By Frank J. Diekmann
As the end of the year approaches, it’s housecleaning time—including this editorial debris from 2016:
Hacker With A Sense of Humor
A personal note on cyber-threats. I received a piece of spam email that was clearly a phishing attempt that included a file to open that was supposed to be a resume. The person who “wrote” the email asking to be an intern actually concluded the message, “With deepest sympathy.” Who says hackers can’t be honest.
Helpful Clarification
I received a press release recently announcing a new director of lending at a credit union that included this insight: the new director of lending’s “responsibilities will include directing lending.”
Don’t Forget Your Receipt
CUToday.info recently reported this headline: “Pawnbrokers Sue Dept. of Defense Over Changes to MLA.” I’m left wondering if the pawnbrokers are paying their lawyers, or just leaving a set of power tools on deposit?
Get Ready For BaaS
There was a pretty interesting development recently between an established bank and a fintech startup. French banking group BCPE is a German online-bank Fidor (which has been held up at a few CU meetings as a company worth watching). Also on the continent, a German fintech called FinLeap has launched solarisBank company.
So what? Here’s what. All of the banks are developing what are becoming known as BaaS platforms, for Bank-as-a-Service, in which a whole banking infrastructure, including license, card issuing, payments processing and the always critical compliance, is leased to other providers, saving them the cost and time of developing a banking platform on their own. This is critical for fintech startups, which have always had the advantage of quickly ramping up a service offering, before plunging into the molasses that is the rest of a banking operation.
So what, you repeat, as these fintechs lack the scale needed to really compete in the capital-intensive world of financial services. Here’s what: it isn’t just the fintechs that find BaaS appealing. So do some big brand players in e-commerce and telecommunications. Expected to be at the front of the BaaS line? Amazon, which already is a seller of online platforms through its Amazon Web Services operation.
And Just To Clarify
Unsure how to sum up some of the challenges presented by that new employee?
One conference speaker recently shared this observation from a Civil War general when it came to a soldier: “He couldn’t pour pee out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel.”
Are You Ready For This?
If you’re long-range scenario planning doesn’t include a bread-and-butter-free world in which there is very little auto lending, then you’re having a real Kodak (corporate) moment. Self-driving automobiles and generations growing up in an Uber/Lyft world are going to have market-altering effects on auto ownership. In Eindhoven, Netherlands, a new, electric Amber One vehicle that can go 250 miles on a single charge can be had by consumers who subscribe to the service for €33 (about $37) a week beginning in 2018.
No Zoo Required
In a recent press release from the Filene Research Institute on a new publication, Filene said the new work “is based on observing young adults in their natural digital state…” It sounds like the credit union version of a National Geographic Special.
Frank J. Diekmann is Cooperator in Chief at CUToday.info and can be reached at Frank@CUToday.info or @FrankCUToday.