In my presentations these days are five key themes: the fintech revolution; cryptocurrency creation; distributed ledger technology; the AI world; and quantum disruption. I could add to the list – the metaverse, 6G+, robots, etc – but these are the top five in the financial world I live in. Then, when you sit back and reflect, what would you build today to succeed in ten years or more?
Twenty years ago, I speculated on the bank with the Genius Bar modelled on Apple. Today, we talk a lot about banks created through apps, APIs and AI to deliver the best user experience. Tomorrow, I would claim that we will still have banks – a statement made often based upon security, trust and guarantees – but things will be different. The bank of tomorrow will be omniscient, omnipresent and everywhere, all the time.
The big difference however is that the bank of tomorrow will be nothing like the bank of today.
Where we are right now is a place where banking is fragmenting. I don’t know about you, but I use Wise, PayPal, Monzo, Lloyds, Barclays, AMEX, Fidelity, Legal & General and more. It’s too much and it’s all over the place. In fact, sometimes I forget what money I’ve got where. In general, the issue is that there is no holistic view of my money.
Then, as I am blogging regularly, my identity is fragmented. On most days, I can’t remember which account has what username and which password. When FaceID works, it’s all fine, but then my systems often auto-reset and ask for a re-entry of my details. I can’t remember them so, you are suddenly locked out of the account. In fact, a critical question is why is it that my smartphone and laptop so often lose my login details … or is that just me?
Anyways, for these reasons, the vision of the future world is that all money will be integrated into something I carry with me. It won’t be on a smartphone as we probably won’t be using smartphones in twenty years. We will be living in an augmented reality based upon wearables and, specifically, glasses. A world full of people wearing networked glasses.
The networked glasses, operating on 6G with voice activation and integrated AI will link me with all of my accounts without thinking. Thanks to open system platforms, everything will be visible on one screen in my visual frame and then, with haptic (touch) systems, I’ll be able to break down every action and transaction simply and easily. A bit like Tom Cruise in Minority Report – can you believe that film is twenty years old ….
… I would be able to quickly touch the screen and get a breakdown of every action and transaction.
Why is this important? Well, one thing that really annoys me today is that my main bank keeps showing I’ve transacted with “Chris Skinner”. That’s me. What was I doing? It actually is transacting with Wise when I make foreign exchange transactions but, because my Wise account is name “Chris Skinner”, that’s what appears on my bank statements. It’s really confusing. What the bank should be saying is that I sent a payment to Wise. All of this is purely reflections of old systems, old structures and a lack of understanding or caring about the user experience.
When we get to 2050, all of this will be solved by quantum, AI, multiverse computing. Well, that’s the hope anyway.