Big #tech companies have shown no appetite to become actual #banks, with their heavy regulatory oversight. Instead they are working with bank partners who already have the regulatory practices in place
Financial Technology
NCR Corp. and Diebold Nixdorf Inc. reported earnings in the last few weeks, and it wasn’t pretty. “Hardware revenue was down 16% in the quarter and margins were down 400 basis points,” said NCR&8217;s CFO Bob Fishman. (It&8217;s not all bad for NCR, which also owns the digital banking software provider Digital Insight — software […]
Bank Innovation
#Banks today are facing stiff competition from innovative fintechs focusing on niches in the retail banking value chain. The advent of Open Banking will also facilitate the creation of new products and services that were previously impossible to imagine.
This creation of new products and services is blurring the gaps between banks’ traditional lines of business, such as payments and #credit. Fintechs and banks see the importance of linking credit and payments, self-evident for many years with credit cards, but which is an emerging theme in payments #innovation currently.
The millennials of today are uneasy carrying credit card balances, particularly as an aftermath of the struggle with debt during the financial crisis. They lend with more certain repayment terms, which helps them fund their big-ticket as well as smaller purchases while also consolidating their debts. #Point-of-#sale lending has emerged as a new category of lending to help such consumers finance new spending and to help merchants reduce basket abandonment. By partnering with merchants and embracing digital technologies, some disruptive fintechs are competing directly with credit cards and store cards to provide customers with quick and easy short-term credit at checkout.
One such disruptive #fintech in this space is Klarna, which provides a “buy now pay later” option at the checkout. When visiting a website powered by Klarna, shoppers need to simply input their email ID and shipping address, without the need to set up an account or type in credit card information. The maximum purchase limit is different on each account and is determined by a credit assessment by Klarna. For retailers, Klarna assumes all the financial risk of encouraging shoppers to close the deal without #payment. When the online retailer ships the product, Klarna pays the merchant directly, then sends a message to the consumer allowing 14 or 30 days to pay or return the item. Shoppers can also choose to pay on monthly installments with an interest component added. Behind the scenes, Klarna does checks that quickly determine if a shopper is a legitimate person and has good credit based on his or her email and shipping address.
Other companies in this space, like PayPal credit (formerly known as Bill me Later), have been steadily growing since 2008; PayPal credit offers a digital reusable line of credit to shop anywhere PayPal is accepted. Customers get up to six months to pay on purchases of $ 99 or more. Another player in this space is Affirm, which is also partnering with merchants to offer payment options, including financing as an alternative to credit cards.
Payments systems, like those offered by these players, are growing, are profitable and are encroaching more and more on traditional banking systems. The primary benefit of such a service is that removal of the payment step greatly reduces friction and shopping cart abandonment in the checkout process. The model proves to be a win-win for the customer and the retailer alike. The granting of a banking license to Klarna has enabled the fintech to move into ‘big bank’ territory and start offering its customers a larger range of financial services.
Banks such as Wells Fargo and Citigroup have been big players in point-of-sale loans historically—but these types of loans are now becoming increasingly popular. This is due to the advent of #technology that enables merchants to offer the option of a loan at the moment of purchase, where they may have previously only accepted cash or credit cards. Of late, consumer loan growth has become a top priority for banks to diversify their loan books, which historically have been over-burdened with commercial loan portfolios.
Some banks have taken the route of partnering with fintechs to have their share in the POS lending scene—e.g. banks like SunTrust, Regions Financial Corp, Fifth Third Bancorp, etc. have been offering their loans through GreenSky, a fintech which enables merchants selling furniture, home improvement and medical firms to provide POS credit to their customers. GreenSky provides loans—from $ 5,000 to $ 55,000—which are funded in minutes by any of the banks in their network.
POS lending provides the much-needed portfolio diversification which banks need in their books. Burgeoning fintechs in this space are claiming their share of these loans from customers—and banks need to ensure they have their own plans in place to either partner with them, or speed up their digital innovation processes to get their fair share of the POS lending market. With the advent of technology and regulations aimed at removing friction in the customer journey, the linkage between payments and credit are strengthening like never before, and banks need to have their strategies ready to retain their dominant foothold in this space.
The post Payment innovation extends the marketplace for credit at the point of sale appeared first on Accenture Banking Blog.
The letter of credit transaction in #trade #finance is a relatively neglected area when it comes to digitization, which is why #HSBC bank chose this transaction to test out its #blockchain-related initiatives, Joshua Kroeker, blockchain lead for Global Commercial Banking Growth and Innovation at HSBC, told Bank Innovation. “The letter of credit transaction had fallen […]
Bank Innovation
EXCLUSIVE— Is #Google looking to become a #fintech power? The company, which reported strong results for its third quarter yesterday, seems to be expanding its focus on finance, specifically on platforms that integrate or otherwise support payments and #mobile technologies in its many markets. For instance, while Google did not release numbers for its mobile […]
Bank Innovation
EXCLUSIVE- To make a government-backed #cryptocurrency is to defeat the #point of cryptocurrency, Jacob Eliosoff, a programmer, crypto trader, businessman, and teacher, explains in an interview with Bank Innovation. There is no shortage of interest in government-backed cryptocurrency in today’s world. From China, to Uruguay, to Estonia, many state governments have been spending a wealth […]
Bank Innovation
The #robo-advisory #model is at a #tipping #point with all current players needing further development if the robo concept is to prove long-lasting.
