On a flight from a regional town last week, the attendant went through the nonsense of the “safety speech”. Instructions on how to do up the seat belt as if nobody knows is pretty dumb, but of total irrelevance is the instructions on how to use the life-jacket. I remain unconvinced that a little whistle and light will do much good if the engine stops at 20,000 feet, and the only water within 100km is in farmer Browns property dam. What about a parachute?
However, it is all taken so seriously, passenger jokes are not appreciated at all. Surely an example of a mould that needs busting.
Another mould more likely to be busted by the avalanche of mobile and electronic payments innovation is the banks credit card and cheque business model.
I have observed the missed opportunity by banks before, and the pace of change is accelerating rapidly picking up as Apple, Google, Paypal, and a host of startups like “Levelup” “Square” see the opportunity in disruption, and are chasing hard, often using technology that evolved in an ecosystem with nothing to do with banking.
These changes pose a huge problem for banks, one that their legacy structures and business models are apparently having big problems addressing. The role and performance of banks around the world over the last decade, and in the current European mess has removed any residual loyalty consumers may have had, and opened them up to non bank competition that will change the nature of banking in the coming decade. Opportunities abound to bust the current mould.
