Fintech for Real

The bank strips down, buffs up, gets a new wardrobe and fights again Align to the left Align in the middle Resize to full width Align to the right Add a link to the embedded image Add alt text Delete image British Rail sandwiches . Proof that doing something appallingly badly won’t stop a regulator from banning anyone else from trying to do it better. I discussed whether banks know if they’re good at anything in a previous post, where I floated the unpopular idea that perhaps banks should actively look for things they do very badly and stop doing them. Perhaps they could get other companies to take them on. Or abandon doing certain things altogether. I’m reminded of Vodafone mPay back in 2002 . The startup I worked for invested significant developer resources in building an mPay integration so that Vodafone could take payments for use of our state-of-the-art mobile train info service. Sure, it was a clunky WAP service , but I like to think that a few hardy passengers appreciated an e...

If banks don’t know what they’re good at, how can they know what to focus on, and what to stop doing altogether? I’ve found an excellent way to be unpopular in a bank - it’s to ask what we’re really good at. Align to the left Align in the middle Resize to full width Align to the right Add a link to the embedded image Add alt text Delete image Picture a meeting with the global head of something-or-other. They’ve told you how over 23 years they’ve built up our capability in this domain until we’re better at this or the other bit of it than all the other banks. Our product’s the best in the market, and makes these great margins. “So..." I ask, "... how did we get so GOOD at it? What bit do we do best, how did we continuously polish it?" ... until it shone like the global head's own bald patch, and which of its adjacencies could be further improved? The answer, often times, is “well, we really don’t jibjab the customer very well. And our flipflap assessment is pretty s...