Banking 567.0 Now
Why 567.0? Well it feels like everything is a 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 we must be up to about 567.0 by now.
Once you get that the whole shenanigans of this that money is a store of value (approved ‘adult’ definition), and then you throw that into a fish-tank Netflix post-post-modernist society where we tear down cultural values – well you get the idea anything is value.
Suddenly, Money aint Money any more Marie.
Here’s the 5 key related points to rap your head around to grasp this opportunity…
1 Once Money is on a Smartphone – Money is all Just Numbers in an App
So why did Bitcoin take off?
Teach Gen X and Gen Y cultural relativism, charge them eye-watering sums of college debt, send record numbers to post-modern indoctrination camps (sorry some modern universities in the West), then give them a smartphone. Relativism means no absolutes so why is the greenback an absolute especially when the world (Federal Reserve etc) has been inflating itself ‘out’ of crisis.
Make apps that have ones and zeros and make all money seem fake.
Suddenly what is money? Why is it what those stodgy folks in Barclay say? Didn’t some trader there go rogue? Was Lehmann reliable? Ooops. Citi Bank in 2008? You see the perception (at this time).
So, the app becomes the bank, therefore, I am Facebook, Google, Stripe, or anyone really remotely credible with a shedload of money – ahem Apple.
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Apple launched a new credit card as you know.
And now I am YOUR bank. Well if Dad is my bank, does it make a difference? #Adulting. As long as I have my Phone which is my bank in my mind now. Maybe the Bank of Dad but anyway…
Crypto can also be my bank if you throw in a healthy dose of reality. Currency can be decentralized.
Perception is power. Thanks Uncle Freud, thanks Post-Modernism, thanks Dad.
Therefore, thinking about this for a minute – more smartphone users is part of the equation of launching my new Bank of Rainbow Unicorns. (BRU) – Apple cottoned onto this. Hence the Rainbow motif on their website.
So, with that in mind, what are the top smartphone cities in USA/Europe where I might find a high percentage of smartphone users for my NEW Bank BRU?
Smartphones Data
If you want to know the 5 top USA/Europe markets for Smartphone Usage
Not tech capitals! Not probably expected either. Around 3 years ago we saw a rise in startup activity in Gothenburg. So it’s an interesting place. Some thing is happening in Swedish cities.
Side note - weirdly enough we think Baghdad seems to have the most smartphones registered of any cities globally – but this may be a population anomaly.
And what cities where around 1 in 3 people don’t own a Smartphone?
Source for both 2THINKNOW Smartphone Penetration % Data Point, 2018 figures. Available to order.
Smartphones correlate to banking success now.
Just a moment - smartphones have become banks. Not sandstone.
We also have accurate data on how many people use iPhones or Android or Nokia.
Actually, our data shows smartphone usage is declining in some US cities (for some time - so Facebook is capturing a growing share of a declining market in some cities).
If you are making decisions based on national telco data, you are really missing out… get (our) better data and make better decisions.
2 Massive Opportunity to Re-imagine Banking in USA/Europe
Question - if my store of value is a balance in an app why do I need to use the Wells Fargo App?
Bottom line - smart phones are key to spreading your app which is now the ‘bank’. Startups have cottoned on to this – but it’s all the Millennials and the tech dudes/ dudettes from cities worldwide that will drive this. Cultural relativism is an idea virus.
So what is the next driver…?
Well tech adoption rates. Also various demographic and socio-graphic factors that get inside the idea of the consumer.
How open am I to BRU and Unicorns? And could fondue be currency by fiat too?
Point is how open am I to another app other than my ‘Citi’ Bank app. Especially when they were pretty wobbly during the GFC, and I value something other than money (say, experiences like Coachella).
Getting ready to launch a Fin Tech App in mature markets post-Stealth?
2THINKNOW have been thinking about this. So, you can combine all these this data with other data to tell you WHERE you should launch your app before anyone else...
And we can do this data model all under 14 days to compare cities worldwide… to help you make more accurate decisions and be less likely to burn money/resources. Have you considered demographics, chances are you don’t have complete data.
And no Karen, these are not New York or the cities you expect. New York is often bad decision. And chances are you probably considering the wrong cities, because it’s not based on the right data and experience.
