What does the FinTech landscape in your country look like?
The FinTech landscape in Norway is at an early stage, but growing rapidly. The main focus in the country has been within payments and security, but we are also seeing some activity in wealth management and investor services. In addition to a selection of promising startups, the FinTech ecosystem is starting to take shape. Collaboration between banks and FinTechs are also picking up pace, following the SpareBank 1 and mCASH deal in 2015.
How receptive is your country's culture towards changes resulting from FinTech? e.g. in terms of privacy and or change resistance?
For the banks, there will always be a degree of resistance to change, as it will be with every company of a certain size, as well as in any mature industry. But the banking industry has shown an ability to change in the past that awakens as soon as it becomes inevitable. The Norwegian market is highly digital and used to digital services. There will of course be a portion of the population that is skeptical of new digital services, but the overall trend is towards embracing them. Simplicity is the key to mainstream user adoption.
Will there be any banks left in 2020?
Definitely. No-one knows exactly how the industry will look “after the storm”, but those who manage to adapt to the changes will become even stronger in the future. Those banks that do not realise the need to change will become irrelevant and eventually fade into obscurity.
Which FinTech company could become the next Uber? Why?
I do not believe that there will be one Uber for financial services, and if that is the case, the Uber of financial services is Uber itself. Some 30% of Uber drivers in the USA do not have a traditional bank account, but the company is allowing drivers to sign up for a bank account as part of the driver application process in real time. Uber is also offering car leases to its drivers, allowing those without a vehicle to sign up and get car financing backed by demand from Uber.
What do you think is the most promising technology that will disrupt financial services? Why? The “correct” answer these days would obviously be block-chain, but I believe that various artificial intelligence disciplines could create at least the same level of impact on the financial industry as well. When everything is connected, the amount of data available will be too big to analyse for humans. In this scenario, we will need machines to perform real-time credit scoring and predictive/prescriptive suggestions on future behaviour, based on millions of data points, ranging from payment data, wearables data, Internet history, social interactions, behavioral biometrics, and so on.
The FinTech landscape in Norway is at an early stage, but growing rapidly. The main focus in the country has been within payments and security, but we are also seeing some activity in wealth management and investor services. In addition to a selection of promising startups, the FinTech ecosystem is starting to take shape. Collaboration between banks and FinTechs are also picking up pace, following the SpareBank 1 and mCASH deal in 2015.
How receptive is your country's culture towards changes resulting from FinTech? e.g. in terms of privacy and or change resistance?
For the banks, there will always be a degree of resistance to change, as it will be with every company of a certain size, as well as in any mature industry. But the banking industry has shown an ability to change in the past that awakens as soon as it becomes inevitable. The Norwegian market is highly digital and used to digital services. There will of course be a portion of the population that is skeptical of new digital services, but the overall trend is towards embracing them. Simplicity is the key to mainstream user adoption.
Will there be any banks left in 2020?
Definitely. No-one knows exactly how the industry will look “after the storm”, but those who manage to adapt to the changes will become even stronger in the future. Those banks that do not realise the need to change will become irrelevant and eventually fade into obscurity.
Which FinTech company could become the next Uber? Why?
I do not believe that there will be one Uber for financial services, and if that is the case, the Uber of financial services is Uber itself. Some 30% of Uber drivers in the USA do not have a traditional bank account, but the company is allowing drivers to sign up for a bank account as part of the driver application process in real time. Uber is also offering car leases to its drivers, allowing those without a vehicle to sign up and get car financing backed by demand from Uber.
What do you think is the most promising technology that will disrupt financial services? Why? The “correct” answer these days would obviously be block-chain, but I believe that various artificial intelligence disciplines could create at least the same level of impact on the financial industry as well. When everything is connected, the amount of data available will be too big to analyse for humans. In this scenario, we will need machines to perform real-time credit scoring and predictive/prescriptive suggestions on future behaviour, based on millions of data points, ranging from payment data, wearables data, Internet history, social interactions, behavioral biometrics, and so on.
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