Table of Contents

About the Author xxix

Disclaimer xxxi

Introduction 1

Part One Foundations of Platform Theory

Chapter 1 Platform Essentials on Outcome Economies 15

1.1 Introduction 16

1.2 Platforms and ecosystems 17

1.3 Innovating from output to outcome economies 22

1.4 Linear and non-linear thinking 24

1.5 Platform types 25

1.6 About platforms and innovation theory 27

1.7 Shifting the perception of value 29

1.8 Banks and fintech on outcome economies 31

1.9 Conclusions 33

Takeaways for banks and fintech 34

Chapter 2 The Trust Advantage 35

2.1 Introduction 35

2.2 Elements of platform creation 37

2.2.1 The platform challenge 38

2.2.2 The chicken-or-egg dilemma 39

2.3 Transparency generates trust 42

2.3.1 It’s marketing, stupid! or not? 42

2.3.2 Trust in the middle kingdom 43

2.4 The trust advantage for banks and fintech 44

2.5 Conclusions 47

Takeaways for banks and fintech 48

Chapter 3 Open Innovation and Data 49

3.1 Introduction 49

3.2 Closed and open innovation 51

3.2.1 Attributes of closed and open innovation 52

3.2.2 Open innovation in platform economies 53

3.3 The strategic role of complementors 55

3.4 The monetisation perspective 56

3.5 The monetisation of APIs 58

3.5.1 Free use 59

3.5.2 API consumers pay 59

3.5.3 API consumers get paid 60

3.5.4 Indirect monetisation 60

3.6 The monetisation of user engagement 61

3.6.1 Imposing transaction fees 61

3.6.2 Asking for access fees 61

3.6.3 Tiering enhanced access fees 61

3.6.4 Delivering enhanced curation 62

3.7 The API economy for banks and fintech 62

3.8 Conclusions 65

Takeaways for banks and fintech 66

Chapter 4 Platform Governance Founded on Transparency 67

4.1 Introduction 67

4.2 Power comes with responsibility 68

4.3 Platform monopoly between competition and regulation 71

4.3.1 Intensified regulation 71

4.3.2 Better governance to fight monopoly powers 73

4.4 Negative externalities threaten platform resilience 74

4.5 Governance of openness and curation 76

4.6 The transparency governing principle 78

4.6.1 Transparency about platform management 78

4.6.2 Transparency about platform orchestration 79

4.7 Transparency for banks and fintech 80

4.8 Conclusions 82

Takeaways for banks and fintech 83

Part Two Reinventing Financial Services

Chapter 5 The Existential Shift of Bank Business Models 89

5.1 Introduction 89

5.2 The new normal of central banks 91

5.2.1 Lehman Brothers’ default 91

5.2.2 The annihilation of central banks’ systemic put 92

5.2.3 Banks’ Catch-22 95

5.2.4 From product-centricity to human-centricity 98

5.3 About the tension between information and communication 99

5.4 The banking reinvention quadrant 101

5.4.1 The map and the compass 101

5.4.2 The information and communication quotients 103

5.5 Four BRQ business value spaces 104

5.5.1 Traditional Banking 105

5.5.2 Digital Banking 105

5.5.3 Contextual Banking 105

5.5.4 Conscious Banking 106

5.6 Conclusions 107

Takeaways for banks and fintech 108

Chapter 6 Lessons Learned from Fintech Innovation 109

6.1 Introduction 110

6.2 The true meaning of disruption 111

6.2.1 My Robo-advisor was an iPod 113

6.2.2 Sustaining innovation with Contextual and Conscious Banking 117

6.3 Resolving the “pull-push” motivational gap 119

6.3.1 Digital is a pull technology 120

6.3.2 What is happening on Amazon? 121

6.3.3 The offer-driven business of banking 122

6.4 Rebundling on platform economies 123

6.4.1 From client-centricity to human-centricity 124

6.4.2 Banking-as-a-Service and Banking-as-a-Platform 126

6.5 Conclusions 128

Takeaways for banks and fintech 129

Chapter 7 Competitive Factors for the Future of Banks 131

7.1 Introduction 131

7.2 The financial services engine 132

7.3 External factors affecting digital transformations 135

7.3.1 Digital infrastructure 135

7.3.2 Digital society 135

7.3.3 Digital ecosystems 136

7.3.4 Capital at risk 137

7.3.5 Regulation 137

7.4 Internal factors enabling digital transformation 138

7.4.1 Digital leadership, strategy, and culture 138

7.4.2 New business architectures and operating models 139

7.5 Conclusions 140

Takeaways for banks and fintech 141

Part Three Leading Platform Strategies

Chapter 8 Contextual Banking 147

8.1 Introduction 147

8.2 Compete with open business architectures 150

8.3 From open banking to open finance 152

8.4 Contextual Banking 156

8.4.1 Removing ex-ante frictions without increasing them ex-post 158

8.5 Bigtech gravity 159

8.5.1 Facebook experience vs. WeChat engagement 160

8.5.2 Amazon’s platform philosophy 161

8.6 Financial services fight back 164

8.6.1 Cloud-native payment providers are also chipping away bank revenues 164

8.6.2 Ping An’s investment philosophy 166

8.6.3 Banking orchestration of non-banking ecosystems 168

8.6.4 The platform of platforms 170

8.7 Conclusions 173

Takeaways for banks and fintech 174

Chapter 9 Foundations of Financial Market Transparency 175

9.1 Introduction 175

9.2 Contextual Banking and architectural resilience 177

9.3 Conscious Banking and financial antifragility 179

9.3.1 Breaking out from mainstream reference theory 179

9.3.2 Opening the reference system to fundamental uncertainty 181

9.4 Empirical evidence to open platforms and reference systems 183

9.5 Conclusions 186

Takeaways for banks and fintech 187

CHAPTER 10 Conscious Banking 189

10.1 Introduction 190

10.2 Micro and macro antifragility across ecosystems 193

10.2.1 Value generation at the micro-level investors’ ecosystem 193

10.2.2 Value generation at the macro-level financial ecosystem 196

10.3 Unlocking hidden value in the ecosystem 197

10.4 Exponential technologies on transparent markets 199

10.4.1 Generating value with transparent AI 199

10.4.2 Opening up the reference system with technology 201

10.4.3 Integrating clients’ emotion with a transparent heuristic 203

10.4.4 Opening the AI envelope to stay radically rational 204

10.5 The scientific shift from reductionism to holism 205

10.5.1 Conscious Banking platforms on the edge of chaos 206

10.5.2 Augmenting the human mind with technology 207

10.6 The core engine of Conscious Banking platforms 208

10.6.1 Value-generating interactions based on cost-benefit analysis 208

10.6.2 Open up the risk management engine to the conscious image of endogenous uncertainty 210

10.7 Conclusions 212

Takeaways for banks and fintech 213

Concluding Remarks 215

Bibliography 219

Index 227