much touted “relationship bank” element of Allica’s strategy entail.

33:45: How did you prioritize roll-out of different self service features.

37:20: How come Allica didn’t access government-backed COVID-lending scheme.

38:50: Conclusion and wrap-up.

Our second episode is with with Paolo Sironi, Global Research Lead at IBM Institute for Business Value, and author of the Amazon bestseller, "Banks and Fintech on Platform Economies: Contextual and Conscious Banking". This conversation isn't intended as a book review, but it is conceptual, and we start by introducing Paolo's Banking Reinvention Quadrant, his map of how to deliver platform business models, then get to what's hard about delivering platforms, from a technology and trust perspective, who's doing it well, who badly, and whether shifting economic and regulatory conditions in any way alter the calculus on all of this.

Time stamps for the time-pressed as follows:


0:00: Intro
3:00: Paolo describes the inspiration behind writing Platform Economies
4:32: Paolo describes why trust and transparency is critical to platforms
7:31: Paolo explains what's hard about digitalizing relationships not just products
8:37: Paolo comments on the dangers of building trust by giving away money
11:31: Paolo comments on contextual banking strategies and monetization
14:18: We discuss how new interest rate environment impacts platform strategy
19:21: We discuss how executives can stay focused driving necessary tech change
21:10: Paolo comments on regulator guidance for conscious and contextual banking
23:49: We discuss some key casualties in move to platforms
27:21: Paolo offers his top single piece of advice for banks pursuing platforms
29:15: Outro