Knowing your customer is at the heart of banking. It informs the offers and decisions a bank makes to its customers, from account types to credit decisions. Many years ago, knowing your customer meant building a personal relationship with the customer and empowering bank managers to make personal decisions based on their knowledge of a customer. Now credit decisions often seem like a 'black art' to the consumer. Data from credit reference agencies is used to create an automated decision that can often seem arbitrary to consumers because they can't relate it to their 'real world' circumstances. Where's the relationship and the transparency?
But what if a bank's decisions were based on more than this? What if they took account of you as a person and who you engage with; not just what your credit score is? As part of creating a more transparent relationship with customers, Movenbank has developed CRED to measure a consumer's credibility as both a customer and a friend. We live much of our lives online today and this public engagement helps define who we are. As well as allowing Movenbank to better understand its customers, CRED will give consumers more context around the issues that affect them, like credit decisions.
Getting more from your money begins with understanding how you relate to money and Movenbank's first service is a financial personality test. We've all done tests like this over the years but as Movenbank moves towards full launch this data will become the first piece of the jigsaw that defines you as a customer.
What else will define Movenbank? No branches, cards, paper - all legacy bits of banking that few people need or want these days. The mobile phone will sit at the heart of the customer relationship giving the customer access to all their account functionality, including in-store as well as online payments. Imagine paying in a shop and being able to see how much money you have in your account before and after you pay. Imagine paying for a holiday and being offered foreign currency and travel insurance as relevant financial services that you can purchase from your handset. Banking becomes contextual and convenient.
This might sound like an alien future to some people but the way we engage with banks and payments is conditioned by their legacy views and not our convenience. To quote Brett King, the Founder of Movenbank, "Banking is now something you do, not somewhere you go".
You can request an invitation to check out your financial personality here. I'm a Professor!
