If you have never hit the sweet spot on a cricket bat, then you will have to skip to the bottom to get an explanation. But if you have, you will recognise a eureka moment. In 2023 just four UK banks produced a record £44bn in pre-tax profit. A eureka number, of which only £7.5bn comes from UK dominant Lloyds. So is the future in these new fintech challengers? The answer for Revolut is that they are worth more than Lloyds bank’s 40% share of the UK market – clocking a proposed valuation of £40bn, some 20x sales on an expected share sale.
It is all about the future, they say. In this article I want to explain why you are the future now. IFAs and mortgage brokers can watch how banking is becoming increasingly digitised, and how this will impact on our own advice model. The world is changing, but this is not a call to action to change the way you communicate with the customer. Au contraire. Your key to the future is customer engagement with understanding, empathy and street smart navigation of your sector.
To give just one very simple example, I spent half of a whole day trying to figure out why no mortgage comparison systems held on www.BATSOFTWARE.CO.UK would quote for a “further advance mortgage for business purposes.” I compared the search options, from Legal and General Ignite to Twenty7Tec but the results yielded nothing. I finally took the problem to my co director, who laughed and suggested I change the search to further advance mortgage “for holiday let purposes”” and bingo! He tapped his nose sagely. Quite why holiday let is considered more secure than business, is beyond this article, but it demonstrates street level knowledge quite nicely. No amount of computing power, chat room or googling was able to help me on this one.
Sweet spots –
“It sounds silly,
but it’s harsh
to be caught Lillee
bowled marsh,
but that’s what happened to me
the over prior to tea.”
You are the future now. Secure it, and embrace Consumer Duty By investing in BAT COMPLIANCE