Community

I was asked to advise on the appointment of HSBC's Global E-Channel Director a couple of years ago and said to the team doing the hiring at the time that I didn't think the organization would attract the best/sexiest people. When asked why my first answer was because you call the role "E-Channel", any world-class digital player won't want to work with an organization who still thinks of digital as 'E'. The second was the organization is simply not ready for it and the role would require 2-3 years of painstaking argument just to get decent budget.

HSBC needs to appoint a seriously competent customer engagement person with strong digital experience as the Global Head of Retail at a minimum, and appoint a super progressive CIO & CMO to even start to make a dent in the organizational Inertia they have around 'acquire branches to build the business' mentality IMHO.

Anon,

That may be the case, but given that hard currency is at best 250 years old as a general phenomenon, the concept that it will survive another 200 years in the face of such brutal competition from technology that enables frictionless payments is absurd.

Do you really think that the inhabitants of planet earth in the year 2200 will still be carrying out USD notes?? That's just crazy talk. 

Brett

Ketharam,

Given the average lifespan of a fiat currency is 27 years, I think you are employing some extremely wishful thinking here...

There is absolutely nothing historically that would support your theory, putting aside the rapid change of payments today due mobile, etc.

BK

Right on brother!

Brett
Moven/BANK 3.0 

There was a 25% decline in cash use in Australia in just 3 years. Using the same methodology (CAGR of -8.33% decline) identified in your initial paragraph, all cash use globally will have ceased within 10 years.

http://www.zdnet.com/cheque-cash-use-in-steady-decline-rba-1339312196/

This is a prediction based on the status quo continuing to dominate cash and payments behavior, which is already a poor underlying assumption. Considering that cash is such a new vehicle historically speaking (first used in 1661 by the Dutch, and wasn't mainstream until the 1780s) I think the proposition that cash will still be around in 190 years is either hubris or ignorance.

The reality is that the modality of payments is always what has influenced the use of currency exchange - we're seeing the fastest ever evolution of payments around mobile that we're likley to ever see in the recent history of finance. To assume that we're not going to see a change in the velocity or intensity of cash use under these circumstances is... well, just silly.

Matt,

Nice try...

Nothing has changed except that Moven has given plastic as an option for early beta customers (as previously reported in Finextra this is not something we wanted to do by choice) and we still lead with mobile and contactless. If you've seen our packaging for clients you'll see we are still totally mobile focused. Nothing new here for Moven or our customers. Certainly no change in our game plan or our vision.

I think you'll find since 09' I've been absolutely consistent on mobile's role in shifting consumer behavior and have never backpeddled on that. I also think my record on predicting the magnitude of change has been pretty consistently strong (e.g 2009-11 branch view versus more recent trending data showing actual shift).

BK

The only similarity between BitCoin and Liberty Reserve is claims about money laundering on the platform. BitCoin is more similar to the Euro than it is Liberty Reserve. The problem with approaching BitCoin in the same way as LR is that you'd effectively have to outlaw legitimate currencies to shut down BitCoin, or you'd have to be so specific in your legislation that any change to BitCoin would immediately circumvent the laws created to stifle it.

The only thing regulators can do is regulate cash going out of the traditional economy into BitCoin - regulated Foreign Exchange, just as the way governments regulate the trade on foreign currencies today. It makes no sense to try to stop BitCoin or make it illegal unless you want to make all future legitimate digital efforts on money transfer like MintChip (Royal Canadian Mint) also illegal.

The problem is not BitCoin itself, it is the anonymous nature of those trading in the currency/commodity. Allow a process for identifying the individual trading and BitCoin holds no real threat to the status quo. 

Let's examine why banks' interest has waned in social media. Is it because social media is dead in the water?

With 1 Billion users on Facebook, with Instagram, YouTube, WeXin (WeChat), Tumblr, Pinterest and other platforms growing, with Instagram and Tumblr both selling for $1Bn - the evidence is that social is going from strength to strength.

So the much more likely scenario is that banks who traditionally have a very strict 'command and control' approach to messaging and marketing are not comfortable with the dialog style or engaged approach that social demands.

There are FIs like Navy Federal Credit Union, CommBank in Australia and ASB Bank in NZ are absolutely thriving in the social space. CommBank did $700m in Facebook P2P transfers last year and are opening 3-4,000 new accounts per week via Facebook. 

The data is unequivocal - if you make the effort and align your efforts with the crowd, you get massive benefits and get a highly engaged, compassionate audience that has strong brand affinity.

So why is is that social media interest is waning? It's clear that most banks have not changed their operating practices to really benefit optimally from social and they're just not getting the results that those who are competent in the area are.

This data should not be seen as an argument for scaling back spend on social - it is proof that most banks aren't adapting appropriately to the conversation.

Alexander,

The majority of iTunes users actually use iTunes vouchers, or fund their accounts via debit card. Then they make multiple payments off of their existing iTunes balance (not through the rails) - this means their iTunes account is in effect acting just like a pre-paid debit or gift card. Yes, they have to cash-in to the iTunes store to have a balance, but once they have a balance those transactions are all internal on the iTunes account.

You guys are getting all excited about that one transaction where I top up my iTunes account and saying "look a bank is involved". However, I'm more excited about the 20 transactions I do on the iTunes platform based on my iTunes balance that happens completely outside of the rails of the traditional payments system.

The same for Starbucks, PayPal, GMail P2P, etc. 

I know that for now there is a dependency on the rails for topping up, etc. But the far more interesting trend is the increase in systems that allow commerce without regular bank interaction. 

This is a trend that can only logically end in large scale commerce systems that have only occasional interaction with the traditional rails.

BK