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Many banks I've spoken to have told me that they've taken a conscious decision to release mobile wallet as a separate app and not as a feature of their mobile banking app.

This resonates well with mobile app best practices which prescribe that mobile apps should be designed at a lower level of granularity compared to web apps. As a result, a single web app will inevitably be broken down into multiple mobile apps. I've covered the reasons for this approach in a post titled titled SaaS Will Change The Outcome Of The Bloatware Versus Light Apps Debate (hyperlink removed to comply with Finextra Community Rules but this post will appear on top of Google Search results) on my company blog. 

For example, Oracle has split its single JDE ERP package into 60 mobile apps (https://twitter.com/GTM360/status/493600498482548739). The closest BFSI example of this I can think of is ICICI Bank's app store, in which 2 web apps have been split into 10 mobile apps. 

@DeanW:

While I agree that the breach of email addresses can't result in fraud:

1. A breach is a breach is a breach. Just because breaches prior to the one I described in https://www.finextra.com/blogs/fullblog.aspx?blogid=7711 didn't result in financial losses doesn't lower the seriousness of the prior incidents
2. It's not self-evident that people's email addresses are in the public domain
3. "If my email gets breached today, who knows what else will get breached tomorrow" is probably what an average customer might take away from this incident.

Great post.

As I'd highlighted in my post From Multichannel To Omnichannel And Beyond (https://www.finextra.com/blogs/fullblog.aspx?blogid=8609), omnichannel construct requires bank employees to know what customers have been doing.

Like when a customer applies for a mortgage online and visits the branch to submit KYC documentation, it's expected that the portal would use clickstream data to understand exactly the step at which the customer hopped from online to branch, thereby letting the banker at branch restart from that point onwards instead of starting from ground up with the customary "How may I help you today?"

Just when tech cos are toning down their fin services ambitions or bungling them altogether; TELCOs are looking over their shoulders to see which terrorist organization names itself after their products; and an august consortium of retailers can't even protect their pilots from data breach. It's amazing to see such sluggishness in one part of an industry that has another part for whom even light traveling thru' bends slows down transactions too much.

If they can't even protect a pilot from breach...

I think "enemy" is a bit too strong but your findings resonate totally with my own experience of working with fintech marketers. Marketing is dependent upon development / implementation / delivery for discovery of new marketable capabilities and upon sales for go to market. The former likes to stay within its comfort zone and prefers to do more of what it has been doing, which thwarts new offering development. As for the latter, well, enough has been written about "Sales-Marketing Alignment" that I don't need to get into it here.

Vacuum cleaners and shoes are tangible products. A sale means transfer of ownership. Boundaries of scope are clearly defined.

That's not the case with financial products, which are created virtually out of thin air. Their descriptions have to project a certain rate of return without actually promising anything. They have nebulous liabilities, to cover which they resort to obfuscation on occasion. By law, they have to disclose a lot of information. I bought a fund 10 years ago. It was accompanied by 23 pages of information including complex formulas for calculation of surrender value, much of which was unintelligible even to its salesperson / CSR.

Call me jaded but BFSI companies will risk a drastic drop in sales if they use the same approach to product description as FMCG / CPG companies like Dyson / Nike. 

The same is true in other non tangible product categories. For example, software. Take Apple, whose products you've cited. The shape and form of EULA for a software from Apple - or Microsoft or any other software company - hasn't changed one bit since I entered the industry 25 years ago. It's still pages and pages of text that no one reads followed by one "I Accept" button that everyone has to click to proceed.

In a slightly different context, I'd written a blog post titled Puzzle Versus Mystery: Who’s To Blame For The Great Recession (hyperlink removed to comply with Finextra Community Rules but this post will appear on top of Google Search results). "Puzzle" applies to tangible products. "Mystery" applies to intangible products.

An interesting thing about the Venmo Line is how Millennials are using mobile apps like Venmo to - ahem - get cash. 

http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/03/nimbl-is-uber-for-cash/

There's so much buzz in the US about uncertain economic recovery, stagnant wages, heavy student loan burden faced by Millennials, greater number of Millennials staying with their parents compared to the previous generations, etc. If Millennials are using less cash - and that's a big IF - is that because they're more stingy and / or they have less money in any form?

I remember a time a few years ago when I was moving from UK to India and wanted to donate a lot of household items. The way the donation process worked at the time, I had to find a charity, I had to visit their website, I had to telephone them, I had to list all items, I had to make an appointment, I had to lug everything to their warehouse, etc. Lacking the time or inclination to do all that by myself, I just gave up. It's good to know that charities are waking up to the need for reducing efforts and friction for the donor in the process of donation.

@StephenB: While geographical variances are common in market-facing policies, when it comes to security policies, most companies I know enforce a single policy across the world. In fact, the IT company in my example is American and its SOP related lost laptops is global.