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Credit Unions (USA) and Volksbanks (Germany) are at least two categories of small banks I know of who share software across their respective communities. The latest move by DB and ING might suggest that, when the wallet starts pinching, big banks have to begin thinking of how to chart their course using the lighthouse established by small banks. But, sadly, this might only work in "external" areas like sanctions screening. In "internal" areas, using a common set of software across multiple banks is a pipedream - I know of large banks who don't share the same core banking or payment processing software even within their own subsidiaries in different countries!

I did a quick Google Search for "car insurance". The Top 5 organic results were MoneySuperMarket, Progressive, Confused, Churchill and eSurance. Google's own car insurance comparison search product didn't even feature on the first page of organic search results. Even if it did, it shouldn't be a subject for intervention by the regulator. After all, Google Search belongs to Google and I don't see why the company should be stopped from displaying whatever it wishes to display on its own property as long as it's within the confines of the law. If people don't like what they see on Google SERPs, they can always ditch Google and switch to other search engines - that too, without any switching costs. In any case, the article refers to Google Ads - aka sponsored messages - as the way by which Google can exert its muscle power. Since Google Ads cost money, using them to jockey for top position on a SERP would at worst imply financial - not search - muscle, and certainly shouldn't be subject to regulation.

According to India's banking regulator, RBI, IMPS is only available for people with bank accounts, of which there are around 300M. Banks offer IMPS only to customers who are registered for Mobile Banking, which in turns requires Internet Banking registration, of which there are 20M. Assuming every Internet Banking user signs up for Mobile Banking, that provides IMPS with a base of 20M eligible users. While not a small number in itself, it's a tiny sliver of the number of mobile phone subscribers. With a target market that's nowhere near 600M, banks will need to make onboarding and ongoing use of IMPS as frictionless as possible so that they're able to convert as much of the eligible user base into customers of IMPS.

I only hope that your prediction that "a compliance officer is gaining increased authority and clout to do a thorough job" comes true. However, as someone who receives - and pays for - compliance guidance regularly, I wouldn't bet on that. Instead, the stature of the compliance function can grow with a different approach. In addition to advising the business on what can be done and what can't be done, compliance officers should also try and reach out to rule-makers and impress upon them the need to establish the optimum level of regulation. While there are several factors that determine the optimum, nothing is more important than to realize that the fundamental purpose of a business is to do business and not just stay compliant. To quote an analogy, a credit card business makes money only by authorizing a transaction. It's not helped by an overzealous fraud detection system that blocks each and every transaction that has the slightest whiff of fraud.

"Like fellow tech-heavy new entrant Simple, the firm is not actually a bank,...".

On the one hand, we hear that banks are losing trust of the public. On the other hand, we have nonbanks masquerading as banks. Is this because, even in their reportedly tarnished state, banks are still the go to partners for financial services for the common man?

Kudos to ING for these initiatives. By using a "social media analytics tool that allowed bank staff to monitor posts...", ING would be taking a step in the right direction and could proactively address concerns expressed in the following tweets bearing STRONG NEGATIVE sentiment about itself: 

1. Man ing direct effed me up transferring money from my other account. I NEVER overdraft.
2. It's so nice to not have access to the money in my ING Direct accounts without warning after 20hrs travel. 
3. Time to drop ING Direct as a bank. No wire transfers, no easy way to get large sums of money in less than two business days... Lame.

The way Passbook is described, it does display the appropriate QR code on the lock screen and seemingly permits users to tap it directly and launch the respective item. While I haven't tried it out myself, this seems like 1-Tap access. Not sure whether it asks the user to enter the lockscreen password in case one is set. If it does, it admittedly poses a certain degree of friction. If it doesn't, some would create a big furore saying it's a big security flaw - something I remember happened with Google Wallet a few months ago, forcing Google to rectify it.

There's this stereotype of bankers as fat cats and retailers as minimum wage toilers. More than anything else, I think this is responsible for popular opinion increasingly tilting towards retailers and away from banks. So far, the efforts of banks to steer the common man away from this stereotype have been feeble. How well retailers manage to reinforce this stereotype will eventually determine how successful they'll be in their forays into financial services.

Like I'd pointed out here over a year ago, even non-gullible and technically savvy people would find it difficult to distinguish between a URL like easteroffers.mybank.com (which belongs to my bank and is therefore genuine) and another one like mybank.easteroffers.com (which does not belong to my bank and is quite likely fraudulent). So, refraining from clicking a hyperlink on an URL and instead copying and pasting the URL on the browser's address bar is not so foolproof either. IMHO, people are not as gullible as phishers are savvy. Some banks send emails to me with my name, others don't. The only foolproof counterstrategy against phishing that I could think of was for the bank to authenticate its website to the customer by displaying a preselected image at logon. I know a few banks who do it. Others should, too.

On the contrary, by launching Passbook just 3 months ago on QR codes, Apple seemed to distance itself from NFC. My other prediction that the next version of iPhone will include a native QR code reader app hasn't fared so well, though.