I think it’s time TBC made a(nother) comeback. See you soon.
Will be pumping out thoughts very soon and in 2013 and beyond.
Keep track of my other project - Next Bank.
I think it’s time TBC made a(nother) comeback. See you soon.
Will be pumping out thoughts very soon and in 2013 and beyond.
Keep track of my other project - Next Bank.
You’ll have noticed this year the decline in posts on this blog. There’s a good reason for it – no time! That and a sideways move out of banking means I’m not deep in the trenches in banking anymore. The theories on CX and innovation may be transportable to a new industry, but its time for a new beginning.
This blog now has had 850 posts since it began in February, 2007 as a mere idea and innovation tracking tool for me as I entered a new industry. Since then its certainly become more than that, and has opened my eyes and all sorts of doors across the globe. But now we use differnet ways to get these points across – mostly now in 140 characters! Plus it’s all about a simpler life, not just work. Work like this takes a back seat to family, day job, wine, golf, footy, etc.
To all the people who supported the efforts I made here, a big thanks.
You can find me tooling away at my new idea (amongst others) called Next Bank. Next Bank is an events company as well as a thought leadership and consulting collective that hopes to really shine a light and share with the industry the best and brightest people and ideas. Our first event was Next Bank Asia in May 2012. We have events coming up in Europe & Japan in 2012 and again in Singapore in 2013. If you want to know more, drop me a line via here.
Also you can now follow me on twitter at one of the following handles:
@robfindlay - my own personal views on mostly non-work stuff
@nextbankorg - the umbrella brand for our new Next Bank concept
@nextbankasia - follow this for news on Next Bank Asia events, news and ideas
@nextbankeurope - follow this for new on Next Bank Europe events, news and ideas
Onward to new ideas and adventures!
Cheers,
Rob Findlay
Global financial services innovation & news
Other sources of customer experience & focus innovation
Yep they’re back, and hopefully these new (and some old) ideas will inspire you. Twitter is still the best place to go for this stuff.
Global financial services innovation & news
Other sources of customer experience & focus innovation
Watching banks navigate these pretty volatile times in which customers are questioning pretty much every aspect of their financial setup – who they’re with, what they’re holding, how they time markets and movement in banking – has really revealed their true colors to me.
A benefit of only being in the banking industry for 5 years or so is that I can very clearly see the pattern of change from when I started and to now – and I can tell you in the more traditional banking landscape … not much has changed.
But change is going on all around that landscape, and banks need to focus on this.
Now. Today. This week.
They need to be aware of what is happening to customers, innovators, competitors, and technologies, for these forces will determine their futures, not the other way around.
Here are the obvious signs that I read about and see that show many large, old banks are really unaware or unwilling to whats happening:
Has any bank cracked all this? No. And I’m not saying every bank sucks. Many banks have cracked many of these items, and done it well through for example product and policy (NAB and its Fair Pricing and Banking), customer experience improvements and functions (DBS, Standard Chartered, and my employer OCBC – I’m biased, because the bank I work for is increasingly getting ‘it’ and are doing good things – I’m sure there are more, please share!) and great channel ideas and executions (CBA, ANZ, most of the Kiwis and Spanish banks, Umpqua etc). What I’m saying is every bank has the potential to be something truly great to its customers (I wouldn’t expect customers to love my bank, just like them), all it takes is the conscious effort to do so.
Does a bank need to do ALL the above? No.But some or most would be good before its too late and disintermediation takes over. The economic crisis I believe has, in a surprising way, lead banks to a sense of security – in times of economic uncertainty there is a flight to quality – deposits into the big banks. Once this uncertainty is over and the global economy is moving again, watch for alternate banking brands and models like Simple, Movenbank, UBank, FRANK, etc to really vault forward, at least in short term experimentation and adoption.
Has any ‘non-bank’ player got all this? No way. I’m amazed for example that no one, no one at all, has really cracked the aggregated PFM space. I don’t know why that’s so hard. But many non-banks may be better positioned to create a new offering that meets all these frustrations above.
What other signs are there?
Here at TBC HQ (the sofa in my lounge room) its been a little quiet on the blog post front. There’s a reason why. The massive red square to the right in the hint. I’ve taken on a large personal project creating a conference called Next Bank Asia to be held here in Singapore from May 9-10 2012.
Here’s a quick description for you:
Think of the last banking conference you went to. It probably was just like the last one, and the one before that.
Too often, too many banking or financial services conferences are either too corporate, too close-minded or just plain boring.
They don’t include certain fringe players in the industry who can bring new innovative ideas to the table. They don’t include entrepreneurs with new business models for fear of the threat they pose. They don’t connect thought leaders together, or enable the serendipidous coming together of different industries.
Most importantly, these conferences often don’t talk about the reality of the change in front of the industry. The changing consumer, fast evolving technology, increasing uncertainty and volatility at the same time as increasing opportunity are all key environmental factors in any financial services firms roadmap.
Next Bank Asia aims to confront all these issues.
Next Bank Asia will create an open dialogue about all these things, using innovative new formats and agenda items.
We’re looking for designers, technologists, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, innovators, governments, policy makers, corporates and banks to come together to discuss new ideas, real futures and how we can collaborate to make banking better for our customers and our businesses.
We already have some globally recognised speakers.
Brett King, Chris Skinner, David McQuillen, Annalie Killian and others are lining up to create a stellar agenda. Be a part of it!
We’re not conference organizers. We’re like you.
We work in the financial services industry like you do. We’re not an events company. So whilst we’re learning about conferences, we know about the issues you confront as well as anyone.
Our motivation here is genuine – we want constructive, challenging, and enjoyable dialogue, not boring speeches formulated by an events company.
We’re going to challenge the conventional conference format too.
An agenda will contain a special VIP event accessing 2 of the brightest brains in global innovation, presentations from thought leaders, demos from entrepreneurs and small businesses, and a huge socially responsible banking section on how the industry is helping (not compromising) the unbanked and developed markets. We’re looking for any interested parties to send us a proposal for their presentation. There’ll also be a cool venue, great food, perfect coffee, cool merchandise and proper conference bags – you know, all that stuff that normally sucks at most conferences.
You create the agenda, not us.
Got any bright ideas? Let us know how you’d like to see Next Bank Asia come together – your participation in constructing the agenda is welcome.
Want to know more?
Visit NextBankAsia.com
Follow @NextBankAsia
Of course always feel free to drop me a note directly or comment via Twitter – lets have some fun here!
© 2012 The Bank Channel. All Rights Reserved.
