THE future of banking is "everywhere but nowhere," according to leading tech futurist Stafford Massie, who warns that institutions focusing on premium cards and sleek apps are missing a fundamental shift: consumers now demand "magic" instead of plastic.
Speaking at the Institute of Bankers of Zimbabwe (IoBZ) annual conference in Cape Town on Friday, Massie stated that bankers must move with the times.
“The future of banking is not beautiful banking. The future of banking is everywhere but nowhere,” he declared.
“That is the renaissance your industry is undergoing right now, and that is what the consumer demands. The consumer doesn’t want another black card, or silver card, or a see-through card. Consumers don’t want cards. Consumers want magic.”
Massie argued that the value of financial services will no longer be in the products themselves, but in their seamless integration into daily life.
“The future of financial services is when it executes relevantly and contextually, everywhere but nowhere,” he explained.
“We don’t want more of your stuff. We want more of the consequence of your services, relevant within our lives, executing frictionlessly.”
This vision, he said, hinges on the concept of technology’s “dissipation.”
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“Its future is when it disappears,” Massie stated, drawing a parallel to the evolution from bulky desktop computers to the ambient computing of today.
“When things dissipate and disappear, that is when they have their true impact… banks: your services need to disappear. You need to use AI to make yourselves disappear. Because when you disappear, you will have an exponential, relevant, and functionally life-changing impact on society.
He illustrated this with a healthcare analogy, describing a system that proactively knows when a user is ill.
“The user interface is sensory. It senses. It feels. Presence. It sees. It understands… Can a bank deliver a medical insurance product? Can a bank enable transactions based on this information? Yes, you can.
“But you mustn’t deliver that service as a finished product for me to consume. Instead, you should invent it on your side and embed it where I need it. I don’t want more of you. I want less of you, everywhere.”
The key to this transformation, Massie noted, is embracing open banking and external innovation.
“There is more latent human potential outside your organisation than inside it, and it is dying to get in to make you better. That is artificial intelligence,” he said.
“Stop building products and services that are merely amazing. Build interfaces for latent human potential to cascade into your business and make it better. That is the AI story.”
The conference, themed "Navigating the Bank of the Future, Today," concludes on Saturday.
