Leda Writes for Fintech Futures: Same old banking and bananas

Every Thursday, Leda Glyptis, 11:FS Chief of Staff creates #LedaWrites. This week she turns her attention to bananas, skis. And banking.

Chances are your mobile banking interface is a shrunken-down version of the web version which is an on-the-glass version of paper statements and manual processes which in turn reflect the sequence in which ledgers were updated and long-form calculations carried out before computers were invented.

The distance between the counting house and banking apps is shorter and less creative than you think. But you don’t question it.

Recently in Oslo as I am walking to a meeting, I see three people, not even together, crossing the office cafeteria carrying skis.

While I was busy working through the implications of skis in the office, for fintech – I remain, so much fun – and contemplating the deliciousness of unexpected visual cues that make you go “say what” and then once you digest what you are looking at you go “well of course. OF COURSE”. Skis in the office. Of course skis in the office.

That’s good UX, that is.

Not skis in the office.

But that thing you never had before and now it is available you are wondering how you ever lived without it.

You didn’t expect it because nobody had put it there before but now you’ve seen it, of course, how on earth had you not thought about it before?

And the opposite of that?

Bananas.

Seriously.

Same day, shortly after the ski incident, I saw a man running down a very snowy train platform (I am Greek, “very snowy” is a metric where I come from) holding a banana. Unlike skis, bananas are ubiquitous and I am totally au fait with seeing them around the office. But I shouldn’t be. A banana in Oslo is as far away from its natural habitat as anything can be and the fact that it looks more normal than skis to me says more about my conditioning than it does about the usefulness or relevance of what we are used to seeing and therefore expect to see.

We are conditioned to expect some slightly esoteric things (read revolving credit instead of banana) but were never told that making the most of what is available is both an excellent idea and a fair expectation (replace “the thing you actually need to do” – pay an invoice after you got paid by your customers – for “the way your bank does things” – settle transactions at close of play and update balances accordingly).

We now know we have to look for the skis or find people who know how to work out what the equivalent is, that thing that is only obvious when done right. And we have finally learned that we must remember to remember bananas weren’t even meant to be here. And neither were we, as bankers.

Cashing in on familiarity was a good lark while it lasted.

But it’s over.

And about time too.

Read the whole story at Fintech Futures.