Banks vs Fintech: A Coronastory
Plus: Managing the Downside, Consumer Lending Trends, Call Me By Your Name
This is the first edition of Net Interest, my newsletter focused on financial sector themes. Each week I will dwell on one theme and highlight a few others of interest. It’s still a work in progress so all feedback welcome. If you like it, please share.
Banks vs Fintech: A Coronastory
Fintechs should be crushing it right now.
In industry after industry, digital is gobbling up market share. In wine for example, US online sales gained over 20 points of share within two weeks of lockdown. What it took grocery in the UK 20 years to achieve, US wine did in 21 days. And fintechs offer many of the same benefits – speed, innovation and digital distribution.
Yet it’s not happening.
Downloads of challenger bank apps have declined from their pre-Covid levels. Granted, opening a new bank account is less enticing than drinking wine, but existing customers don’t seem to be engaging either. The number of monthly average users of challenger banks has dropped by around 16% compared with pre-Covid levels, …