Community

Pertinent they didn't call it The Bitcoin Alliance.

Hi Liz

As you say its been quite a journey. Thank you for all the blood, sweat and tears spent in the Finextra cause over the years.

Don't cry. No-one ever leaves Finextra. They just change their profile.

All the best for the next big adventure.

Steve

The surprising part of this is the involvement of WPP. The ad networks are investing considerably in adtech, platforms, search and social media. I know these areas blur considerably but investing in a bank seems a big step beyond WPP's core business.

Then again, I can recall Saatchi & Saatchi making a bid for Midland Bank back in the day...

This could be a really smart move. Adaptive Path have a fantastic reputation in the world of service design. If they are allowed to effect change (and don't get lost or side-lined inside a much bigger, slower moving organization), then this could have a transformative effect on service delivery.

Capital One should be applauded. Much more innovative, than yet another accelerator fund, which seems to be the me-too tactic to fuel innovation at the moment.

Brett

For me the 'tell' is they feel the need to announce that a new web site coming, not simply soft launch it as and when.

I'm sure TSB are more than competent enough to have a roadmap and functional backlog they will be working through. And I'm sure someone in the bank will regard online as strategic. How close they are to actually delivering the site I don't know.

Its more the mindset that this announcement 'tell' betrays. If clients think their site is worth announcing to the planet with a pre-launch video, etc, they are possibly looking at it more from their own perspective, than their customer's viewpoint.

In my experience customers are fairly unforgiving in taking up a 'so what' attitude. Unless a new site materially improves something for them.

One of the clients we learned a lot from in terms of their approach is a very large online retailer. While we built mobile apps for them, as a result we also got visibility of the sheer volume of site testing and refinements they were constantly making (continuously, daily, hourly) to refine customer journeys in pursuit of fractional improvements in the end outcomes that drove revenue. Their relentless mono focus and rigour were amazing. And no-one ever knew. No announcements were ever made.

The point is, they understood that their development or UX skills weren't the story; the customer's online experience was the only story that mattered. And the thing that mattered most was how many visitors moved through the desired steps to increase performance (revenue in their case).

I've seen this mindset among retailers and tech firms, not so much among banks. Can't speak for the new wave of startups / challengers.

Hi Brett

As an agency, I'd say the 'tell' here is that the bank very much wants to announce that they have a new website. It implies that launching the site is the main objective they are focused upon. It also implies they aren't adopting a constantly iterative approach to site refinements. If they did the notion of a launch fades away.

On positive note, when clients talk about achieving levels of utility, refining shopper journeys and measuring end outcomes delivered, these are all 'tells' that the client gets it and great work might be done.

They look quite big? Have they done any User Acceptance Testing?

;-)

Joss: I think there's a very - very - understated sense of irony at play here.

A first world country, and an industry that isn't shy of talking up its appetite for innovation, still needs a sixty year old, diesel powered solution to get the job done in some circumstances?

Then again, I may be wrong, the NatWest vans might make an appearance at the Future Money event tomorrow...

Hi James, Ketharaman

Suspect we are agreed, social channels are often (not always) a good thing to do.

But the Co-op's experience just made me reflect that us external advocates of social channels, should sometimes pause and have a little empathy with the folk inside the bank who put themselves directly in the firing line with these initiatives.

I'd love it to be true. But the fact they are only quoting %s of increase, not actual numbers, makes me wonder whether the actual number isn't that big (against the total customer base).

Nationwide would see itself as a virtuous alternative to the large retail banks - and therefore a net winner from these changes. More interesting is how it affects churn among the major banks. It might be that there are many more movers but relatively little net change among the banks.