Are you prepared? – The Internet giants are coming
Facebook wants to design its own currency so that all Friends can send money to each other. Amazon offers its own credit card, its own payment service and loans for small businesses. The Internet giant’s next project is its own Amazon checking account for young customers in cooperation with a bank like J. P. Morgan. And Google and Apple are sure to come up with something new for the financial market soon. The Internet giants are using their reach and data volume to conquer the financial market from the Net. They use artificial intelligence and consistent CRM and address the young target group in a modern way. They prefer to forego the cost of a banking license and the regulatory burden that entails. The big advantage our banks (still) have is the payment data they have on their customers. This is much more meaningful because it is based on reliable facts.
However, financial institutions can respond powerfully to the onslaught of Internet giants by leveraging their large customer base and infrastructure to become platforms themselves.
Platforming is worthwhile for banks for several reasons.
They can open their platform for good third-party offers at good conditions. Banks can turn their customer contacts and access to them into a new business model. Platformization and opening with program interfaces will soon be necessary anyway – the increasingly strict EU financial directives want more transparency. Any bank that moves in this direction now will be ahead of the competition later.
