The Modern Mutual: What is your Branch Strategy?
Britain’s Battle with The Branches 2024 kicked off with several banks announcing branch closures, contributing to the ongoing decline of bank branches, down from nearly 15,000 branches in 1986 to fewer than 6,000 as of 2023. This situation has presented several challenges, particularly for local communities where the dwindling presence of branches has left those […]
Mitigating Security Risks in the Mobile Banking Era
Over recent years, the adoption of mobile banking has led to significant and transformative changes within the global financial services industry. In the post pandemic era there has been a ~70% increase in customers using digital banking channels, propelling the global mobile banking market from $692.5 million in 2021 to an anticipated $1.3 billion by 2028. […]
Confirmation of Payee (CoP)
In May 2023, the Home Secretary Suella Braverman presented to Parliament finding that 1 in 15 adults were victims of fraud in 2022. While the exact figures are unknown and difficult to determine, it’s predicted by Peters & Peters and Crowe that British individuals are losing approximately £8.3 billion per year to fraud. Background to […]
The digital shift in remittance transfers
Remittances are forms of cross-border payment flows, which typically move from developed economies to emerging markets. As the lifeblood of millions of families worldwide, they are often a central form of support provided by migrants who recurringly send a portion of their finances earned from working abroad back to their home countries. In 2021 alone, […]
7 ways to bring back human connection in a digital world
How can we bring human connection back into our lives? As we have already discussed here, the increased prevalence of digital technology has gradually eroded human connection, proving detrimental to many elements of our social and working lives. But it isn’t all doom and gloom. Digital technology has, in many ways, made our lives far […]
Maintaining human connection in a digital world
How has digital changed our day-to-day lives? Nowadays we are used to ordering our food through digital technology, be it via a delivery service like Deliveroo or Uber Eats, or through scanning a QR code when we sit down in a restaurant. We no longer need to ring up and visit our local takeaway or […]
Why Building Societies should walk the path to digital utopia
A building society is a mutual approach to building and running a financial institution, giving control to staff and customers, not shareholders. Revolving around communities, they tend to serve a region or multiple regions offering mostly savings and mortgages to their members. Large financial institutions, particularly the retail banks, are taking huge strides in digitising their approach to solving problems; from providing a far […]
Remember when there was a Crytpo bubble?
In the last year the prices of cryptocurrencies have increased dramatically – compared to this time last year, Bitcoin has increased by 3x, Ethereum by nearly 10x, and Dogecoin by 100x. This was partly fuelled by the relative ease of trading through platforms like Coinbase, Revolut and Robinhood, partly through the time and ready cash […]
Woodhurst discusses – Sustainability
Globally sustainability is seen to be rising up the agenda as we begin to navigate ourselves through the post-pandemic world attempting to implement a ‘green recovery’. With sustainability pledges from organisations being announced almost weekly, this month our Woodhurst discusses delved in to environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues in financial services, and whether we […]
Woodhurst discusses the impact of Covid-19
At 8am on the first Friday of each month, Woodhurst gathers as a group to discuss a pertinent topic affecting financial services, consulting or digital transformation. We call this early morning exchange ‘Woodhurst Discusses’ and it is usually fuelled with strong coffee and a croissant or two. In January we settled down to discuss the […]