Community

"However, he insisted that the migration was not rushed through to meet bonus targets". What was the bonus for?

@Ramdas Narayanan:

TY for your kind words. As I highlighted in Banks Will Know Chipotle Is Going Bankrupt Before Chipotle, banks are definitely leveraging data from the earth and sky to their own benefit. However, when it comes to leveraging data for the benefit of customers, they're probably not sure if customers like such personalized offers, for reasons that I pointed out in the same post. After the hue-and-cry following the FB-CA fracas, they're going to be even less sure.

Sounds extremely surreal.

@Abe Smith:

I *know* banks don't need to seek wet ink signatures. What I'm saying is, it now makes a lot of business sense for banks to stick to their status quo of seeking wet ink signatures.

We've been hearing about this "changing customer expectations" for nearly a decade. Still, neobanks have received lukewarm response, fintech lending companies have managed to garner a negligible share of loans, and traditional finserv industry continues to be the most profitable sector in FORTUNE 500. 

What remittance monopoly? Banks do remittance. Fintechs do remittance. Some of those fintechs were supposed to disrupt Western Union, MoneyGram, etc. What happened to all that talk? With hefty fees and unfavorable forex rates from incumbents, remittance was supposed to be ripe for disruption by VC-funded fintechs. Where did they bungle?

Nice and thought-provoking post.

But, since times immemorial, banks have been going to courts to recover outstanding loans. The only new thing is, they're increasingly using a digital loan application process. But even there, banks generally seek wet-ink signature on the loan agreement at the last step before disbursing the money. I'm sure that's the copy of loan agreement they'll submit to courts. In front of the court, the borrower can't really claim that the process was any more unfair compared to a wholly paper-based process.

IMO, the real challenge will be faced by nonbank fintechs, who claim to be approving loans and disbursing funds without any physical step / documentation. Even in the case of some of them, their claim is only a go-to-market message to differentiate themselves from traditional FIs and I strongly suspect that they also have a physical step at the end. As I highlighted in Flight Delay Insurance - Why Blockchain?, the Blockchain-based flight delay insurance provider actually registers the insurance agreement with Malta Government and pays stamp duty.

@Sundara Balaji:

The answer to most of your questions is "Only the paranoid survive". Popularized by Intel's iconic CEO Andy Grove, who wrote an eponymous book, the maxim has become the standard business philosophy of a number of American companies including Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, MasterCard, et al. 

@Sundara Balaji:

TY for your reply. Marketplace means Person-to-Business payments. When they launched card payments, V/MC surely had 100% of cashless payment volumes. 50-60 years later, that figure is 90%. What erosion of marketshare are you talking about?

AFAIK, an overwhelming share of non-cash and non-card payments made by new generation consumers is Person-to-Person and does not affect V/MC, whose card payments are for Person-to-Business. As the CEO of MC keeps pointing out, his competitor is cash, not other cashless payment methods.

According to https://www.multichain.com/blog/2016/03/blockchains-vs-centralized-databases/, Blockchain code cannot initiate interactions with the outside world. Wonder how a Blockchain dApp can offer an API to external platforms.

Since you mention Marketplace - aka Platformification -: 

While Visa is seen as a card network, it could be argued that Visa is also a marketplace. At the highest level is Visa, the marketplace operator. At the next level are Acquirer Banks and Issuer Banks who act as Visa's Agents to onboard Merchants and Consumers respectively. At the last level are Merchants who sell goods / services and Consumers who buy goods / services. Ditto for MasterCard and other leading card networks.

Would you agree?