Beyond 2022

It was some year 2022. The biggest change for Moroku was the identification and build of a new product; Moroku Money. Halfway through the year we learnt that Credit Unions in Australia were being poorly served with mobile and internet banking solutions. They wanted better:

• User Experience with more contemporary look and feel.
• Money Tools to help customers with their money.
• Pricing
• Integration of third-party solutions for capabilities such as lending, Open Banking and On Boarding
• Mobile native and Cloud residency for scale and security

On Ramp produced some fabulous results as more and more customers showed how the process unlocked innovation and value around customer success. We need to find better ways of transitioning these to pilot by finding better ways of removing the friction or plugging the leakage to customers doing it themselves. Our current idea is to set success criteria for the design phase up front, measure those at the end of the design phase and, if met, to agree the unlocking of funding for the pilot and put all of that in the up-front design phase contract. If we can’t get the customers to agree to a bigger target state, its probably not worth doing.

Despite popularity in the niche circles of Fintech, personalisation doesn’t appear to be a category that the broader banking technology community understand or are looking for. Neither does it appear are they looking for engagement or ways to deliver financial wellness. Either that or they aren’t finding us when and where they are looking for those things. It would appear that they are looking for ways to acquire and retain customers. Will tune the sales and marketing content to that effect.

In retail banking lending became a real priority again. This was probably brought about by the big change in interest rates over the year, shocking borrowers and compelling them to hunt hard for value. This hunting drove project thinking within the lenders for better:

• Origination
• Lending decisioning with affordability and serviceability calculators getting pushed further up the value chain.
• Marketing and distribution, connections to more distribution channels
• Funnel management, helping, guiding, nudging, and rewarding customers through the funnel.
• Post sales engagement, especially for new borrowers and customers but also for existing to help retain them through support for their success in paying their loans off

All of which Moroku is well positioned to deliver on if we can get the sales and marketing messages tuned and delivered to the decision makers with budget.

With increased uncertainty around the world and the financial markets, more consumers need financial advice and someone to talk to. Robo advice doesn’t cut it. Tools and systems are required that help financial advisors scale their general advice capabilities so they can be there to provide personal advice when it matters. With increased cost of living pressures around the world due to constrained supply chains, financial wellness and helping people save, spend and invest optimally for their circumstances is of real value , especially if it can be scaled. No one seems to have cracked this one though we appear to be zooming in on some of the components such as we have done with Scientiam and appear on the verge of doing with some large wealth providers.  

After a couple of years of promise, 2023 should see the arrival of some compelling, end to end, Bank as a Service (BaaS) solutions that completely off load the digital banking operations to the cloud whilst also solving the migration risk technically and commercially, whilst up levelling the customer experience and value proposition. In addition to creating more value, reducing cost, scale, security and compliance should all receive a makeover unlocking more investment and capital for those with the wherewithal to grow market share and profits from those that fail to get on the bus. In keeping with this more ambitious approach, BaaS providers will no longer be able to get away with being headless, but will need to deliver or team up with those with wide spectrum digital channel offerings, i.e. across retail, cohorts , SME and so on. Lots of core banking contracts are quite long, halting the uptake of BaaS as accountants seek to sweat assets and avoid being double charged. For insight on this, it is worth reviewing how Steve Ballmer held up Microsoft’s transition to the cloud for exactly the same reasons, all to be swept away when Satya Nadella  arrived who was singular in his embrace of the clod and swept the accountants and short termists away. BaaS adoption will be dependent on such thinking from banking executives with an aptitude for being different and demanding migration tooling precision from their technologists, internally and externally.

There remains a preponderance of utilitarianism around digital banking, persisted by design frameworks such as “Jobs To be Done” that favours a utility lens of money. Earn it, Spend much of it, Save what’s left,  divided against short term and long term horizons, borrow for the gap that exists between what we have and what we crave; a better car, house, future, identity, partner. Moroku’s hopes that this would run out of steam in 2022 came to no avail. A few of the courageous or compelled have begun adding more money tools, calculators, and the like, but few shine any light on what great looks like. A smaller number again have begun providing tactical nudges, like CBA who valuable nudge customers to pay their credit card bills on time to avoid the forthcoming fees and interest charges. None of these appear to exist within the broader context of a money journey and seem lost in the clutter. Expect this path to crystalise around a more holistic manifestation of the customer journey over time.

From all of this, Moroku will prioritise the development of Moroku Money over the first half of 2023. Banking essentials with payments, lending, strong KYC, origination, and open banking will be the first marker, across internet and mobile. From there we will sequence core banking integration in an order that will be dictated by customer and channel partner investments. From there we imagine bringing the power of Odyssey to the forefront to present the money systems in the holistic way we envision. From there Chore Scout will probably be reviewed and the parent app embedded directly into Money as a premium offer.  As we do this, based on the current funnel, we expect one or more larger providers globally to move Odyssey through design, pilot and into production. There are several strong business cases in front of us that have real potential to see the light of day in the second half.

Hold on tight!