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@CraigFocardi:

Spot on. I tried conveying something similar last year but you've said exactly what I'd meant.

I'll believe fintech can disrupt banking the day it hops off the VC gravy train & still manages to provide better CX than banks. (https://twitter.com/s_ketharaman/status/608944400656396289).

@DanielSmith: I agree with you about the crux of the offering. To take an analogy, if my factory suffers a power failure, the only way I can ensure business continuity is by having a DG set that will provide standby power. My argument is about messaging and communications: My utility company upfront tells me to invest in a DG set if I'm expecting to run my product facility 24/7/365. Whereas what I hear from any PaaS / IaaS provider is "leave your infrastructure worries to us". As a technology marketer, I shouldn't complain but, as a technology consumer, I can't help doing so!Therein lies the disconnect:)

@DanielSmith: If these banks were to sue AWS, Amazon would win the case hands down - I'm sure there's adequate fineprint in an AWS contract to put the blame back on the banks. But then, what's the difference between these purportedly CX-driven new-age companies and the purportedly-price-gouging-hidden-cost-laden old-age banks?

Banks have known about fault-tolerant, clustering, ACTIVE:ACTIVE and other onprem redundancy / failover technologies and, where justified, implemented them ages ago. I remember a midsized Indian bank buying a Tandem mainframe with 100% fault tolerance to run its ATM switch 25 years ago. I doubt if the banking industry needs guidance on how to go about securing its infrastructure.

Point is, after migrating to the cloud, why the heck should banks still have to worry about infra? Every cloud service provider promises to shield end users from infra worries. High time PaaS / IaaS vendors fulfilled their promise or stopped making tall claims like this. Otherwise, whatever little legacy transformation is happening in BFSI will stop.

"If the regulators are satisfied that these firms are operating responsibly, why isn’t Google?". I too felt the same way when I first learned about Google's ban on payday lenders. On second thought, it struck me that the same sentiment applies to cigarettes - surgeon's warnings and all, they have passed the regulator's muster and are allowed to be sold legally. But Google still does not allow ads for cigarettes. At one time, Google had banned ads for tech support. The ban may still be in place for all I know. IMHO, Google is on a different trip.

This won't stop the digerati from blaming legacy the next time RBS' payment networks go down! On another note, I should add this as a sure-fire way to kill cash.

How To Really Kill Cash 

ATM withdrawal is a feature. Free ATM withdrawal - because Number26 covers the EUR 2 fee per withdrawal - is a benefit.

To play a little loose with an old saying "It's easy to give up smoking. I've done it so many times", it can't be too difficult to create a digital bank, so many startups have done it, and so have a few global-sized traditional banks (e.g. DBS). I suspect there's more to this announcement than meets the eye.

@VaidasAdomaukas: TY for your comment. My 15-20 minute wait time was for food during peak lunch hour rush. That said, even my wait for coffee used to be longer than 3 minutes - even the coffee / tea would be "undercooked" in 1 min!

Kudos to WoraPay. From personal experience at another top UK bank, that's a saving of at least 15-20 minutes per day. Great use of technology for the welfare of humankind - exactly what my alma mater told us 35 years ago that technologists should be doing! Best wishes for spreading this technology in more and more corporate cafeterias.