- Trends: What do we look for?
- Technology Trend: Cloud Computing
- Industry Trend: Unbundling of banks – Lending Club
- Regulatory Trend: Deregulation – RBI granting banking licenses
- Industry Trend: Immediate everything – Payments
- Market Trend: Branchless Banking
- Market Trend: New Market Entrants
- Market Trend: Banks Extending Their Reach
- Industry Trend: Bank White-Label Services
- Industry Trend: Dual Strategies
- Societal Trend: Exploding Data
- Technology Trend: Banking API’s
- Market Trend: Digital Natives
- Market Trend: Mobile Adoption
- Technology Trend: Digital KYC
- Potential Technology Trend: Internet of Things
- Industry Trend: The Bank Finds You
- Potential Industry Trend: Mobile Wallets Replace Cards
- Industry Trend: Social & Mobile Payments
- Industry Trend: Virtual Currencies
- Industry Trend: Social Finance
- Technology Trend: Big Data
- Potential Industry Trend: Bank as Data Manager
- Technology Trend: WiFi Availability
- Technology Trend: Fast Cycle of Consumer Technology
- Technology Trend: Biometric Authentication
- Industry Trend: Social Servicing
- Industry Trend: Social Reputations
- Market Trend: Increased Substitution with Capital Markets
- Industry Trend: Aggregator / Comparison Sites
Currently reading Skinner’s Digital Bank and noting down the trend around virtual currencies such as game currencies and Bitcoin. The most notable trend is the number of failures, which is why I tend to limit my time spent on this space.
Gaming / social currencies covered in Digital Bank:
- NHN in Japan – Line Coins
- KakaoTalk in Korea – Choco
- Tencent’s in China – QQ
- DeNa in Japan – Moba
- Facebook – Zynga credits
- World of Warcraft – Diablo Gold
- Amazon Coins.
Recent acquisitions noted:
- VISA acquired PlaySpan, a company with a payment platform that handles transactions for digital goods
- American Express has purchased Sometrics , a company that helps video game makers establish virtual currencies.