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@Ketharaman that is a valid point, I was thinking the same thing while reading the article.  And shouldn’t it be the boardroom demanding digitilisation rather than the IT heads?

This would be a great advance, will it also stop retailers from asking for "proof of purchase" which means we have to store hundreds of fading little pieces of paper in the off-chance something fails and has to be returned.

I can't remember the last time I wrote a cheque must have been years ago. While there are some tradespeople who ask for cheques, most have switched to being paid by bank transfer which is cheaper for them. And the faster payments system means  they receive the funds mostly within the hour. In my experience most people when told about faster payments are astonished that it used to take longer in the past, they assume anything done on a computer is pretty much instant. In the UK batch payments may exceed realtime payments but presumably only because not all the banks and building societies have implemented faster payments yet?

Handling cheques has become a real problem because of branch closure. If there is no branch nearby depositing a cheque can be a real chore, so cheque imaging is very welcome!

Most enterprises large and small print out cheques directly from their accounting software these days rather than writing them out by hand. This means they can print a QR code if that is required to automatically identify the beneficiary.

Amazon have already started offering loans to the SMEs who sell via their marketplace, and they have done 1B USD in the last year. They have data in terms of turnover and sales already to hand so can make quick decisions.

That means they have customer data, financial data, can automate the credit decision and they have mountains of cash.

While 1B USD is comparitively small beer to large banks, Amazon could scale this up very quickly if they wanted to do so.The question is whether they want to get into this business in a big way or not?

Scan and go is alive and kicking in some UK supermarkets using purpose built scanners. The cost of the scanners plus extra security is offset presumably by the saving in checkout staff. The friction seems high and presumably this appeals to people anxious to know how much they are spending as they shop?

A phone app using RFID seems like a good idea, maybe someone will invent an app that tells the shopper they can get that item cheaper down the road?

The risk for banks is that some young innovator will create a new service or platorm that offers some compelling reasons for signing on. Thinking along the lines of WeChat in China. Then banks are reduced to providing the plumbing without the customer relationship which maybe will suit them?

A small example of something that could be improved, the online service from my banks allows me to search my transaction history in three-monthly chunks. Say I want to check my insurance bills going back over the past 3 years, that means doing 12 separate searches which is painful to say the least!

But still better than the mobile offering which has no search function at all!

Even using Brett's excellent Moven app I can only search by tag or category within date range, and there is no tag for insurance payments by the way!

My non-technical wife says (quite rightly)m  that it was easier back in the days of paper statements, I explain it's not easy for the bank because they are running an IBM mainframe that no one understands any more... blah blah blah. Then I realise how ridiculous that is, we have 20th century banking in the 21st century...

So come on you energetic visionary young innovators, create the Instagram of banking and make us all happy to manage our money safely and easily!

I have used the Moven app for the past year that aggregates bank accounts and credit cards across banks. It monitors spending and categorises transactions

But why not take it further, show total assets including current valuation of your property and up to date value of pension funds and other investments?

Agreed, the problem is politicians don't want to be the bearer of bad news, propose raising taxes, charging for bank accounts, borrowing limits, force people to save more for pensions and you risk being voted out of office at the next election if not before. Perhaps the solution is to have cross-party agreement on what needs to be done then legislate accordingly? As you say its not realistic to expect banks to solve societies problems.

Alex

Well said but are you planning on finishing this off in another post?

You say that what is needed is not more of the same, but you don't say what it that is actually needed.