How bunq is revolutionizing banking
Ali Niknam, the CEO of bunq, shared his insights on the future of banking and the role of neo banks in an interview with Fincog. He believes that incumbent banks are too internally focused, whereas neo banks like bunq focus on what consumers want. Niknam emphasizes the importance of keeping technology simple and scalable, and recommends that startups understand what their users expect and work backwards from there. Finally, Niknam predicts that neo banks will become banks and incumbent banks will become obsolete due to their inefficiency and lack of user-centricity. Read more
How does open banking improve user experience and efficiency?
Jan van Vonno, Head of Strategy at Tink, discusses the current state and future of open banking and payments in a recent Fincog podcast. He defines open banking as the exchange of data and services between financial institutions and third-party providers. The adoption of open banking is already here, and its impact has been seen in the increase of licensed providers in Europe. Jan also touches on PSD2's objectives and how banks are responding to the complexity of creating dedicated interfaces. The biggest risk for banks is losing face with their customers, so they aim to create compelling services. Read more
3 Financial innovations to watch for banks in 2023
The banking industry is experiencing a seismic shift driven by technological innovation and the emergence of new players, putting pressure on traditional banks to adapt or risk losing market share. Fintech startups are focusing on specific product segments and niches, offering better customer experience and more efficient operating models than traditional banks. To stay competitive, incumbents must transform and innovate, leveraging the power of technology to deliver customer-centric solutions that meet the needs of today's consumers. Read more
Silicon Valley Bank: What Went Wrong and What's Next?
In this blog post we discuss the collapse of SVB, triggered by the news of the bank selling assets at a loss and a $2.25 billion recapitalization and forcing regulators to intervene in order to protect depositors. While we believe the failure of SVB to be an isolated case, it has caused bank stocks to drop heavily across the world, and it is important to closely monitor the developments as there remains much uncertainty across the sector. Fincog is available to help organizations mitigate the impact of these events. Read more
SME Banking & Remittances in Africa
40% of all formal MSMEs in developing countries suffer from unmet financing needs. Despite significant positive developments in recent years regarding digital banking initiatives, a lack of suitable business banking services still poses a great challenge for many entrepreneurs, MSMEs and SMEs across Africa. Learn about some of the existing opportunities for banks and financial institutions in the African market in our newest blog Read more
How can Banks play a positive role in climate change
Banks play a vital role in funding environmental change in society but there are a variety of ways banks can play a positive role in climate change. Based on our experience working with industry leaders in sustainable finance, we have outlined how banks can support economies in achieving climate goals while at the same time building a strong and sustainable business. Read more
What are the challenges banks are facing today
It is not secret that banks are up against steep challenges operating in today’s environment – an environment that is defined by geopolitical and economic uncertainty, hyper-competition, and rapid change. In this first article based on our recently published report Banking for Tomorrow, we are going to deep dive into some of those challenges faced by traditional banks and what it might mean for their further existence. Read more
The Digital Banking Opportunity in Africa
With the on average youngest population in the world and a rising mobile economy, Africa is becoming an attractive market for new entrants aiming to offers digital banking services to the largely underbanked population. In this blog based on our collaborative research together with BPC, we are looking into the market environment of Sub-Saharan Africa and the state of digital banks within the region. Read more
Organizational Design (Incumbent vs Challenger Bank)
Based on our longstanding experience within banking and supporting clients in establishing new organizations, this blog post aims to help you to align your organization to deliver a superior end-to-end customer experience by discussing the key differences in the organizational design of a traditional incumbent bank compared to a modern challenger. Read more
How to design the operating model of a digital bank
Operating models are an integral part of every bank’s business and if not properly designed, a bank can suffer critical consequences such as high operational cost, increased time-to-market cycles, elevated compliance risk and slowed decision making. In this blog article, we want to help you better understand how to avoid these pitfalls and show what it takes to design a comprehensive and successful operating model. Read more
IT architecture of a digital bank
Traditionally, banking IT architecture was designed from a product perspective resulting in a product-oriented service approach. However, to be able to deliver a superior customer experience, digital banks ought to take a client-centric approach in designing their IT architecture. In this article, we dive deeper into the technological building blocks of a digital bank and provide you with some of our best practices when designing the IT architecture of your bank. Read more
How to choose the right IT Vendor for your digital bank
IT Vendors and digital solution providers have experienced a growing spur during Covid-19 bringing with them various options and driving countless new banking technology solutions. Along with the growing number of IT providers, banks now have a large pool of solutions to choose from. However, making the right choices is crucial and can ultimately determine the success or failure of the organization. Based on our experience, we have put together the major steps to take when choosing an IT Vendor for your digital bank. Read more
Applying for a financial services license
Applying for a financial license marks a significant time and monetary investment with a certain risk factor not to be successful. However, by being well prepared and following a structured and targeted process, you can drastically improve the chances and efficiency of a successful license application independent of which type of banking or fintech license you are applying for. In today's blog, we therefore present 5 essential steps and key success factors to take in mind when applying for a financial serviceslicense. Read more
How to choose the right regulatory regime for your bank
Financial services are heavily regulated and before being able to provide such, one typically needs a regulatory license in some form. Licenses differ in their scope of permitted activities and requirements on the organization. Additionally, regulatory frameworks also vary across jurisdictions and types of financial services provided. This blog post aims to provide an overview of existing licensing regimes across the world and help new digital banks in making the right choices. Read more
Digital Banking in Latin America
The Latin American region is currently undergoing one of the largest digital transformations in the world. It continues to stabilise a high level of digital adoption, while also ensuring financial inclusion to the unbanked population. This report investigates the current digital banking landscape of the region, summarizes propositions and strategies of various selected players and provides a list of carefully assessed action points and imperatives to enter the market and establish your digital bank. Read more
The Global Phenomenon of Buy Now, Pay Later
While it is debatable in what country buy now, pay later first began, the rapid expansion across the globe has allowed for new types of consumer financing solutions to evolve quickly. New entrants seemingly launch weekly, and product and geographic extensions from existing players just as commonly. Together with Jason Mikula from Fintech Business Weekly, we have created a global industry primer discussing the in and outs of BNPL. Read more
The Rise of Digital SME Lending
Despite being a key operational concern, the largest business segment of the European economy struggles to adequately access financing. Capitalizing on this mismatch, a number of new digital players have stepped up, revamping the lending process to develop accessible propositions that are tailored to SMEs. We take a closer look at these new digital lending propositions as well as the challenges that they must address. Read more
Four Things Incumbents Can Learn From Neobanks
In the last 5 years, we’ve seen the number of digital banks grow at a terrific speed. Their modernized services, unrelenting approach to customer-centricity, and innovative tech stack have taken the banking industry by storm, encouraging the entire industry to rethink how financial services are done. We put together four of the main lessons incumbents can learn from the new digital banks. Read more
How to successfully build a digital bank?
