The commoditisation of traditional banking products through new technologies, as I’ve been reading about in Joseph DiVanna’s excellent Redefining Financial Services, has pushed banks to redefine their value propositions. This erosion of value is undoubtedly controversial to some, but when viewed from a historical perspective seems quite obvious, as DiVanna points out. We’ve moved from the dawn of modern banking (circa 1300) where simply identifying and guaranteeing transactions between disparate parties was of incomprehensible value, to a world where this form of identification can be wrapped up in a piece of technology – that any person or corporation could purchase and act as a bank in a very limited sense.

Of course, I’m oversimplifying the case, but after reading the book, this subject of redefining the value proposition of a bank is so important and close to my mind that I find myself talking about it all the time. In fact, I wonder as banks looks to reinvent this core value in the face of online-only competitors such as Ally, if one of the important ways they can differentiate and deliver value is through innovative pricing and specialized bundling of banking products. DiVanna, it seems, would agree:

"...small businesses – especially one- or two-person shops or home-based freelancers – are not always well suited to a bank’s product and service offerings, which are laden with fees designed for larger retail and corporate clients."

~ Joseph DiVanna, Redefining Financial Services, page 94.

What do you think? Has bundling and packaging become a 'necessary' function instead of a 'nice-to-have' from an IT perspective in banking? How specific can segmentation get? Will we soon see the dawning of a one-to-one relationship in terms of the right bundle for the right customer?