Are traditional banks relics of the past with the personalisation of finance? Global finance expert explains

How individuals interact with companies is evolving to be less centered around the company itself and more towards giving that power back to the individual. This is especially true in terms of finances and technology. This global finance expert expands on how if companies do not adapt and expand into the new frontiers of greater personalization with their products, they will be left behind as relics of the past.

“Firstly, it is important to take a view on which direction technology is taking us. I am suggesting in my book that technology is taking us from platforms today towards greater personalization. This means that the technologies that created the success of the Amazons and Googles of the world, will now give way to technologies that enable end-users greater control over their personal data and networks. Digital banks today are mostly built on the assumption that they can become platforms of finance. We can already see that almost all digital banks around the world are not able to turn in a profit because the compliance and regulatory costs are too high. Also, with greater personalization, users of finance will start talking with each other more, overriding the need to go through an intermediary,” says Emmanuel Daniel, global thought leader on the future of finance.

The methods of the past simply cannot translate to the current/ future pace that technology has set in terms of expectations that clients are requesting to be met. If the current big players of today decide to double down on what they know, they will be surprised when smaller companies and organizations rise up as underdogs with fresh ideas, closing the market share gap they once had a lead in. 

Daniel goes on to say that, “Therefore, banks and any company in finance have to plug into those conversations and build products around what users are saying to each other. Many companies do not realize just how many times technology itself has morphed in recent years. Facebook in 2007 was a desktop application, by 2010, it had to morph into a mobile application, and today it is losing out to TikTok, which is more mobile native than Facebook. But very soon, we will see the Internet of Things creating new business models for finance. The challenge is knowing how to ride every wave as it occurs.“

Emmanuel Daniel is a global thought leader in the future of finance and is listed as a top 10 global influencer in the “Fintech Power50” list for 2021 and 2022. He is also a global entrepreneur, the founder of platforms such as The Asian Banker and Wealth and Society, through which Daniel has had extensive contact with leaders in banking and finance around the world. 

His new book, “The Great Transition: The Personalization of Finance is Here,” has already received rave reviews from Barney Frank, co-author of the Dodd Frank Act, and Dick Kovacevich, retired CEO of Wells Fargo, on Daniel’s insight into the personalisation of finance.