Banking 2.0 or the online revolution #Revolut

The rise of alternative banking is starting to get in the mainstream. Just 10 years ago there was a limited number of banks who offered the possibility to connect to your account online and get electronic statements. Now we see pressure to get the consumer closer and closer to the bank operations and make it more transparent and fun.

Finally banking will become a service like the cable or Internet or mobile company. I hope that the days of easy money made with nontransparent fees and tricking the consumer with 40 pages of small print will be gone.

At least in Europe banking should have the same fate as the Mobile market where the costs dropped drastically in the last years. If I can use my data plan for free (true I have a 4GB limit) anywhere in Europe, it should be the same for my banking costs.

Banking should become transparent and easy to manage directly by the consumer. I do not what to talk to some “human” that has 5% of my understanding of banking operations and instruct him/her how to do the operations I need on my behalf. That should be gone asap, the man in the middle should have the same fate as the phone operators.

The schema based on AADHAR in India where your national ID becomes a bank account and other similar schemes will make banking an essential public service. Coupled with the implementation of new services like Instant Payments all across the world should also make this right to have an account and pass electronic money with ease an essential part of the globalized society.

In fact services like Revolut, N26, Monzo etc. already do that. They demonstrate that some businesses make way to much money without any benefit to the society.
N26 and Monzo still do not support the whole EU but the fact Revolut expanded to the whole EU area is a start.

Rise in the use of crypto currencies and support for them is also going mainstream. No wonder that all the “Bank 2.0” services start to offer support for them. What are the traditional banks doing about this ? Spreading FUD = “Fear, uncertainty and doubt”. I think after the 2008 financial “fuck-up” nobody believes anymore in the “secure and too big to fail” fantasy.

Traditional banks should think very hard on how they will radically transform their business not to have the fate of book shops that were hit by the Amazon tsunami.

Some statistics from the news:
– N26 just passed the 500.000 clients mark and they are still not expanded in the whole EU.
– Revolut just passed the 1.5 million clients mark and still on the rise.
– In just 1 month (January 2018) in a country like Romania with the lowest banking percentage of population in EU, Revolut acquired more than 15.000 clients. I think until now (March 2018) they at least doubled that number.
– The explosion in clients of the new “Bank 2.0” services is at a rate that seems as a fantasy for traditional banks.
– Ten times more Romanians used crypto currencies than the Romanian stock exchange see Forbes Romania