{"id":5068,"date":"2023-07-19T18:22:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-19T18:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apadmi.com\/insights\/is-the-unbundling-of-financial-services-good-or-bad\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T11:17:57","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T11:17:57","slug":"is-the-unbundling-of-financial-services-good-or-bad","status":"publish","type":"insight","link":"https:\/\/www.apadmi.com\/en-nl\/insights\/is-the-unbundling-of-financial-services-good-or-bad\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the unbundling of financial services good or bad?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t
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\n\t\n\t\tIs the unbundling of financial services good or bad?\t<\/h1>\n\n\t\n\t<\/div>\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t
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\n\t\t\tAre digital products blowing everything further apart, or helping put things back together?\t\t<\/p>\n\t\n\t\n\t

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\n\tThe unbundling, and subsequent re-bundling, of financial services is not a new concept. The surge of fintech businesses and subsequent impact of streamlined customer journeys upon existing banks is well documented.<\/p>\n\n

\n\tBut within the cycle of offering customers greater choice through many smaller products instead of the legacy approach of a one-stop-shop from more established banking brands, where do we currently find ourselves?<\/p>\n\n

\n\tSince the iPhone launched 15 years ago and put banking firmly in your pocket, things have come a long way. Fintechs may have stolen a march on the old guard, but the big banks have done some catching up.<\/p>\n\n

\n\t\u201cFintechs do have a competitive advantage in being able to move quickly,\u201d Emma Kerr, Strategic partnerships, VISA told the\u00a0Fintech Insider podcast<\/u><\/a>. \u201cThat said JP Morgan is the fastest growing banking app in Europe today. Banks have woken up to the fact that they need good UX to compete.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

\n\tSo the playing field has evened out, but are digital banking services still unbundling, or is the desire to have everything in one place, in fact making convergence the order of the day? And what role are digital products playing in that?<\/p>\n\n\n\tApple and Google unbundle<\/h2>\n\n

\n\tFirst it might be helpful to briefly look at the driving forces behind the cyclical phases of bundling and unbundling in financial services. And, like many industries, it starts with the tech giants.<\/p>\n\n

\n\tThe App Store and Google Play have created an abundance of choice when it comes to creating and finding financial services tools.<\/p>\n\n

\n\tThat\u2019s great for the customer, who can find whichever works best for them. It\u2019s also great for creators of brilliant digital products (essentially FinTechs), who by delivering a great customer experience around a specific service (FX, payments, credit) are able to take ownership of a slither of the market.<\/p>\n\n

\n\tGone are the days when your current account, savings, mortgage and holiday money all pass through the same bank. We\u2019re able to pick and choose to find the best fit and therefore services have become component based and unbundled.<\/p>\n\n\n\tRe-bundle once more, but with CX at the core<\/h2>\n\n

\n\tHaving carved out a corner of the market, the next logical step for businesses is to drive growth by either expanding the reach of its core service, or consolidating with others.<\/p>\n\n

\n\tSo in the race for market share, services are being re-bundled<\/u><\/a> to create complimentary revenue opportunities.<\/p>\n\n

\n\tHowever, the essential ingredient to this amalgamation of functionality is being able to maintain excellent customer experience. The foundation of making boring and mundane financial tasks frictionless and pain-free is what has shaken up the market in the first place, so must be fiercely guarded.<\/p>\n\n

\n\t\u201cYou can\u2019t take the approach of – we\u2019re going to build it and as long as it\u2019s more awesome than the awful experience you had historically, then things are just magically going to go right,\u201d says Vasily Starostenko, Head of Product at Revolut.<\/p>\n\n

\n\t\u201cWell, that\u2019s a mandatory and important factor, but unfortunately it\u2019s not enough. To make it closer to what will be enough, you have to listen to what the customer is saying.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\tWinning digital hearts and minds<\/h2>\n\n

\n\tThe battleground where that absolute focus on customer experience is increasingly taking place is in people\u2019s palms. The mobile experience delivered by any financial service is where customer hearts and minds are really being won.<\/p>\n\n

\n\tThe power of digital products and mobile applications to not only serve the customer, but also meet business needs by being able to track, understand and improve insight has made them a cornerstone of many financial services businesses.<\/p>\n\n

