Virtual Banking: A Guide to Innovation and Partnering

Preface

You guys are the enemy!” As head of financial innovations for PayPal, I heard that pretty often in my first few years at PayPal. Even prior to my time at PayPal, when I headed the retail payments practice for financial research and consulting company Celent, I heard it regularly from my bank clients: “How should we think about PayPal, Google, Facebook, Apple, or any other institution innovating in the financial services space? Will they eat our lunch? What about the emerging start-ups that are getting into banking services without becoming banks?” More than once, I told myself that somebody should write a book on what’s really happening in the world of tech and financial services—the fact that if you really peeled back the onion a few layers, what you would find is that co-opetition does exist, everyone is working out deals behind the scenes, and massive opportunities exist for banks to partner with nontraditional players. Many of the new partnerships forming are blueprints that give a glimpse into future financial services innovation and some really compelling customer experiences to come. You just wouldn’t know it from the media hype that loves drama! In fact, it’s companies like PayPal and the many innovative financial technology start-ups that are opening new opportunities for the banking industry, expanding the opportunity pie and keeping the financial services community more relevant to changing customer preferences, new technology trends, and significantly increased ...