Over the last decade, there has been a rise of digital banks. Nevertheless there are still ample digital banking opportunities in selected niches and geographic markets. The question is then how one could seize this opportunity and successfully launch a digital bank? This whitepaper offers a practical guide to help you from start to finish with hands-on information and takes you through each step of the process. Read more
Four steps to a successful digital transformation
We have entered a digital era where the pace of technological innovation seems to have become the main driver of change. The current environment forces banks to transform into a flexible, agile organisation, capable of quickly adopting to market developments. How then can banks successfully engage in a digital transformation? In this blog we describe the four steps to follow for a successful digital banking transformation. Read more
Key success factors for an effective digital transformation
While digital-native challenger banks are increasingly maturing and bigtechs are expanding rapidly into financial services, traditional banks face the risk of slow but steady deterioration of their financial performance. However, with the right strategy, now it is the perfect moment for mid-sized banks to become leaders instead of laggers. Read more
The Rise and Fall of Wirecard
By now we are certain you’ve seen the many headlines about the Wirecard scandal. Over the years Wirecard had been the rising star of Germany. It had replaced Commerzbank on the Frankfurt stock exchange and, at its peak, Wirecard was valued at over EUR 24 billion. So where did it all go wrong? Read more
Performance of neo banks in times of COVID-19
In recent years, we have witnessed the steady rise of digital challenger banks, also referred to as neo banks. It seemed that the only way was up, but COVID-19 halted the growth. We analysed neo-banks’ performance using our Fincog Challenger Bank Index, across various categories, regions and even for individual neo banks. Read more
How Challenger Banks can get on The Path to Profitability
We previously highlighted that the challenger bank’s revenue and profitability have generally not yet matched expectations. We have performed another benchmark on leading international challenger banks. While it’s a mixture of players, they share that they are all profitable. Our benchmark provides interesting learnings for success. While the path to future profitability differs per player, we have defined four strategic initiatives that challenger banks can undertake to drive revenue and become profitable. Read more
Why challenger banks struggle with profitability
There has been a strong growth of challenger banks in recent years. Despite their strong growth, however, their revenue and profitability are lagging behind. We have benchmarked some of the leading international players on their propositions and financial results. Overall, a less-active customer base combined with a limited product portfolio at lower margins, leaves many challengers with low income per customer and often negative profitability. Read more
Why the Netherlands is a well-functioning banking market that still offers some interesting opportunities
The Netherlands has a well-functioning banking market, with one of the lowest cost of banking services, good quality of service, and low defaults on lending. However, there are still some interesting opportunities in specific niches. This article provides an overview of the Dutch banking market and explores potential opportunities for financial service providers. Read more
Can banks stop the platforms eating financial services?
Online ecosystems like Amazon, Google, Facebook, eBay, Alibaba, and GO-JEK bring people together to contribute, interact, buy, sell and more. They’ve already irreversibly changed the retail landscape. Now, by introducing financial products like payments and consumer credit, they are jeopardising the position of banks. What can banks do to secure their future position? Read more
Investing in fintech potentially offers great returns, but good management remains key
Investing in fintech remains popular, with much investment activity and an overall higher valuation of organisations within the field. Who, then, are the investors in fintech, what do they invest in and what is their investment rationale? Read more
Why it's quiet on the PSD2 front
Over the last months we have helped a large universal bank to explore potential new opportunities under PSD2. In this blog we argue that PSD2 has set a long-term change in the market, and share four type of use cases we have identified by using a customer journey map. Read more
What is the future of banks in the PSD2 era
What may be the future of banks under PSD2? How might banks adapt to PSD2? In this blog we share our ideas Read more
How can banks turn their competitive advantage into strategy?
In his previous article, Jeroen de Bel explained how competitive advantage is designated by the market environment and competitors. How can banks best identify their competitive advantage and turn it into a strategy? Read more
How can banks maintain a competitive advantage?
In his previous article, Jeroen de Bel explained how fintech start-ups are changing the rules of the game for banking. How, then, can banks determine their competitive advantage and best position themselves in the market? Read more
Why Fintech startups and banks can build a potential win-win relationship
New fintech companies are born every day, and can offer many services more efficiently than banks. How should banks respond? Read more
