Community

Will CBDCs replace cash? No!
Cash is anonymous, not dependent on technology or on regulations that limit currency choice. 

The human touch is vital. However what we have done these past three decades, is that we have surrendered much of potential human ability to technology. The humans left in banking today have been trapped in little isolated pockets, where suposedly they are experts. Compared to thirty years ago these "experts" are no experts at all. They don't really understand the processes, products and practices that they supposedly are experts in.

If this is the type of human touch we are spaking about I am not so sure I want it. Just remember "Little Britian" and "Computer Says No".

Really? I think not. Too much is placed on "technology", and well lets face it the tech being applied to banking is simply wooden. One or two real innovators out thre will hit the jackpot and that yet unknown innovation may change it all. 2030? Much the same as 2018.

The self-deception in traditional banks (by that I assume that you mean that these banks are also very large) that you so vividly describe is more a result of too many competing entities within a banks infrastructure than a policy of willful blindness or just simple neglect. The end result is the same though.

From my own experience some years ago, the product “owners” or business units, who were driven solely by the profit maximization imperative, wanted the very latest technology but had no idea of (and were not really interested in) the critical issues like the technology, the possibilities, the potential barriers and even what the customers really wanted.

To add insult to injury there was a huge overlap between the smaller corporate market and the larger SMEs who were serviced by two distinct business units who were more in competition with each other than with the rest of the industry. The internal technology unit, who was responsible for development and delivery, were more often than not overruled by the mythical pot of profits (gold) perceived to be at the end of the corporate rainbow.    

For an excellent example of what I am getting at read Alex Kreger’s post “How Banks Are Losing Millions by Ignoring UX Design”

Alex, your post is also an excellent example of what I was getting at in my post “Getting digital banking right”

What a nightmare. Steve must have the patience of Job! This is so typical of so many banks where the board enthusiastically buys into the technology without the faintest idea of what it’s all about or how it should really work, while leaving the real business in the hands of petty bureaucrats (who seem to view the customer an irritation instead of the source of their bread and butter).

Lloyds decision was on the cards and has been public knowledge for a long time now. To drag Brexit into it as the reason is despicable. Reading the comments however has triggered my own gripe. Why is it automatically assumed just because a person is ‘older’ they are illiterate when it comes to technology? Today’s 70-year olds were still in their 30s and 40s when what we today call the ‘fintech’ revolution really began with things like the ATM. In those days we heard the same rubbish about ‘older’ customers wanting those hand written ‘savings-bank passbooks’ because plastic cards were just too much to handle! We 70 and 80 year olds have matured with the technology and my generation is pretty comfortable with it.

Very nicely put. Using the automotive industry as an example highlights why risk management in financial services is so hard. The automotive industry deals with a tangible process and product where dangers are easier to detect and identify; financial processes and products are in the main intangible and the effect of their failure so much harder to understand.  

There is always going to be the possibility of a disconnect at the technology/ human interface. If the human banker is savvy enough on how the technology works and his/her role in the process, it could work quiet well. However human bankers are still human and automated processes can’t accommodate this fact (not yet at least), so the irritation factor will remain a while longer.