Competing with the Gigantosauruses and Digitalbatrosses

I know you’re thinking that this isn’t a great analogy because dinosaurs are extinct, and an “albatross” is a psychological burden that feels like a curse. But gigantosauruses are (OK, were) huge, powerful animals (like the Big Tech companies) and albatrosses are one of the fastest species of animals, flying at nearly 80 miles per…

Read More

The Rise of the Multi-Account Consumer

Woman with smartphone in office

Research shows that having more than one checking account has become more popular these days. This is true especially among Millennials, of whom 42% have two or more accounts. In fact, among consumers who consider a digital bank to be their primary bank, 42% have more than one checking account, and half of them have…

Read More

The Big Tech Threat (Opportunity?)

piggy bank sitting on a laptop keyboard

In November 2019, Google announced that it was going to launch a checking account. The announcement elicited the typical frenzy in the press about how the Big Tech company and its fellow Gigantosauruses were going to put traditional banks out of business. But — surprise, surprise—that wasn’t the game plan.  The plan was to partner…

Read More

Inside the Digital Bank Insurgency of 2020

The pandemic should get a lot of the credit for this, but 2020 was a good — no, make that a great — year for challenger banks and the broader group of digital banks. At the beginning of 2020, just 3 percent of U.S. consumers considered a digital bank to be their primary bank. By…

Read More

Is Your Financial Institution Feeling the Burn?

Building Exterior in sunlight

When the first so-called “challenger banks” like Simple and Moven appeared on the scene around 2010 they were heralded as “disruptors” that were going to put traditional banks and credit unions out of business. Why? The asserted logic was that they provided a better customer experience, were more customer-friendly in terms of pricing (i.e., no…

Read More