Our basic financial needs have changed little in recent times yet the way we fulfill those needs is undergoing rapid transformation. This trend is exploding today thanks to the fintech startups seeking to disrupt traditional banking. These early-stage companies play to their strengths: they target underserved markets, move quickly and use business models and technologies that favour their narrow focus on a small range of products. For established banks the rise of these fintech startups presents a trilemma: ignore, acquire or collaborate?
Our program The Future of Retail and Commercial Banking will help you answer that question. It takes you inside the world of Silicon Valley fintech and shows you the ecosystem from all angles. The program will educate you in the major trends of the day, connect you with the companies pioneering groundbreaking solutions and inspire you to make your financial institution a leading innovator.
As with all of our programs, The Future of Retail and Commercial Banking is available both online and in person.
A huge range of fintech startups are challenging incumbent consumer banks, with each new firm focused on a small range of products. These early-stage companies are highly customer-centric, put technology and software at the heart of everything they do and target underserved consumers. They have raised billions of dollars in venture capital and have tens of millions of users, yet they face the need to monetize customers and generate profits. Where startups like Affirm, Lending Club and LendUp experiment with new ways to give consumers credit, Bill.com, PayNearMe and Square are redefining payments. Chime, Denizen and Step, meanwhile, are pioneering mobile-first daily banking.
Startups in this B2B sector are offering niche products designed to capitalize on gaps left by incumbent banks. Where Azlo focuses exclusively on financial services for entrepreneurs, Oxygen offers banking and credit to freelancers and gig economy workers. Platform Bill.com help businesses automate back-office operations while Square and Stripe are billion-dollar unicorns in the payments vertical. Other fintech challengers in this space build mobile applications to perform various business functions including checking accounts, travel and expense management, corporate debit cards, and corporate prepaid cards.
Who are the fintech challengers and what are their goals? Why are they growing so fast and what are the forces driving their expansion? These are the questions we answer on day 1 of our immersion program on The Future of Retail and Commercial Banking. We explain how startups have capitalized on demographic trends, new technologies and favorable regulatory environments to mount significant challenges to established banks. Visits to startups such as Brex, Aura and Synapse illustrate how these dynamics work in practice. We analyze the disruptive business models these companies deploy and see how they are able to cut overheads by as much as 50% compared to traditional banks and in the process attract new cohorts of previously underserved customers. Other potential participating companies: Chime, Oxygen, Point, Varo Money, Douugh, Sweep
The journey continues on day two with an exploration of the contours of the disruption to banking as they exist today. How many areas are seeing radical change? What is the nature of this change and how fast is it moving? We answer these questions through visits to a variety of startups, with each one seeking to disrupt the big banks with laser-like focus on a small range of products. Meetings include companies such as LendUp, to learn about the business model that allows the company to extend loans to non-banked and under-banked consumers; PayNearMe, to see how remote cash transactions cut banks out of the payment process; and Zero, a mobile-only bank providing an alternative to traditional financial institutions. Other potential participating companies: Earnest, Aura, Beam, Littlefind, Teller, Hellobit
Day three of the immersion program is dedicated to the technologies fueling the disruption of banking. We hear from experts in artificial intelligence and machine learning, robotics and blockchain to learn what these technologies can currently do and what they will offer in the future. We visit companies such as Affirm, Lending Club and Brex where they show us how they use emerging technologies to create competitive advantages and provide innovative, market-disrupting products and services. Other potential participating companies: Creditstacks, Deep Labs, Elafris, Terafina, LoanScan, Studentbank
Having seen and heard how digital is disrupting banking on days 1 to 3 of the program, on day 4 we ask: what can banks do to counter the rise of the fintech challengers? The options range from ignore to acquire, but for the institutions committed to innovation the only viable actions are partnership and collaboration. This, in other words, is “fintegration”, and it seeks to marry the assets of incumbent banks with the agility of fintechs. This is the philosophy that underpins the agenda on day 4. Through participatory workshops with leading Silicon Valley experts on design thinking, design sprints, venture capital and open innovation, we provide executives with the blueprints and frameworks they need in order to deliver innovation within their own organization. We evaluate the performance of incumbents such as JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs in their experimentation in the fintech space and visit companies such as Bill.com – recipients of backing from American Express – to see how they approach collaboration with established banks. Another possible visit is to Western Union, where an interactive session offers the opposite viewpoint: an up-to-the-minute case study on how an established financial institution can turn into an important player inside the fintech ecosystem. Other potential participating companies: Neema, Sweep, Charles Schwaab, Omdiyar, Highland Capital Partners, Spark Capital
The final day of our program focuses on the future of challenger fintech firms and their incumbent counterparts. With the startups set to continue taking market share away from established institutions one product at a time, how will the industry as a whole evolve and how should the big banks react? These are the questions we tackle on day 5. We show how, as fintech firms grow, they will need partners to help them navigate regulation, risk management and data security. We also explore market trends still only in their infancy and meet the companies seeking to capitalize on those trends. Possible company visits include Expensify, to see the cutting edge of fintech’s push into enterprise expense management; Seed, the world’s first mobile banking service designed exclusively for entrepreneurs and small businesses; and Good Money, to see what fintech looks like when it is coupled with environmental sustainability built in to the business model. We discuss which banking products are next in line for the application of emerging technology to reimagine the user experience and undercut traditional business models.Other potential participating companies: Alpharank, Jiko, ArrowPass, 37coins, Zenbanx, FINOS
Inspiration
Meet the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs passionate about using technology and software to streamline banking, eliminate customer pain points and digitalize the flow of money. Learn the frameworks and methodologies of the experts so you can embrace innovation with confidence.
Company Meetings
Connections
Turn motivation and knowledge into concrete action through business development opportunities that will make an established bank a world-class innovator.
Partnerships
Open Pathways To New Business Opportunities
Education
Gain insight into the digital disruption of banking when you see how startups are challenging incumbents on a product-by-product basis through superior customer experiences and unique business models.
Technology Insights
Master Emerging Technology Trends
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