Community

"Nearly two thirds say that they are satisfied with the service they get from their current bank, suggesting a lack of eagerness to share data with third parties." This is the Money Quote. It raises fundamental questions about the founding premise of Open Banking, namely, customers have an acute & chronic craving to get more value out of their banking data. But all is not lost. There's nothing like a few cryptocoins to persuade the same skeptical customers to part with their data. Open Banking Needs A Blockchain Boost

@RobinSetty: Now that you mention it, I recollect that. But, in this case, wouldn't this alert be useless? If the monthly charge is forcibly kept constant, then the monthly debit is not going to change from one month to another, so an alert whose job is to notify changes in "regular monthly debits" will find no changes and will do nothing.

@RobinSetty + 1. I especially like the innovation of splitting the commission for switch with the customer:) On a side note, I'm curious how the alert will work for utility bills, given that energy consumption tends to swing widely through the year due to differing heating / AC needs (1-4X range in my case).

Banks in India launched virtual cards around 10 years ago. Of late, I don't see this product. The way it worked, customer had to log in to bank's NetBanking portal first, generate a virtual card #, then visit the merchant's website and enter it. I guess the additional step - that too prior step - of visiting the bank's website introduced too much friction for customers to tolerate. I feel a slight change in the workflow might help: Customer visits merchant's website, where they click a button, which takes them to the bank website to get the virtual card # and then automatically come back to merchant website might improve usage of this product. Making bank website as the first website when a customer's intention is to shop on merchant website is a NO GO, IMO.

@TolgaTavlas:

TY for the Quora question - strangely, Quora didn't auto-display it when I wrote my question. I went thru' the answers. They're a mixed bag, with some attributing revenues to Ads, others to API license fees and still others saying no revenues. I'll also check out the other articles you've hyperlinked. Thanks.

Yet another neobank claiming innovation with plastic card!

OIC @TolgaTavlas! TY for your estimate of Google Maps API revenues. I also thought of posting a question on Quora about it. I'll update this post if I get an authentic-sounding reply. 

Walmart didn't compete with Sears by gaining access to the transaction data of Sears' customers. Amazon didn't compete with Walmart by gaining access the transaction data of Walmart's customers. MINT didn't compete with traditional banks even AFTER getting access to transaction data of traditional banks' customers.

Ergo I don't understand this quaint notion that fintechs can compete with traditional banks only by gaining access to transaction data of traditional banks' customers.

IMO Innovative Fintechs Don’t Need No PSD2 Regulation and, if that does not work, Open Banking Needs A Blockchain Boost.

@Souvik Das: 

TY for your reply.

In a recent interview with SLATE, the exiting CEO of Simple, arguably the most successful neobank, noted, "There’s a lot more competition out there, but the reality is that most millennials, like most Americans, bank at the top four banks."

Now, according to you, an overwhelming majority (80%) of Monzo customers uses a traditional bank for its primary banking needs. 

Any idea why the performance of neobanks has been so underwhelming? Is it because 100% digital onboarding has been overrated OR because customers do want brick-and-mortar presence of an institution they trust their money with OR something else? 

LOL not so long ago these neobanks and challenger banks used to claim that mobile wallet to replace plastic cards was innovative. Now they're claiming that changing the orientation of plastic card from landscape to portrait mode as innovative! At least, they're finally on the right track!!