Usually I’m the ‘glas-half-full-guy’. I love tech. I am the one who gets excited very easily.
But yesterday after scanning a bill with my mobile banking app I asked myself how did the Fintech and Insurtech Euro really improve my ‘day-to-day-retail-life’?
Seems ‘bill scanning’ is the only thing really having simplified my banking life in spite of Millions having being invested in tech.
Who am I? I believe I’m average. I am a customer of the largest retail bank and the largest broker bank in Germany. I’m a customer of one of the largest insurance groups in Europe. Besides I own accounts at the one or the other challenger bank.
And what I do most of the time with my banking client (account information and transactions) can be done since years. Even before the launch of the iPhone and Android. I know as
I was part of the team who developed one of the first mobile banking clients in Germany in 2005.
And when you look at current apps and consider the time and corresponding tech improvements you ask yourself:
‘What did we do with all the time?’.
Some apps, my broker app for example, even got worser and worser over the years.
To sum it up:
- What happened all the years with all the money?
- Why is my broker app still ugly to use?
- Why is the functionality of my retail app still so limited and did not fundamentally change the last 20 years?
- Why is my banking still so isolated and closed?
- Why don’t I have online access to my insurance contracts?
- Why…
I know about exceptions, other banks, many good ideas and pilots. The new onboarding process of the challenger banks as an example. The online processing of my doctors’ bills. But, as said, I’m average and this is an average experience of an average banking and insurance customer with average banks.
What would I like my bank, my insurance company to be then?
To develop to?
A difficult question and honestly I really can’t provide a complete or comprehensive answer, but I could give it a try.
I would love my bank to becoming the
Amazon of Trust:
- With my bank identity I would like to register and login wherever a verified and trusted identity is necessary. I don’t any longer want to stick with Facebook or Google to login to 3rd party services. And I don’t always want to register again
- I what to pay and transfer with my bank account as seamless as possible. I don’t want to register for Paypal, register for a credit card, transfer money. I just want to enter my bank id
- I want to apply 2FA systems for transactions easy to use and transparent (face, fingerprint etc.)
- I want many new services connected to my bank account and portal. E.g. I want my bank to analyse my payments and to tell me how and where to insure. I want my bank to be my trusted ‘check24 price comparison’ without the need to register or to use another 3rd party service
- I want my bank to provide me advice on every transaction. Maybe to register an item in my personal item store, to tell me my car is due for service or to apply for an extended guarantee because they know standard guarantee is ending soon
- I want my bank to offer me a tax accounting and consulting service. They have all my data and my bills. They could directly interact with the tax accounting office without having me to printing out tons of papers
- I want to do everything digital. I want to change any property of my account. I want to process every possible transaction in an electronic way
- But I also want branches. Much fewer, but more beautiful, more stylish in central locations with best services and consulting like Apple is showing us the way. For the seldom cases I need one I’m willing to drive
- As long as we need cash I want to withdraw money at every supermarket with my mobile app and deposit either
- I want my other bank data integrated via Open APIs
- I want my insurance data and processes integrated via Open APIs
- I want a document and key store
- I want my bonus programs to be integrated into my account and my payments. I don’t want to be urged to pay with Payback Pay only because I want to collect bonus points
- I want…
I could list many more services I’m interested in but the basic principle stays the same:
My banks knows me very well and manages my money and transactions. I trust my bank. I know they really know everything about me. My salary, my debt, where I am, where I was, where I am employed, when I married and who, my kids, my parents by name and address…My engagement with the bank is very high either. In no other app I login more (apart from some social media apps).
Frankly:
All this is not new. Since years, maybe since decades innovators within the finance space are talking about ideas like these. Nothing really happened instead. Since more than 5 years we are crying Fintech will change everything and nothing happened again.
Maybe it’s finally now the time to move. Technology has evolved, technology is cheaper, banks have learned and the pressure for change is much higher. And Digital Natives are slowly entering the boards.
So please: Do much more within this given context and data to help ME!
- Become a better, become my trust ecosystem – you already own the entry and the exit, all my keys, but the room between is rather empty
- Don’t necessarily invent, copy, collect good ideas instead and much faster
- Develop yourself to an independent software company, everything is software in these days, you need to deliver software
- Fight centralisation, globalisation and outsourcing if it hinders to following your strategy, don’t follow blindly your CFO, CEO or your headquarter anywhere in the world – follow me, your customer
- Cooperate faster and more often
- …just please do something!
I would forgive the one or the other mistake if I just would see the ambition to better serving me.
And what I do most of the time with my banking client (account information and transactions) can be done since years. Even before the launch of the iPhone and Android. I know as I was part of the team who developed one of the first mobile banking clients in Germany in 2005.
And when you look at current apps and consider the time and corresponding tech improvements you ask yourself:
‘What did we do with all the time?’.
Some apps, my broker app for example, even got worser and worser over the years.
To sum it up:
What would I like my bank, my insurance company to be then?
To develop to?
A difficult question and honestly I really can’t provide a complete or comprehensive answer, but I could give it a try.
I would love my bank to becoming the
Amazon of Trust: