1.
Market Gravity
Finspiration
Our Favorite Financial Services
Precedents for 2015
15th December 2014

2.
Market Gravity is a specialist growth and
innovation consultancy.
We help the world’s leading companies to
design new propositions and services.
We work with some of the world’s leading
Financial Services firms and over the past few
weeks have picked out some of our favorite
market trends and precedents for 2015.

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Some of our recent clients:

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Neo Banks
53% of millennials don’t think their bank is any different from
other banks and 33% don’t think they will need a bank at all
in the future leading to new challengers looking to take
market share from traditional incumbents.
There has been initial enthusiasm for such propositions as
88.5 million Americans have attempted to open an account
online or with a mobile device in the past 12 months.

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Banking for Canada’s Gen Y
• Koho focus on 18 to 34 year olds
seeking an alternative digital
banking experience with fewer and
more transparent fees
• Koho provide a mobile app and
what they call a ‘pre-paid credit
card’ for making transactions
• Like Moven Bank, Koho plan to use
data to improve the insights made
available to customers
Britain’s 1st Pure Digital Player
• Atom Bank, due to launch in 2015,
will be the UK’s first digital only bank
• Founded by Anthony Thomson, co-founder
of Metro Bank, Atom will
look to take advantage of the current
churn in UK current accounts
• Atom will sit on top of Fiserv’s Agiliti
cloud based banking platform
Walmart and GreenDot Team Up
• GoBank is a Simple-esque digital
bank formed by GreenDot
Corporation, a pre-paid debit card
provider
• Access to a GoBank account is
made available through the
purchase of a $2.95 starter kit at
any Walmart store in the US
enabling distribution to middle
America

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Digital Investment Platforms
Digital Investment Platforms have emerged due to changing
customer needs and evolving market regulation.
Most people struggle to understand or meet their investment
goals, particularly for retirement.
Many new offerings focus on removing the confusion of
traditional advisor based models.

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Dip your toe into investments
• Loyal3 allows customers to buy
shares in a range of organizations
from just $10, with no transactions
charges online or with their iOS
app
• Customers are able to invest small
amounts to test their investment
strategies and have no
transactions charges which can
act as a barrier to smaller
investments
Get the UK Ready for Retirement
• Retiready is a simple, direct to
consumer investment platform by
Aegon
• The majority of people in the UK
are not saving enough to meet their
retirement expectations
• With Retiready, customers get a
score out of 100 and guidance on
how to meet their goal through 5
easy to understand funds
Follow the Expert Investors
• iBillionnaire taps into the
investment strategies of Wall Street
billionaires, providing key insights
into the financial data and
investment decisions of leading U.S
investors
• Customers are able to follow the
trades made by the world’s highest
profile investors to give them
confidence in their trading strategy
through the iBillionnaire ETF

8.
Enhanced Customer Experiences
Customer experiences associated with Financial Services
have ranked poorly for many years, lagging behind
benchmarks set by other industries.
Many financial technology firms are offering solutions to
improve particular customer pain points, e.g. loyalty, digital
interactions, customer support and pre-paid cards.

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Consolidate Customer Loyalty
• Loyalty programme aggregator to
help consumers keep on top of an
average 18 different loyalty
programs – their offering can be
white labelled for inclusion with a
bank’s mobile app
• Location based notifications inform
customers of available offers vs.
them searching manually
Maintaining Customer Interactions
• Video banking allows customers to
have a face-to-face conversation with
an adviser via their device from
anywhere at any time
• While millions of people do most, if
not all, of their banking online or via
mobile, there are times when only a
face-to-face chat will suffice
• Barclays began rolling out video
banking in late 2014
Seamless Customer Support
• Fiserv’s Mobiliti is a mobile banking
platform facilitating better
interactions with customer support
staff
• Through the app customers are
able to have more direct
conversations with customer
support – e.g. instant messaging,
by phone and secure direct
message

10.
Security & Authentication
Alternatives
Security has become a key issue for digital services,
especially in the aftermath of the recent Target POS and
iCloud hacks.
Entering complex security credentials however is often
detrimental to the user experience.
A number of alternatives have been demonstrated this year,
offering both high levels of security and a better user
experience.

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Secure Password Consolidator
• Anchor ID is a password
alternative, providing users with a
universal username to log in to
any account
• Customers set up their username
using an < sign and never enter a
password, authenticating
themselves with their mobile
device using PIN, TouchID or
Geolocation
Keeping Accounts Secure
• BioCatch is a cognitive behavioral
biometrics technology tracking
users interacting with applications
• Past behaviour is logged to ensure
actual transactions carried out are
within the normal parameters
• Banks using Biocatch place less
strain on the customer experience
through unwarranted blocks on
legitimate transactions
The Most Personal Login
• Making the tedious ‘forgot
password’ routine a thing of the
past
• PixelPin allows customers to
choose four allocated points on a
photograph to log in, creating a
personalised and user-friendly way
to authenticate online, reducing
fraud

12.
Youthful Banking
Banks are looking to the next generation of customers to win
their custom early in the hope of building a long lasting
relationship with them.
Generation Z expect financial services to be digital, helping
them build their financial awareness and access money from
their family. Parents also benefit from such services as they
can monitor and motivate their children’s financial behavior.

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Youth Current Account
• FlexOne is a checking account
aimed at customers aged between
11 and 17, though it can be held up
to the age of 23
• The account comes with a
contactless Visa debit card, mobile
banking, pays 1% credit interest on
balances up to £1,000 and provides
discounted cinemas tickets
• It even has its own dedicated
Twitter feed
Pre-Paid Card for Kids & Families
• Osper is a UK based payment
service that aims to teach and
empower young people to manage
their money responsibly
• Osper provides young people with a
mobile app and pre-paid debit card
that can be credited and monitored
by their parents
• Kids are able to get track their
spending and get help to meet their
goals
Digital Allowances for Children
• Famdoo is a point based rewards
tool for families. Parents reward
their children for tasks they carry
out – e.g. chores, learning or good
behaviour using native iOS or
Android apps
• Customers and their families can
spend loyalty points through
FamDoo with companies like
Amazon, BestBuy, Target or put
their points into a savings program

14.
Alternative Scoring Mechanisms
Traditional credit scoring mechanisms such as FICO have
remained consistent for decades. Established by a variety of
factors including payment history, age of credit, recent credit
inquiries and current debt.
Some companies are recognizing there is more to customers
than just their financial records, especially as more personal
information – e.g. promotions, having children and day to day
activity – is shared on social media.

15.
More Than a Credit Score
• Consumer analytics supplement for
FICO scores using a “scoring as a
service”
• Financial institutions can use online
profile, phone and psychometric
data to improve accuracy
• By more accurately assessing risk,
the business can offer more
competitive pricing
Social Media Credit Score
• Traditional credit scoring does not
accurately portray the financial risk of
people under the age of 30 due to
their lifestyle (moving frequently,
limited credit history etc.)
• Friendly Score analyzes social
media profiles to access more
personal data and provide a more
accurate credit worthiness score
Transparent Credit Score
• Discover provide customers with a
free FICO credit score as part of
their monthly statement
• Although a traditional credit scoring
system, by highlighting a
customer’s credit score, Discover
are making the process transparent
to them
• Otherwise, customers would need
to pay to access their rating

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Improving the Back End
Most enterprise level financial institutions are reliant on
legacy back end systems to provide their services to
customers. The cost of maintaining these systems is vast,
while they often limit the customer experience.
Many FinTech startups are developing new products to help
the financial institutions make back end improvements, at low
cost with minimal risk. The knock on impact being huge leaps
in the end customer experience.

17.
Connecting the World via API
• Standard Treasury is building
middleware that allows a bank’s
customers to programmatically
interface with their bank.
• Their first product is a RESTful API
processing checks, book transfers,
account opening/closing and
foreign currency quoting/execution
Powering International Payments
• Currency Cloud’s vision is for a
transparent, fast, easy-to-use and
secure payments engine to transform
the way businesses move money
around the world
• Customers can automate end-to-end
international payment processes and
deliver sophisticated solutions
One Platform, Multiple Solutions
• Yodlee offers a single API and
customized developer portal, built
for each customer and exposable to
developers
• With the data, the API, and the
tools to build and create, financial
institutions are free to innovate with
speed and agility. For example,
enabling consumers to “invest their
change” in stocks

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Banking with Wearables
No trends briefing would be complete at the moment without
reference to wearable technology. What started out as a
frenzy for Google Glass has matured as companies start to
think about real use cases for wearables.
Large financial services firms are considering applications for
wearables to build new interactions with customers, primarily
starting in the payments space.

19.
Tap & Pay at Southampton FC
• bPay by Barclaycard is a new way
to pay with a pre-paid account
linking to a bPay wristband.
• Customers add money from a debit
or credit card and use the band to
make contactless payments, up to
£20
• Southampton FC fans can get a
club themed bank for making
payments at their St Mary’s stadium
Balance on Your Wrist
• Customers of Canada's Scotiabank
can now check their account
balances with a quick glance at their
wrists with a new app for the
Samsung Gear range of
smartwatches
• Customers swipe the screen to see
the balance of their preferred
account
Banking with Google Glass
• Ukrainian Bank PrivatBank has
provided a glimpse of what banking
with Google Glass could look like
for customers
• Examples include using voice
commands to authorise payments,
using the camera to pay bills or a
QR code reader to redeem offers
• PrivatBank say this could be
achieved by re-using existing
architecture

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Iain Montgomery,
Senior Consultant
iain.montgomery@marketgravity.com
+1-646-643-7566