Without further refinement on the part of the individual robo-advisors themselves, a substantial portion of current providers will have difficulties succeeding in the long-term. This is one of the main findings of the #report “Leading Robo-Advisors 2016 &8211; Benchmarking the current automated investment landscape and mapping the road ahead” for which the Swiss research company MyPrivateBanking Research analyzed and ranked 30 leading robo-advisors worldwide.
In their global benchmarking of robo-advisor platforms, the MyPrivateBanking report identifies plenty of examples of good practice at the level of individual functions. However, in the researchers’ view, no providers are yet coming close to offering an end-to-end consistent level of excellence. “We see that most robo-advisors are good at some features, but at the same time missing out completely on other important ones”, say Francis Groves, senior analyst of MyPrivateBanking Research.
“While this was tolerated by clients at the start of the robo-advisor breakthrough, they now demand a top-performance throughout the full process, from comprehensively explaining the services to superior portfolio reporting.”
MyPrivateBanking’s ranking of 30 robo-advisors from 15 countries awarded the highest scores to the these three platforms:
– Schwab Intelligent Portfolios (USA) – exhibiting great strengths in the key areas of product and process information and client assessment plus user experience (43 points out of 60).
&8211; Indexa Capital (Spain) – a good ‘all-rounder’ with a solid performance in all areas (42 points).
&8211; Nutmeg (UK) – Another example of excellent product and process information coupled with being one of the top three providers of investment knowledge and education (42 points).
However, with more than a third of the evaluated firms achieving less than half of the possible points, and the highest scoring robo-advisor scoring slightly less than 75% of the maximum available points, MyPrivateBanking sees considerable room for improvement. In particular the survey identified that there are too many gaps in most robo-advisors’ onboarding processes to guarantee a steady stream of new clients.
MyPrivateBanking’s evaluation covered 43 different criteria and assessed the performance overall including for the robo-advisors’ websites, mobile apps and social media channels. Some of the more troubling key research findings are:
(1) None of the platforms evaluated have yet developed the robo-advisory model of client recruitment to its full potential, with even the best current players leaving out at least one essential component. For example, analysts found that advisors provided either good information about the product and process OR good knowledge content but rarely both.
(2) Client assessment, the highest profile component of robo-advisor onboarding, is generally falling well below a sufficiently rigorous standard. Less than 50% of the evaluated advisors failed to explain the purpose of their questions and only 53% included a comprehensive check on a prospective investor’s attitude toward risk.
(3) A high proportion of the robo-advisors, 23%, are abdicating from the any responsibility for sustaining their own clients’ ongoing investing ‘career’ by the provision of relevant, easily digestible education and knowledge or even, in some cases, providing dedicated social media.
In respect to robo-advisors offered by well-established institutions the MyPrivateBanking analysts identified a tendency of such actors to enter the robo-advisor space for the first time by creating robo mini-sites. These are characterized as one or two page websites, which may or may not be embedded in the institution’s overall web presence, that are clearly not designed to be revisited by signed-up clients.
In MyPrivateBanking ‘s view this is a kind of robo-advisory sub-species that may assist with rapid client onboarding but which does not, on its own, do a lot to foster enduring client-advisor relationships. “We foresee the need for leading institutions to be more radical and wholehearted in their automated investment initiatives in the next few years, even if this means starting over again with a second robo-advisor to replace their first.”
“The pioneer years of robo-advisors have come to the end and the market will separate the wheat from the chaff“, stresses Francis Groves. „Too many automated investment services target the same, growing &8211; but still not sufficient &8211; client segment to nurture all or most of them. Too few of the automated investment services see their platform through the eyes of a first time user, while many are losing sight of the need for sustaining a customer experience that will – ideally – last for years.”
In this report, MyPrivateBanking makes a series of recommendations on the basis of our benchmarking evaluation, among them:
(1) Aiming for transparency is the best policy, especially when presenting the robo-advisor’s pricing and product and process information.
(2) Automated investment platforms need to be subjected to rigorous user experience testing. Looking good is not enough – equally, content must be in-depth.
(3) Robo-advisors risk side-lining themselves if they don’t recognize that clients need financial plans as well as investment portfolios. At least a basic financial planning offer should be considered for inclusion as part of the robo value proposition.
The post New Report: Robo-Advisory Model At a Tipping Point appeared first on Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News – FintechNewsCH.
Is #blockchain reaching a #tipping #point? I’m not talking about the public, but among the early adapters who set the tone for what comes one or two years down the line. A little evidence: A Juniper Research study reveals that venture capitalists have poured $ 290 million into blockchain technologies and #bitcoin companiesRead More
Bank Innovation
Is #blockchain reaching a #tipping #point? I’m not talking about the public, but among the early adapters who set the tone for what comes one or two years down the line. A little evidence: A Juniper Research study reveals that venture capitalists have poured $ 290 million into blockchain technologies and #bitcoin companiesRead More
Bank Innovation
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