When a question arose in my office, “Do we have the right ‘DNA’ as a digital bank?”, I remembered reading this book a couple of years ago. The book was first published back in 2013, the same year I was hired by a conventional bank in their journey of a digital transformation to become a digital bank. If I remember correctly it wasn’t long after that I picked up this book to learn everything I need to know about digital bank and what it takes to launch one.
Almost a decade later, most of the concepts brought forth in the book have become reality and common practice in a digital bank. I have the privilege to experience both worlds, one in a conventional bank trying to keep up with the digital-banking landscape, and one in a true digital bank launched as a digital bank from ground up.
Several points I picked up from the book are that digital banks are still banks, that should not be all focused in money (products and processes), but to focus on the human, being customer-centric from all aspects. Data is the new ‘money’ and ‘currency’ and data is the secret sauce to build a competitive weapon for the bank.
If I to summarize the book in one phrase it would be that a digital bank is about thriving to become a predictive and proactive bank in the amidst of new types of social and augmented economy.
So, back to the question earlier, I dare say we do have the ‘DNA’ of a digital bank, yet there’s still works to do to nurture the DNA to reach its potential, and we need to do it fast … if not yesterday.
Big Data … or ‘Small Data’ as the author said in the book … which I would personally refer to “Fine Data” is much better than it was when I first read the book, yet it is not as what my expectation would be even now. There’s much homework in gathering and processing data to produce predictive insights (beyond the necessary metrics) to engage in impactful customer development.