The Top 10 Blog Entries of 2013

Talking of the top bank news, here are the top 10 blog entries of 2013 by page views:

Number 10: #AskJPM? No way … JPMorgan’s social media disaster

November

JPMorgan had this great idea this week: to host a twitter Q&A using the hashtag #AskJPM.  They pushed the meeting quite hard on twitter, with various tweets promoting the Q&A.   In fact, I think they thought it was something that would appeal to students, maybe as a hiring thing.  But it’s kind of a bad idea asking students, or twitter, for questions as folks out there have a wicked wit and, before they knew it, the whole thing had backfired.

Number 9: LIBOR - the future

January

I just updated the LIBOR timeline with what's happening this year when five currencies are discontinued from LIBOR publications.  In case you missed it, here's what's happening.

Number 8: Stop talking about mobile, it's not important

January

My latest presentation is apparently a polemic.  That’s what my colleague said yesterday, when I said that my new presentation has three themes:

• Mobile is irrelevant;
• Money is meaningless; and
• Capitalism is dead.

Number 7: Proof that mobile banking is killing the branch

June

A final presentation from EFMA week that I need to reference before moving on came from Eric Mackor, Head of Channel Development at the Netherlands Retail Bank ABN AMRO (as opposed to the transaction bank part of ABN AMRO that was acquired by the Royal Bank of Scotland).

Number 6: Why ALL banks will change core systems

April

There's a theme that keeps cropping up at most conferences I attend around the remodelling of banks.  The theme is how do you turn a vertically integrated business that owns the customer process end-to-end and organises itself around products and channels, into a horizontally structured business that wants to provide functionality to the customer at their point of need and organises themselves around the customer’s data.

Number 5: A new currency payment system is about to explode

February

Before leaving the subject of , personalisation and virtualisation, there’s one last area that is worth delving into.  This one came up when I was working on my latest iteration of the way in which money is evolving, and I have the firm belief that the exchange of value digitally will be as, if not more, disruptive than the exchange of goods physically.

Number 4: Creating an agile, designer IT Shop from a CIO who knows how

March

Time to head home after a day in India at the launch of the new design centre for finance launched by Polaris Financial Technology in Chennai (Madras for the old folks out there).   A fascinating trip, not least because Polaris has injected something into software development that I have not seen before: creativity.  This was clearly demonstrated by Michael Harte, CIO of Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA).

Number 3: mBank: the world’s first mobile social bank within a bank

June

I mentioned that BRE Bank is dropping their branding later this year and replacing it with mBank, the brand they launched last decade to support their online activities.  What is this all about?  Here’s an analysis.

Number 2: The easiest ways to steal your money

August

There are many ways to defraud people.  You only have to watch programs like Hustle and The Real Hustle to realise how simple it is.  These scams all play on human greed, fear and emotion, and use social engineering to con folks out of their cash.

Number 1: Which bank demonstrates the most innovation?

August

I regularly track French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Russian and more in the banking hemisphere and, as a result, spotted my Ukrainian friend Mykola Chumak had found a wonderful update on innovation centres in banks this week from the Russian site Future Banking.  The banks identified include BBVA, Capital One, Citi and ING, although these are just a few of the banks that have such centres.