Earlier today I had the privilege of meeting Matthias Kroner, CEO and founder of Fidor Bank at the SOMESSO event in Zurich.
As @hubculture suggested: ‘is fidor bank the worlds first social community bank?‘
I doubt it. We’ve understood the notion of community banking for many years. The difference today is that Fidor is the first (that I know) that’s actively leveraging the innovations offered by Web 2.0 computing to create an entirely new type of bank.
It is a bank that is reputation based and where reputation is a transparently represented idea that is wholly dependent upon the activities of people who participate in the community that ARE the bank.
In talking to Matthias, I didn’t get a clear answer to the issue of reputation management and protection – that’s a clear bank brand requirement – but I did get some vague clues. Why should you care?
I’ve talked previously about the value of reputation. Nowhere is this more obvious than in banking. Our trust in banks is vital to so many things we understand about business. Without it – Lehmans happens. Even after 100+ years.
Matthias believes that by putting the power of reputational creation in the hands of customers, they are creating something unique where the shape of banking changes. For example – what about peer to peer lending instead of having the bank stand in the way as intermediary?
What implications does that have for management, costs of customer acquisition, dare I say it…the shape of regulation? To this observer, it plays directly to the issues of reputational audit I talked about a few days ago. Ergo – I am super excited.
In the meantime, Fidor Bank’s success in obtaining a license to operate as bank within the context of current legislation and regulation is a genuine breakthrough. They’re based in Germany and are concentrating their efforts on that market. But – and here’s the killer: they have a license that will allow them to trade across the whole EU market. That’s a potential market of 350 million people.
I’ve recorded Matthias’ presentation and will be editing and producing that for YouTube in the coming days. It’s one to watch.
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