June 3, 2016  |    Leave a comment

Mary Meeker released her Internet Trends 2016 report this week. As always, it is packed with tons of data and insights. While there are many applications to financial services buried in the pages, my biggest takeaways are below. You can also watch Mary present her report at Code Conference 2016. No other news this week – at least for me, this contains plenty to think through. Shorter-form updates will return next week!

 

Pages 63-64, 67: “…Physical Retailers Become Digital Retailers…Digital Retailers Become Data-Optimized Physical Retailers…” Less differentiation between retailers, brands, and products, with new distribution models. Even Amazon has opened a physical store. Internet allows for hyper-targeted marketing (financial services firms face much harsher non-discrimination regulation compared to retailers)

 

Pages 102-107: Messaging is the new home page. Rogers Communications started offering customer service via Facebook Messenger in December – 65% decrease in customer complaints. Messaging apps are becoming their own platform, increasingly used for payments and banking. (average device owner in the US installs 37 apps, but 3 account for 80% of app usage).

 

Pages 112-131: Read the entire section on voice as the next computing interface. I have previously mentioned Capital One’s partnership with Amazon’s Alexa, enabling customers to access their account and pay your bill via voice banking. Siri was already handling 1 billion voice requests per week in 2015, and 20% of searches on Android mobile app are voice.

 

Pages 193-212: Too much to delve into, but this section is on Data as a Platform and Data Privacy. Bank and financial institutions have incredible amounts of data, and are generally very bad at using the data they have. The opportunities here are staggering… as long as you keep data secure.

 

…The faster technology changes the older I feel… we were watching some old “home movies” of my son when he was a baby (just clips posted on Facebook of course – no more DVDs). He wanted to replay a video, and tried to push the icon on the MacBook screen, just assuming it was touchscreen. He will grow up in a world where computing is driven by voice and touch, with the mouse as irrelevant as floppy disks…

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