2010 - Consensus? We don't need no stinking consensus...

So, does anyone think 2010 was a really weird year?

It didn't have the 'OMG! Western Capitalism is dead!' drama of 2008, nor the limping, walking wounded vibe of 2009. Hey, 2010 even saw the return of the Sibos closing party (ah-hem 'networking event') and I spotted a chocolate fountain at one Amsterdam venue. You know there's a little extra in the budget when the chocolate fountains start flowing again. (ok, maybe not)

Still I think 2010 was a year of low level tensions, debates and cautious optimism (and pessimism).

Take Sepa - it's not really a case of 'love it or loathe it'. No one argues against Sepa, but no one knits it a cozy jumper either. What occupied the debate over Sepa this year? Bloody end dates. The slow drip drip of painstaking speculation...'well it could be 2012 or 2013 or...well...we shall just see'. Dear God! So after what seems like DECADES, the European Commission has finally set out its proposal for migrations dates for Sepa Direct Debits and Sepa Credit transfers.

I've decided to not think about Sepa for the entire holiday season.

Next up, we see that other pan-European cooperative movement that will only succeed if banks take their fingers out of their asses for five minutes and pay attention to activities that don't involved trading with NASA-level speeds and handing out bonus checks - (say it with me now, brothers and sisters) the European consolidate tape.

What would be the easy road to a standard European-wide best bid and offer? Hmmm? Go with FIX, get all the major banks to agree and bully the market data vendors into complying?

What road will the financial industry go down?

• Ignore FIX.
• Get mired down in years of committee meetings designed to mitigate politics.
• Have every execution venue and market data vendor come out with their own proprietary consolidate tape.
• Spend years merging and consolidating those 'tapes' 
• Have the EU come up with a sub-standard, regulation heavy, 'solution' in around 2028.

The future of banking ... or money... or innovation...or ...Hey what are those Gen-Y types doing over there ... is that important? (trick question - if you pause for a second on that one, you will be confined to the dustbin of history faster than Citi can trade equities in Basildon).

Nothing gets the camps more fully entrenched than banking services innovation. And it got heated in 2010.

In one camp there is the 'branch is dead, smart-phone-loving, Gen-Y-are-full-of-such-immense-wisdom-that-we-should-do-no-more-than-bask-in-their-youthful-glow' brigade. In the other camp are the old, suited bankers, hanging onto plastic cards, paper checks, and propriatary systems like an elderly vicar tending to his dwindling flock.

The problem the industry has is that the two camps genuinely mistrust each other, don't think either side has anything to learn from one other and never meet. Question the logic of some of the nuttier asides to come out of the mouth of a 20-something and you're 'lablled a doubter and an enemy of innovation.'

Express resignation at banks' deathgrip on plastic cards (to the exlcusion of any other payment method) and it's inability to foster any real banking product creativity within traditional institutions and you're seen as 'not living in the real world and not understanding how banking really works.'

Forget consensus - a basic adult conversation would do me. 

However, not one to shy away from digging my own trench I am going to list the best and the worst (only one each) banking developments of the 2010.

Best - NFC (Near field communication) You've heard it here....ummmm...well, you've heard it here as well - 2011 will be the Year of NFC.

Banking, buying and managing your money on your mobile phone is a movement that both the consumer and the banks and the suppliers need no evangelising to get behind. You will be buying your morning coffee with your mobile phone and much much more very soon. There is no use fighting it. You will lose (or move to a cabin in the woods with all your money in a giant piggy bank.)

Worst - Style over substance- Metro Bank style. Improved customer service is a good thing - yes. Masking ordinary or medicore banking products with shallow gimics - a la dog biscuits and sci-fi branch 'experiences' - is not. It makes me angry that banks think we are all so stupid that a few balloons and former high school cheerleader tellers will pursuade me to give them my business. There is a sucker born every minute - but that lollipop eventually melts away. 

Geoff Whitehouse of SmartSream (@GeoffSTG) sent me a Tweet the other day that I think every retail bank should have embroidered on a pillow in their CEO's office: 

"@LizLum @AndrewCarrier I'm all for nice branches. But I'd prefer better savings rates, improved online experience and proper mobile banking".

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.