Monthly Archives: June 2014

What is technology-driven change?

This entry is part 24 of 31 in the series Defining words

Defining this one for myself. No references yet — just my opinion.

I define “change” as the effect of trends on me.  OK, I give some thought to you also.  But it has to at least be someone in the real world.

Technology-driven change would be a technology trend driving other trends such as: techTrend–>indTrend–>mktTrend.

An example is mobile apps. The technology appeared before any apparent market demand. Companies saw the potential for competitive advantage through mobile apps, and the market accepted them.
The tell-tale sign is the “this is cool now what do we do with it” phase. I see it in the internet of things now.

One implication of this change is market-driven change, where market expectations for mobile apps drove companies in other industries to provide them in an unsustainable way, and then look for new technologies to make it sustainable such as mobile platforms and ultimately cloud computing. So mktTrend–>indTrend–>techTrend.  Change causes change and the changes ripple on and on.

I suppose there is also industry-led change. An example of this is mass genome mapping where companies smell profits and develop the needed technology on the hope that the market will accept it.

So who cares?   Why the new words?  I don’t see these as words–I see them as data structures.   I am a software guy.   I want to model these concepts so I can talk about them efficiently and possibly automate the model to do simulations.   Someday.

Potential Technology Trend: Internet of Things

This entry is part 16 of 30 in the series Trends

Potentially a powerful trend where imbedded systems in everyday objects from clothes to power systems communicate wirelessly to emit data, receive instructions, etc.
I call it a potential trend because I have not yet seen evidence that it is impacting banks. Keep on “watch”.
A simplistic system workable with today’s technologies would be RFID chips in “things” and sensors leveraging near field communications (NFC).

Bluetooth is another option leveraged by iBeacon.  “All LevelUp merchant partners are now being offered an iBeacon, which is ready to go as soon as it is plugged in. The firm expects to have delivered up to 1000 by the end of the summer but in the longer term plans to build the technology into its POS scanners.

Google is apparently a believer as they bought the smart thermostat Nest.

In Digital Bank, Chris Skinner envisions a world where objects in the internet of things transact, making the internet of things of importance to bank strategy.

Technology Trend: Digital KYC

This entry is part 15 of 30 in the series Trends

How can digital banks on-board customers without a branch visit?

From Digital Bank by Chris Skinner:

Danish banks, along with others in the Nordic nations, have focused on using digital identities to avoid having to on-board customers using a traditional paper-based process. “On-board” is the term used by banks to manage the account-opening process and is incredibly difficult due to the regulatory requirements of Know Your Client (KYC). KYC demands that new customers opening accounts at a bank must prove their identity with various documentation, such as a passport or driving license as well as proof of address through official letters sent to them recently at that address, such as a utility bill.

In contrast, digital identities allow customers to be recognized without the need for such physical documentation, and are the likely way in which banks will manage the KYC process in the future.

And “Jibun Bank and eBank in Japan both accept account opening on the basis of just a photograph of your driving license via mobile. The driving license is read by a character recognition system and checked with the government’s driving database. As long as all is aligned, the account is opened.

Finextra KYC Exchange builds banking momentum points out another option for acquiring KYC data: “Swiss-based due diligence utility KYC Exchange has signed service contracts with Commerzbank, Société Générale and Standard Chartered for the regular exchange of Know Your Customer data between the banks and their clients.

 

Market Trend: Mobile Adoption

This entry is part 14 of 30 in the series Trends

A key market and technology trend is the increased use of mobile phones and tablets to access banking services. The meta-trend is that the mobile trend will overtake all other channels. There is decreasing usage of bank branches. The sales of laptop computers is slowing. As cash usage gives way to electronic payments the ATM will become less important.

Barclays Bank took thirteen years to achieve two million customers using Internet banking but took just two months to reach that number for mobile banking. Société Générale took ten years to achieve twenty million contacts per month through Internet banking but took just eighteen months to achieve that number through mobile bank services.”

From Digital Bank by Chris Skinner

What are Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants?

This entry is part 23 of 31 in the series Defining words

There are digital natives and digital immigrants.  Digital natives, having grown up around computers and mobile phones, have radically different needs, wants and expectations.

The market trend is that digital immigrants are naturally being replaced by digital natives.

The market force is that companies must (at this time) address the needs of both types of customers.

See Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants By Marc Prensky.

Technology Trend: Banking API’s

This entry is part 12 of 30 in the series Trends

Closely related to the “Cloud” trend, it makes sense that banking services running in the cloud would be offered for consumption by the computer systems of other organizations (as an API) in addition to humans (as in a mobile app).

From Digital Bank by Chris Skinner

PayPal launched X, a developer-based service for PayPal processes as application program interfaces (APIs), … The result is that PayPal’s relevance increased greatly overnight and led to Citi following a similar approach when it announced that its transaction services would be offered as APIs at the SWIFT International Banking Operations Seminar (SIBOS) in 2013. In other words, all bank processing is just open-source coding, offered to anyone to plug and play with their offerings through APIs.

I am not sure that I would equate an API with open source code, but I agree with his points — Such as the need to open the API’s up to start-up developers.  This will make sure the bank is involved in the “next big thing” and reduce the pressure on the bank to keep on top of everything going on in the industry.