\n\t\u201cThe knowledge you can glean from app data is incredibly powerful,\u201d says Apadmi\u2019s Senior Technical Product Manager Nitin Samani. \u201cLots can clearly be learned from web behaviour, but it\u2019s not just about what people are searching for, it\u2019s what people are actually buying.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

\n\t\u201cWhether it\u2019s surfacing customer insights, transaction analysis in the cloud or creating a data strategy around user trends, the potential is huge.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\tSuper app. Lifesaver or anti hero?<\/h2>\n\n

\n\tThe combination of great insight and the ability to amalgamate multiple services in one overall experience is hard to ignore. But as services are being re-bundled, how is that taking shape?<\/p>\n\n

\n\tSuper apps aren\u2019t yet taking over, but they\u2019re clearly gaining good ground. No longer just the preserve of Asia with the likes of\u00a0WeChat, Alipay and Kakao, the notion of aggregating multiple offers alongside financial services has firmly taken hold. Back to Revolut.<\/p>\n\n

\n\tThe UK-based start-up is leading the way from its fintech counterparts in terms of revenue (Revolut posted better numbers for 2022<\/u><\/a> than immediate competition Monzo and Starling) and diversification of services across shopping, travel, insurance and experiences.<\/p>\n\n

\n\tThis move into super app territory is also grounded in a strong sense of great CX. Vasily again to explain how:<\/p>\n\n\n\t\n

  • \n\tBeing delightful (\u201cPeople will not use financial services apps unless those experiences are delightful.\u201d)<\/li>\n\n
  • \n\tClarity and precision (\u201cClarity and precision is a must. Clarity is that everything should be clear to you as a customer. Precision is that everything you intended to do is what actually happens and is what\u2019s best for you, i.e. avoiding fraud.\u201d)<\/li>\n\n
  • \n\tEfficiency (\u201cPeople do not open digital banks and digital FS apps to have fun. It is painful to manage your money and we should understand that people just want out. They want to pay the bill or check the card number and then leave.\u201d)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\tRoom for one more?<\/h2>\n\n

    \n\tBut, I hear you cry, not every business can sustain a super app. Which is absolutely right. But the emergence of new ecosystems means that everybody is finding their way and working out which slithers of functionality they can own, either within their ecosystem, or somebody else\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n

    \n\tGoing back to where we started the unbundling story, the technology giants continue to make their presence felt. Some suggest that big banks are actually more worried about the likes of Apple and Google than they are smaller fintechs and taking a leaf out of their books might not be such a bad thing.<\/p>\n\n

    \n\t\u201cI think banks have the ability to regain some control if they could be like the Apple Store (sic) for financial services,\u201d suggests former CEO of BBVA Compass, Manolo Sanchez to the VNext Banking Remix podcast. \u201cThat\u2019s where I think financial services have an opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

    \n\t\u201cAt the end of the day they know the customer, they have the KYC. \u2018I know this client and they can transact within my platform.\u2019 But suddenly the client doesn\u2019t want to use that brokerage, they want to go to Robin Hood. Or they don\u2019t want to do international transfers and take five days to get through, they want to go to Wise and get it through in 24 hours. So to an extent they can enable the supermarket approach by being owners of the KYC element.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\tThe customer is always right<\/h2>\n\n

    \n\tIt would seem that having the lead the charge in blowing things up in financial services (and all industries for that matter), digital products are now acting as the catalyst to put things back together again. So whether you\u2019re being bundled or unbundled, the constant remains the customer.<\/p>\n\n

    \n\tAnd the only way to really stay relevant is by making sure your digital products are working as hard as they possibly can to deliver your experience better than anyone else\u2019s.<\/p>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t

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    \n\t\t\t\t\tWe work with ambitious organisations to design, build, and scale digital products that solve real problems, improve customer experiences, and deliver measurable impact.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\tContact Us\t<\/span>\n\n\t<\/a>\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\t<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":1001,"template":"","meta":{"es_utils_meta_schema":"","esPageTheme":"default","esPageBackground":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5068","insight","type-insight","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nIs the unbundling of financial services good or bad? – Apadmi<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We take a deeper look as to whether digital products are blowing everything further apart, or helping put things back together?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.apadmi.com\/en-nl\/insights\/is-the-unbundling-of-financial-services-good-or-bad\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is the unbundling of financial services good or bad? 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