iPads, Smartphones, Mobile Payments and Clean Water: Top Quotes From Celent's Banking Insight & Innovation Day

Boston-based research firm Celent held its fifth annual Banking Insight & Innovation Day in Charlotte, N.C., earlier this week. Many of the 'hot topics' in the bank technology industry were discussed with enthusiasm and passion, including tablet banking, mobile wallets and financial services disruptors. Here are Bank Systems & Technology's picks for some of the most memorable and interesting quotes form the event.

1. Essential to Life?

We believe in five years, more people will have access to mobile phones than clean water.

—Citi Global Chief Technology Officer Yobie Benjamin, who strongly believes mobile payments and wallets are set to take over. Benjamin had several memorable lines at the Celent event, entertaining the crowd with maxims such as "Plastic is dead" and "We have not seen the power of the Internet yet."

2. Past Its Prime

To us, online banking has reached its peak and mobile has gotten to a point where it's cannibalizing the online channel.

—Joe Jordan, Director of eChannels and Payment Solutions for Charlottesville, Va.-based StellarOne Bank. Many of the speakers agreed that the online channel has reached its peak.

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3. Which Came First?

At the end of the day, mobile payments is a solution looking for a problem.

—Ginger Schmeltzer, SVP, Digital Channels, for SunTrust Bank. Schmeltzer and others questioned what actual benefits mobile wallet solutions bring to customers.

4. Philosophical Question

What is a banking account? It is essentially an entry into a computer system.

—Celent's Bart Narter, on why bank's should be well-equipped to handle the ever-increasing digital world.

5. Is There a Cure For That?

iPad mania is sweeping the globe.

—Celent Senior Analyst Jacob Jegher, who moderated a panel on tablet banking, about the proliferation of the tablet device.

 

Bryan Yurcan is associate editor for Bank Systems and Technology. He has worked in various editorial capacities for newspapers and magazines for the past 8 years. After beginning his career as a municipal and courts reporter for daily newspapers in upstate New York, Bryan has ... View Full Bio