Improving outreach will require investment in simple onboarding and improved analytics functionality. Simple Onboarding. Why it matters: Onboarding is a PSP’s first interaction with a small business that has the potential to become a long-term client.

Adoption of voicebots and chatbots for automated handling of support tasks—such as customer care calls and sales assistance—will continue in industries like telecom and banking, and it will gain popularity in retail. Beyond smart speakers and customer service, new use cases are emerging. Embodiment. The conversational AI tools consumers associate with speakers and smartphones are taking new forms.

In 2021, the number of new smartphone banking users in Canada will plummet to a third of the previous year’s level, considerably increasing competition among financial institutions (FIs), including RBC. As the battle for new mobile users heats up, FIs’ mobile banking app features will be crucial. This report identifies which key growth opportunities RBC might focus on to gain and retain customers.

Securing Full UK Banking Licenses. A full banking license—as opposed to an e-money license—allows neobanks to hold their own deposits, invest and lend them out, and offer FSCS protection. Holders don’t have to share profits with a licensed banking partner.

Banking Dive. Cornerstone Advisors. Forbes. Javelin. Lightico. Markets Insider. OneSpan. TD Bank.

It’s unclear when the first crypto ETF will launch, but experts believe it could be sooner rather than later—and banking behemoths like Goldman have decades of regulatory knowledge on their side to improve their shot at winning the crypto ETF race.

Findings: Before technology can transform banking, banks must overcome the challenge of the legacy infrastructure that “they are stuck with,” said Jesse Wedler, a partner at CapitalG. Legacy infrastructure is the No. 1 hindrance to digital innovation in banking. Nathaniel Harley, co-founder and CEO of Mantl, stated that 43% of banks still use systems written in COBOL.

Personalization is key to maximizing ROI on PFM tools, and here, Plum could use its AI capabilities to offer insights into individual users’ investment decisions, such as the environmental impact of their portfolio.

To hit back at neobanks, GPR providers will continue shifting business models away from these cards and toward more traditional banking and debit services. Major GPR issuer MetaBank expects its revenue mix to deemphasize prepaid in the long term as it diversifies its offerings, per Q4 2021 earnings.

Banking is just one small part of that.

Proximity and peer-to-peer mobile payments are on the rise in the UK, thanks to high user adoption of mobile and banking. However, growth is slow, which means that wallet providers looking to crack the market will need to get creative.

Basic e-Transfer functionality, electronic bill pay, and account-to-account transfers are banking staples, but consumers likely expect additional functionality.

KEY STAT: The financial travails of 2020 did not exactly imbue Xers with confidence about how they’ll fare in 2021, with 42% of those in the US expecting to be in “survival mode,” according to October research by Fidelity Investments. Down but Not Out.

It owes in part to insurers’ conservative risk culture and the banking sector being disrupted far earlier. But after several years of investing less in technology than other financial services companies, insurers are finally ramping up their efforts.

After an uptick in 2020, growth in smartphone banking adoption will slow to a trickle. The number of Canadian smartphone banking users will rise to 13.9 million in 2021, per an Insider Intelligence forecast, a stratospheric increase from 4.4 million in 2013 driven by the spread of smartphones. But that growth is tapering off.

Investments in these formats will increase by 45.0% this year to £0.31 billion ($0.39 billion). Digital Ad Spending by Device. Mobile continues to be the preferred platform for travel’s digital ad budgets. This year, mobile spend will total £0.83 billion ($1.06 billion) and desktop/laptop spend just £0.25 billion ($0.31 billion).

Banking. Embedded banking is fast emerging as a hotbed for embedded solutions largely thanks to the rise of BaaS and open banking. Although in many ways BaaS and embedded finance are opposites—the former model bundles while the latter unbundles financial functionalities—BaaS has nevertheless primed banking for embedded finance solution development.

With an increasing number of adults entering the banking ecosystem, Nubank could expand its product suite to include solutions similar to the deposit accounts or personal loans it provides in Brazil.

El Corte Inglés also posted a sharp uptick in online activity, due partly to greater investment in ecommerce operations—not least the launch of its proprietary answer to Amazon Prime, El Corte Inglés Plus.