Page 18 - May 2018 Disruption Report Flip Book

DIGITAL BANK JANMUAAYRY20210818
Barclays Bank plans to launch an online retail bank in the U.S.
Barclays Bank’s credit card issuer, Barclaycard, is morphing its business into a more complete suite of digital banking offerings, which will be rolled out publicly in mid-2018, according to CEO Curt Hess. “Being a card business and heavily involved in analytics, data and the power of payments is a good starting point for us to branch more deeply into consumer retail banking,” said Hess. “We’re going to ramp up significantly next year on consumer loans and continue to build out our overall digital bank.”
“Many banks talk about personalized messaging and marketing,” said Hess. “There’s an opportunity for us to do that in a way that gives value back to our customer but can also be one of the smoothest overall experiences that could be out there right now.”
Barclaycard’s personal finance management (PFM) app will compete with universal banks, like JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, which have announced sub-branded digital banks. Earlier this year, JPMorgan Chase introduced Finn, an app that provides an array of mobile checking and savings accounts with personal finance tools. Wells Fargo has announced a similar product called Greenhouse, a standalone mobile banking app with digital-only accounts and personal finance features. (TearSheet.com, Tanaya Machell, 11/28/17)
Santander’s plan to digitize money
The Spanish banking giant Santander is rolling out One Pay FX, a tokenization mobile payments system, for its retail customers. One Pay FX, the first retail payment system build on Ripple’s blockchain technology, allows U.K. debit card holders to send payments to people in EU countries and the U.S.
“This idea of tokenized money is something we’re investing in a lot,” said Julio Faura, head of research and development for the Santander’s blockchain practice. “We’re thinking of using it ...for more retail uses like creating commercial bank-backed digital money to do payments and liquidity management. ...Once we create this digital money, it’s like [using] a prepaid card. Instead of using a proprietary database we use a smart contract that lives on [a shared ledger]. With those digital representations of money we’ll be able to do settlement for other instruments [such as like equities and bonds].”
While faster payments are one of the more prominent use cases for blockchain technology among banks, Faura said the holy grail of blockchain applications is in capital markets uses. “The problem is that it’s too complex,” said Faura. “There are too many systems, too many things that need
to talk to each other, and it’s very difficult to tackle just one part [at a time].” (Tearsheet, Tanaya Macheel, 04/24/18)
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