There’s a moment in Fleabag where Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s character sits in front of her bank manager, desperate to make a good impression, and ends up taking off her jumper to reveal a bra by mistake. It’s funny and painfully awkward. But perhaps the most memorable thing about that scene is simply watching a conversation with an in-branch bank manager who’s there to help. For most people, that now feels as fictional as the show itself.
Banks and building societies have closed almost 7,000 branches across the UK in the last decade. That’s two thirds of all the branches that were open in 2015, gone. Yet there are more people than ever with bank accounts – six billion, in fact, spread across 30,000 banks globally.
Surveys show consistently that customers want to feel more understood, treated more personally, and generally shown a bit more love by these financial institutions. But how?
The advent of smart banking
The good news is that we’re on the cusp of moving from digital banking, which essentially replicates the branch experience, to smart banking. This is where accounts don’t just record what happened, but work more like a financial butler: utterly trustworthy and always acting in your best interests. This shift is being powered by a new generation of tech that makes rules-based banking practical at scale. It allows banks to build highly personalised services around a simple idea: customers set the rules, the tech enforces them.
My rules won’t look the same as yours. Bank accounts will be highly tailored and personal to us, much more like the experience with Spotify, Netflix, and our phones. Soon, we’ll be talking to our banking apps like a financial ’Alexa’ – except they’ll be able to take instructions and act on them inside an account, operating within strict guardrails.
Why this moment matters
Three forces are converging. First, personal finance has become more complex. Subscriptions, family finances, travel, variable incomes and rising living costs mean people are making dozens of micro-decisions about money every week.
Second, expectations of personalisation have shifted. People are used to tech curating their music, TV and film experiences, and increasingly expect their bank to do more than simply display a balance.
Third, the infrastructure has finally caught up. Real-time payments, open banking and programmable money rails mean we can now move from static accounts to dynamic, conditional ones. That might mean protecting a vulnerable parent from fraud through smart payment controls, blocking spending with certain brands, or using automated tools that quietly help people manage money better.
For banks, the opportunity is profound. The winners of the next decade won’t be those with the biggest branch networks or the flashiest apps, but those with the ability to let customers create rules, triggers and safeguards as easily as they make payments today.
A hundred years ago, banks offered customers a trusted human who helped make wise choices. Today, we can offer better support – to everyone, all the time – through smart, rule-based accounts. In a world of growing financial complexity, the most powerful innovation isn’t another app feature, it’s truly personalised support with a backbone of absolute trust.
That’s the future of banking. And hopefully, minus any jumper mishaps.
Rob Rooney is CEO of Hyperlayer, an open banking platform. He was previously chief executive of Morgan Stanley International.
There’s a moment in Fleabag where Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s character sits in front of her bank manager, desperate to make a good impression, and ends up taking off her jumper to reveal a bra by mistake. It’s funny and painfully awkward. But perhaps the most memorable thing about that scene is simply watching a conversation with an in-branch bank manager who’s there to help. For most people, that now feels as fictional as the show itself.
Banks and building societies have closed almost 7,000 branches across the UK in the last decade. That’s two thirds of all the branches that were open in 2015, gone. Yet there are more people than ever with bank accounts - six billion, in fact, spread across 30,000 banks globally.
Surveys show consistently that customers want to feel more understood, treated more personally, and generally shown a bit more love by these financial institutions. But how?