Of course, this applies to Western and mature markets where the lack of life problems for some are causing giant protests from vegans saying that lettuce cries (true story). #westernproblems
3 It’s All Different In Emerging – Bancarization, the Under-Banked
But in the emerging markets it’s different.
This is because Africa is getting 8% growth rates, more in some cities, and the emerging cities are hotbeds being driven by smartphones and people transferring money from mattress to the banking system.
There is nothing that gets a banker more excited than receiving money which he can then lend out at 9 or more times the face value.
So some of the key data driving this is how many bank branches, and ATMs there are. But the new tech partial driver is Smart Phones. Because rather than riding a motorcycle with wads of cash to a bank along the dirt road, smartphones make money transfers instant.
All those mom-and-pop stores and family businesses now banking for the first time. In the Emerging markets it’s all about Bank branches, stability and growing trust that my money will remain safe in your bank.
All of which is bread and butter to old school bankers – but a disconnect for Millennials who take this for granted.
Learn more about this in the 2THINKNOW Fintech & Banking Innovation MasterClass running soon. Reply to this email for an outline!
4 Back to the West - Hey Do We Need Currency?
So the problem for currency is this.
The inflationary period of asset price inflation has been insane in the west. An apartment or terrace house in Sydney has risen in some cases ~400-500% in 20 years. e.g. Clovelly Eastern Suburbs not far from Bondi.
This means I can’t get enough currency to buy assets. Well it’s no wonder that people are tripping out as reality seems too expensive to get enough currency for acquiring assets.
And forget the $24,000 beach front house that your firefighter grand parents bought in the 1970s (rise of ~12,000% even in the current ‘crash’). True story. Sydney.
Co-working, co-living, couchsurfing and sharing property is a necessity. As few new employed graduates can afford houses. So sharing assets – Uber and AirBnB is a response to all of this. So are barter systems (or sharing).
What about barter? Well, we have seen this ship before. And it didn’t do so great the first turn… barter has never been great. How do I give half a hair cut in return for a chicken seems to be the problem.
So, the sharing economy is a response. But sharing creates an openness to new currencies, because quite frankly you may not have much access to hard Greenback or Euro currency and you still need to eat and shelter.
Once you open the door to relativism on money - well we seem to have traveled back to the trippy, dippy 70s man. Velcro and paisley wallpaper. No flares please. Free Love and Burning Man (mmm... still pretty sure that place is not a good idea if you value your health and safety)… Back to the days of fondue and keys in a bowl and cheap wine…
2THINKNOW believe the real driver is the devaluation of value. So, what is ‘value’, when value used to be the patriarchy, and now that’s devalued? Now we need our dear friend son of psychoanalysis Jung (and Freud’s pupil) for that one.
Value is what we dream it is collectively. Oops.
Add to this an observation - you can’t stoke the sharing and circular economy, provide 1s and 0s cash - and not expect your money to be devalued…
Is sharing a meal in a kitchen (barter) currency? Is sharing fondue while in AirBnB currency?
(Fondue how good was that?)
Maybe value is fondue. Or value is your neighbor’s house. Watch it’s a Wonderful Life, and you #getit.
But we seem so much more cynical this time around. Perhaps we always were. The 20s were pretty cynical too with flappers and torches of freedom…
And the bottom line is the definition of value right now is highly fluid. Because we can’t afford houses, so I will sell you some of my toys on eBay and let you my spare room on AirBnB in return for my new tires.
Out of sight!
5 Other Things Can Be Currency
So, once you access this virtual money through an app, and a phone it’s you have some equivalency with all the other apps on your phone. ING and Tinder are equal. F***. Well, exactly.
So why is this money and not the captive points system of my supermarket gift card? Why not sort the money with the merchant? Individuality as an ethos (hello Gillette/Optus - AU telco) breeds currency fragmentation!
I already swipe right to meet people… so it’s not like I am precious about things of value. People have no value (psychological insight) because I am swiping them. And money is value – thanks Freud. So money has no value, it’s just a burger from shake shack.
Side Note 4 – Tinder, Guys and fish, girls and height. Seriously!
This is not just Millennials. It has infected us all. You (adults) have been telling us for years the world will end due to Climate Change, Peak Oil, Ozone Hole (Gen Y), Aids or Nuclear War (Gen X), Global Cooling (Baby Boomers) and Population bomb (back to Malthus).
