search.noResults

search.searching

note.createNoteMessage

search.noResults

search.searching

orderForm.title

orderForm.productCode
orderForm.description
orderForm.quantity
orderForm.itemPrice
orderForm.price
orderForm.totalPrice
orderForm.deliveryDetails.billingAddress
orderForm.deliveryDetails.deliveryAddress
orderForm.noItems
IBS Journal March 2018 EDITOR’S NOTE THE BEST FINTECHS HAVE MUCH IN COMMON WITH CURLERS


COMPARISONS BETWEEN FINTECHS AND A TEAM OF WOMEN FROM A GARLIC-GROWING TOWN WHO WENT ALL THE WAY TO AN OLYMPIC FINAL ARE SURPRISING BUT ACCURATE. BUT IT’S THE FOOTBALL MATCH BETWEEN BANKS AND FINTECHS WHICH IS CAUSING CONCERN THIS MONTH.


Bill Boyle Senior Editor


billb@ibsintelligence.com


05


S


ports are taking over the world. The Winter Olympics has captivated us. It is the international football season soon with the World Cup about to take over our consciousness and old rivalries being sharpened up. Sport has been made deeper, and some say more like an international soap opera, with the addition of rogue countries that we can demonise and discuss at length in between bouts of curling and snowboarding.


Just as in fintech we find new heroes. South Korea’s curling team has gone from a small team of unknown women from a garlic- growing town to international super stars. They lost but they lost with honour and integrity aspiring to win up until the last minute. They stood out to us because they were prepared to take chances to win. This is the same as the best fintechs. We expect fintechs to have new products, strategies and attitudes which surprise us. That is not what we expect of the rest of the financial industry including banks – we expect them to be grey and wear ties.


A slogan you are unlikely to hear much, therefore, over this summer is the one that Promoth Manghat, CEO, UAEXchange pleaded for when I talked to him at Finovate ME in Dubai last month. He said: “Please let’s end the football match between fintechs and the banks.” Promoth believes that what is happening is the inevitability of change in the banking system driven by technology but which is producing too much heated discussion for its own good. One of those areas is the arena of regulation. He makes his point simply: “If you treat your customers properly and give them a clear, transparent path, you do not need to worry about regulators – you hear some fintechs being very critical about them but why fear them when they are trying to do the same for the customer as we are?”


Promoth believes that we are not engaged in a battle between old, ageing banks and disruptive new companies which are going to replace them. It was clear that while the financial industry is undergoing massive change, as a data-driven industry it is very difficult to gauge change. But change is still taking place. There is not a single big bank that is not farming fintech companies, whether they are factory-farming or trying to do it organically (i.e, not sucking out all the nutrients and leaving their skin and bones by the side of the road). But why are we in this situation?


The fact is there is a lesson to be learned here. Since the 2008 financial disaster, the banks and poor regulators (or the lack of regulation in the US), who drove the world economies into disaster, have been busy rebuilding their own profits and not innovating. They have been busy dealing with risk and remuneration. In the meantime, technology giants such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, Alibaba and Apple elevated the customer; arguably exactly the opposite of what the banks have been doing.


In Mexico, 90% of Amazon customers see the company as a better organisation to borrow small amounts of money from than the banks. Banks still make everyday actions such as obtaining a mortgage difficult. They make cross-border payments as difficult as climbing the Andes.


Ironically the banks have been unable to suck in the type of talent that Silicon Valley has been attracting as it built the massive cloud data centres that the new fintechs see as critical to their success. So their answer has been to buy fintechs and farm them. Whether the two rival sides in the game become one, as Promoth asks for, will keep us guessing for a while.


www.ibsintelligence.com


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52