„Banking is necessary, banks are not\u201d remarked\u00a0Bill Gates back in 2000. The Microsoft visionary\u00a0was predicting that one day, not too far away,\u00a0the banking business model would become obsolete.\u00a0\u201cNice idea, not going to happen,\u201d was what most of\u00a0us probably thought at the time \u2013 back then, it seemed\u00a0the banks were perfectly capable of looking after\u00a0themselves. Little did we know… Following the collapse\u00a0of Lehman Brothers, the Libor\/Euribor raterigging\u00a0scandal, the manipulation of gold prices and\u00a0foreign-exchange trickery, banks are now well and\u00a0truly on the defensive \u2013 more so than ever before.<\/p>\n
These goings-on have weakened them, too: banker\u00a0bashing is very much in vogue, and their customers are\u00a0not happy. In the good old days, people were proud to\u00a0be associated with a \u201cfamily\u201d bank. Nowadays, most\u00a0of us regard banks as a necessary evil.\u00a0If you asked a seasoned banker in 2014 what forms\u00a0the basis of a good relationship between bank and\u00a0customer, the answer would probably be: \u201cthe current\u00a0account\u201d. In reality, banks are in serious danger of losing\u00a0this cornerstone of customer loyalty. Not because\u00a0customers are switching to Internet banking in droves,\u00a0so they can conduct all their banking transactions online\u00a0via computer, smartphone or tablet. No, there\u2019s\u00a0another, much greater risk. In the not-too-distant\u00a0future, it\u2019s quite possible customers will be able to do\u00a0away with bank accounts altogether \u2013 all they\u2019ll need\u00a0is a smartphone and a mobile number. They\u2019ll simply\u00a0pay by app: easily and conveniently, via on-screen display\u00a0and electronic data interchange. Scan QR or barcode,\u00a0confirm, hang up \u2013 done.<\/p>\n
Africa is already offering us a glimpse of this future.\u00a0Despite the absence of branch networks, bank advisors\u00a0and in some cases, even banks, development over\u00a0there is much further advanced than it is here. So it\u2019s\u00a0only a matter of time before entirely new payment systems\u00a0start to change our consumer behaviour, too.\u00a0Critics will cry: \u201cYou can\u2019t simply replicate African conditions\u00a0and developments in Europe, let alone in Germany!\u201d\u00a0And they have a point: even credit cards are\u00a0nowhere near as widespread in the Federal Republic\u00a0as they are in other Western nations. Cash aside, Germans\u00a0still prefer their trusty EC cards.<\/p>\n
And yet \u2013 what do German youngsters have in common\u00a0with their Italian, Californian or Swedish peers? Not\u00a0credit cards, that\u2019s for sure. What unites them all \u2013 on a\u00a0global scale \u2013 is the total technologisation of their communication,\u00a0first set in motion by Silicon Valley. For young\u00a0people today, Facebook, WhatsApp and Snapchat aren\u2019t\u00a0just part of everyday life \u2013 they\u2019re a nigh indispensable\u00a0basic requirement, as necessary and\u00a0self-evident as food and drink. High prices don\u2019t deter\u00a0these digital natives \u2013 they\u2019ll shell out for overpriced\u00a0Apple products without batting an eyelid. The NSA scandal\u00a0\u2013 what\u2019s that? Environmental pollution? Feudal working\u00a0conditions at suppliers like Foxconn? Who cares!<\/p>\n
Just imagine if there were such a thing as an Apple\u00a0Bank. Then you could simply pay for everything via\u00a0your Apple account. Low price elasticity would be replaced\u00a0by a simple account management charge of 25\u00a0euros \u2013 per month, of course. Inconceivable? Not so\u00a0fast. People would pay it, because it would be hip,\u00a0convenient and unpretentious.<\/p>\n
So what are the German banks doing? Sleeping \u2013 or\u00a0they seem to be. Not a sign of innovation, creativity,\u00a0strategic thinking or even collaborative effort. How\u00a0could there be? Some of their computer systems are\u00a0positively Jurassic. Banks are dinosaurs, incapable \u2013 for
\nfinancial reasons, among others \u2013 of managing the continuous
\nupgrading of IT systems they so urgently need.\u00a0What\u2019s more, increasingly onerous regulations mean\u00a0that banks are currently more concerned with their own\u00a0internal affairs than with the outside world or the marketplace.\u00a0Or at least, that\u2019s what it looks like. Maybe in\u00a0a quiet backroom somewhere \u2013 in a savings bank,\u00a0Volksbank or even a high-street bank \u2013 some financial\u00a0egghead is slaving away, hoping to be the first to invent\u00a0the \u201cPhilosopher\u2019s Payment Stone\u201d. But: I\u2019m not holding\u00a0my breath. Not even Deutsche Telekom, despite
\nbeing way ahead in selling the \u201cUltimate Cure-all\u201d, the\u00a0smartphone, has been able to make money from anything\u00a0except network infrastructure. Only in May 2014\u00a0did the company finally come up with a technology that\u00a0enables mobile payment from (some) smartphones.<\/p>\n
Instead, it\u2019s the Internet companies like Amazon,\u00a0Apple and Google, as well as eBay with PayPal, who\u00a0have established themselves as the innovation leaders.\u00a0And I\u2019m afraid the ultimate outcome will be very different\u00a0from the proverbial race between Hare and Tortoise.\u00a0The Internet giants are strong across the board,\u00a0uniting innovation and creativity with size and responsiveness.\u00a0The next step \u2013 \u201cwhy not pay your salary into\u00a0your Google account?\u201d \u2013 won\u2019t be long in coming.\u00a0See? They\u2019ve even got the right word for it: account.<\/p>\n
So what\u2019s left over for Germany\u2019s banks? As a last\u00a0resort, they could always agree on a common standard.\u00a0But they need to do it soon, and make it fast, secure\u00a0and user-friendly, with strong branding. Then,\u00a0and only then, will the banks have a chance to succeed
\nin the face of global competition. Otherwise, they may\u00a0end up like the photographic film manufacturers when\u00a0digital cameras appeared. Many of them will simply\u00a0vanish, or shrink to pale shadows of their former\u00a0selves. And that would be a pity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
„Banking is necessary, banks are not\u201d remarked\u00a0Bill Gates back in 2000. The Microsoft visionary\u00a0was predicting that one day, not too far away,\u00a0the banking business model would become obsolete.\u00a0\u201cNice idea, not going to happen,\u201d was what most of\u00a0us probably thought at the time \u2013 back then, it seemed\u00a0the banks were perfectly capable of looking after\u00a0themselves. Little […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":580,"featured_media":18772,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-executive-education"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.frankfurt-school.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.frankfurt-school.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.frankfurt-school.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.frankfurt-school.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/580"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.frankfurt-school.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12096"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blog.frankfurt-school.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18773,"href":"https:\/\/blog.frankfurt-school.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12096\/revisions\/18773"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.frankfurt-school.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.frankfurt-school.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.frankfurt-school.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.frankfurt-school.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}