You adults (bankers) are not taking care of the world. An adult is someone 8 years older than you… #adulting
Sorry banks. I don’t always need to visit you, so I just need a grey-haired banker and sandstone façade (or steel and glass) to feel good about my decision. Besides with all these German and US Bank mergers my virtual currency may be safer. And it looks like the patriarchy. How safe can it be?
Freud and Data Science who knew? Seriously some Oedipal analysis of bank ads would be fun.
You can’t raise anti-authoritarian kids by the cultural programming of the Simpsons and expect respect of value and thus money.
And conversely the more I tap and swipe the less difference between a $10 and $200 purchase, and the more it’s about rewards. Think about your own behavior? All of us!
Bottom line – BOOM CRASH! Any app can create money. Because that’s all Quantitative Easing was anyhow…
MIC DROP.
2THINKNOW SECRET INSIGHT
Bottom Line 1 - The West & Banking Relationship It’s Not Fondue it’s Me.
Besides the world is ending so …lets party.
Constant Netflix shows say so…If you binge watch Netflix you serious get ‘messed up’, and start thinking Marvel superheroes are ‘real’ and subtly but distinctly the narrative of constant threat gets into your head.
<rant>Narrative of constant threat is DESTROYING the West. Seriously needs reversal. Possible to reverse. Ask GaryVee</rant> - CH #optimism
And trains and tunnels, Uncle Freud, trains and tunnels. Netflix is a Freudian goal mine of mental sociopathy. We term at 2thinknow this Narcissistic Nihilism in our reports and the culture makers need to turn this ship around.
Some shows that don’t make me feel life is pointless would be nice. Netflix stock price might go up too. Life is beautiful not pointless and all this depressing fare is well depressing. Arrggh. It’s so… California. Soooo bubble. The California op Culture Bubble - didn't Larry Rivers and Warhol preface this?
When bank ads are selling emotion you have to grasp all this. When you take away sandstone and the patriarchy suddenly your bank is virtue-signaling and trying to ride the wave.
And if life is doomed say Millennials, then what’s the point of storing value?
This means the general Western trend is towards further disruption for the next few years of banking.
How to profit from the disruption? Look at data, look at REALITY. Stop watching fake worlds created for you on Netflix by the poets Shakespeare’s pinky finger would reject (what is it with the writing on shows like Designated Survivor? Read some literature people).
Screen time used to consume only entertainment - allows escape from reality.
If you want to change reality (disrupt) you must be grounded in reality, people. And dream a better dream of your better world. That is not some weird force-field that surrounds your city or endless other doomsday shows…
Fortunately, you have 2THINKNOW City Data to tell you about reality not the collective nonsense that passes for facts in the dream like Jungian universe of CNN tickers and Netflix shows…
Reality is NUMBERS. And data.
So, bottom line – Banking no longer has to be done by banks, and each service can be dis-intermediated and spun into a startup. This only applies to some markets.
Currency can be dis intermediated. i.e. Currency can be what you say it is. Crazy ideas time people. #Crypto
2THINKNOW can produce real world data with secrets to tell you which markets have demand for your financial service.
Jump on this before the banks do. And no dumb bank ads. Please. Groan.
2THINKNOW SECRET INSIGHT 2 (PREMIUM ONLY)
2 Which cities are better for banking?
Some US Cities are better bets for new banking services. Same Latin America. Which ones?
If you are interested I am teaching a ‘Fintech & Banking Innovation Masterclass’ course on this topic in Prague in August, or Melbourne in July. Some bankers, but everyone welcome.
This whole series of confluent trends and totally nihilistic, narcissistic set of cultural programming offset by the mind-numbing stupidity of the Lego Movies (Everything is Awesome, thank me later) … underlying this is a collective thought. ‘Man - the adults who run the world, should do a better job.’ Problem is those adults are saying the same thing. Adulting don’t get easier! I wonder if Yellen thinks the same?
Of course, at the city level this is not consistent. So, there are opportunities from our data.
2THINKNOW SECRET INSIGHT 3
Emerging Markets Need Bancarization
What bankers the called under-banked. Think Indian families with shoeboxes of cash. It’s why financial services growth in some cities in Africa is stratospheric.
We can help you identify which cities everyone is missing and plan your move!
So emerging markets (even through migrant funds returned overseas) have become growth markets for global and regional banks.
This insight needs lots of data on emerging cities to exploit. We can help your bank hit the ground running and make more money in emerging markets!