Trends in Financial Services

A community to discuss the future of financial services and any other interesting trends, strategies, ideas, views.

Retired Member 

Not all workflow is equal

Having worked in the Business Process Management (BPM) industry for nearly 20 years, primarily for software vendors, you inherit a number of preconceptions. One of those preconceptions is that all internal/integral workflow systems are inferior to an external BPM system. This preconception is born from the fact that there is no set definition for...

02 May 2017 /regulation

Retired Member 

Unlocking the power of the supply chain

Most organisations aspire to be on good terms with their suppliers; indeed, collaboration has become something of a buzzword amongst supply chain professionals. Still, there is a problem: the nature of the relationship between buyer and supplier often pits the two parties against each other – the buyer wants to hold onto its cash for as long as pos...

25 April 2017 /payments

Henri Wajsblat Financial Services Expert at Anaplan

2017 - The Year of Cost-Cutting

2016 was punctuated by a large number of banks announcing their intentions to cut costs. In the UK we saw efficiency drives from the like of HSBC and Lloyds Banking Group, with the latter publicly targeting a further 20% belt-tightening by the end of 2017. RBS made cuts on its investment banking side, and Barclays described itself as “unrelenting ...

25 April 2017 /regulation

Retired Member 

Rise of the machines - understanding automation

Whilst there’s little denying that AI, machine learning and automation are some of the most important developing technologies, headlines that announce: “The robots are taking our jobs!” may be a little premature. When it comes to the accounting department there’s no technology (yet) that can match the problem-solving adaptability of an experienced...

25 April 2017 /regulation

Retired Member 

Tell Me Once: The next decade of consumer communications

Every business quickly learns the value of the conversations they have with their customers. They aren’t only the lifeblood of any organisation fuelling transactions and growth but also offer invaluable insight into what clients want and how they communicate. The looming implementation of the MiFID II directive for financial services institutions ...

19 April 2017 /regulation

Retired Member 

The case for a future with cash

It can be a fool’s errand trying to accurately predict the future. In 1955 Alex Lewyt, president of the Lewyt Vacuum cleaner company, predicted “Nuclear powered vacuums will probably be a reality within 10 years.” There are many examples of technology predictions that haven’t quite got it right in hindsight – look at computers, cars, the telephone...

19 April 2017 /payments /inclusion

Jens Woloszczak CEO and Founder at Spotcap

Open banking, what’s needed to move forward?

Around the world, regulators are considering ways to encourage traditional players to ‘open up’ customer data to stimulate competition and standardise security protocols. While regulation is already on the way in some parts of the world, it alone cannot ensure the successful implementation of an open architecture framework in banking and finance. ...

31 March 2017 /regulation

Keith Stonell Managing Director, EMEA at Guidewire

Generation uninsured: what are the challenges and opportunities for the insurance industry?

The UK is becoming a country of renters rather than home-owners according to a recent government whitepaper. The proportion of people living in the private rented sector has doubled since 2000 and just 26% of those aged 20-39 will own their own home by 2025. According to the Resolution Foundation, twenty five years ago fewer than one in ten fam...

31 March 2017

Retired Member 

Cashless Society: A Dystopian Future?

Following on from the UK’s decision to introduce new coins, there has been a lot of debate around the value of the expensive change over. So much so, that many have looked at whether we would have been wiser to increase the security and adoption of contactless payment methods and digital currency, than investing in a declining payment method – cas...

31 March 2017 /security /payments

Retired Member 

FinTech and the Digital Strategy

Targeting a frictionless future for business Karen Bradley, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport, vowed earlier this month to develop a world-leading digital economy that works for everyone, making the UK the best place in the world to start and grow a digital business. But does this pledge go far enough to allow the FinTech indus...

29 March 2017 /payments