Just back from London where I did the usual trick of trying to see as many friends/contacts/colleagues as possible in the shortest space of time. Over a coffee Dave Nicholson – one of the founders of zopa – mentioned about a banking blog that he reads called BankerVision.
It’s written by James Gardner, Head of Innovation at Lloyds. He has written a range of thoughtful postings about the financial services industry. However most interesting to me is the fact that he’s doing this from the viewpoint of a UK bank which I’ve always viewed as being ultra-conservative.
Watch with interest..
Hi Roger,
Thanks for linking to my blog.
Indeed, we do have a conservative reputation, and that’s something that many of our customers appreciate- who wants their bank to be a cowboy? But I think that conservative does not necessarily mean not willing to try new things… we just pick our bets very carefully (and probably make less of them).
Blogging is something new for us, but we think it will probably be increasingly important.
I have added your blog to my feed reader.
Best Regards
James.
A good point – the only thing that links cowboys to banks has traditionally been dynamite – and that’s not a good combination.
In the context of financial services innovation however, dynamite might be an appropriate analogy. Introducing new services, products and business models can trigger off explosive changes. Models such as zopa and customer experiences such as those offered by WaMu have the potential to shake up the industry.
However as James points out, placing good bets is as important as placing risky ones.