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Research Outline

Prepared for Paul S. | Delivered July 16, 2019

UK Current Account Banking

Goals

To demonstrate insight into the problems/business domain and add value to help a client stand out in the market, insight is needed into the emerging trends in the UK Current Account Banking market in particular those trends surrounding challenger banks (such as Monzo, Tandem, N29).

Early Findings

  • Some challenger banks are Starling, Monzo, Revolut, Atom and Tandem. These banks "are characterized by mobile first apps, personalization, and customer centricity."
  • The advantages challenger banks provide over traditional banks are that their "account opening procedure is a lot easier and quicker". Often it only requires that the client takes a picture of their ID and make a video of themselves.
  • Challenger banks offer new features such as "making recommendations based on transaction data for saving money, making payments to nearby friends via Bluetooth, or even blocking gambling transactions from customer accounts."
  • Challenger banks are also better than traditional banks when it comes to providing "security and preventing fraudulent behavior" because they have more intelligent analytic capabilities. An example is Monzo, which noticed there was a "data breach of the ticketing platform Ticketmaster and took action to replace all cards that had used Ticketmaster, without waiting to receive customer requests."
  • Due to their "lean set up and low cost structure", they offer lower fees to their customers.
  • Challenger banks make money on the perception that they have the client's best interest at heart and focus on that rather than doing "what is best or most profitable for themselves".
  • To offer more customer-centric services, incumbent banks might partner with challenger banks in 2019. This should result in platform banking propositions that offer "next-level customer experiences that leverage emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI)"