- Paypal in 1999?

Didn't know they were free in 1999. It doesn't look like banks will start charging for transfers though, it's certainly not free to get customers. It can also be withdrawn as cash immediately as its received ;), even today Paypal takes a bit of time to withdraw outside of the UK.

> Nutmeg

Not easy to do as it has to be a seperate entity. Im working on a startup like Nutmeg. Also the 2008 landscape changes in what Banks want to be makes them avoid this space. Investments are a bit investment bankingey for the ordinary person.

> Transferwise

These eat into their margins, why would they do that? They already have customers willing to pay more. Transferwise can't get everyone as an audience that most banks serve, though it will get some of them.

> Zopa

Banks are apparently participating in these marketplaces. Granted they haven't created any marketplaces, though.

> Yodlee supplies APIs already

The bank's API allows transfers, takes 1 second and doesn't need a username or password. No need for those token things either. Yodlee's big problem is they screen scrape (or use the banking api the bank provides which you can get without paying) and it can take up to 5 mins to do this.

They use OAuth so its like the 'login with facebook' type authentication where the authentication is delegated back to the bank.

Banks do innovate but they're interested in things that improve banking and focusing on that. They're not interested in the old pre 2008 model of banking.

Yeah thinking about the 1.5% fee thing they probably don't have that because its routed through Wirecard (German firm) and they've just put mondo branding on it.

I hardly think the banks are slow. I've lived in Australia, South Africa & Canada. By any measure the UK banks (except a few) are really quick in adapting to change. If ours are slow the ones there are Glacial.

I guess if you look at Fintech in breadth, the big players aren't interested in doing everything, just a handful of small things really well and very profitably. It's a bit harsh to say they're not doing enough faster by judging them against non banking startups.

I guess it seems like alot of these services are unbundling banks but it's just a handful like Transferwise. The 'core' banking features are hard to unbundle. I guess P2P lending is sort of a unbundle in a way but its at a different vertical.

To put it another way I guess: What are UK banks missing that is available elsewhere that would improve banking services (besides customer support), or even more generally?