Ten years of Innovation in Banking

Reflections from The Innovate Finance Global Summit and a career supporting financial innovators from Correspondent Banking to Sustainable Finance.

I was at a conference in London today where Clear Bank’s Chairman Charles McManus described a meeting with all the UK payment regulators in London back in 2016, as “one of the pivotal moments” that led to the success of Clear Bank, because it led to close collaboration with all the regulators and ongoing reviews which supported the development of the Bank.

I sat in that meeting, back in 2016, having brought the Microsoft Financial Services Industry (FSI) leadership team over to describe the platform and security support we were providing Clear Bank as they built out the platform.

Attending IFGS 2025 (Innovate Finance Global Summit) last week at the Guildhall, Gold sponsored by Clear Bank and Microsoft, I reflected on what has happened over that ten-year period. As Bill Gates famously said, “we over-estimate what will happen in two years and under-estimate what will happen in ten.”

In 2025 Clear Bank have over £10BN in client deposits and revenue of over £112M. In his one-to-one discussion on stage with Louise Smith, Chair Innovate Finance, McManus made it clear that profit had always been central at Clear Bank, despite it being ‘unfashionable’ at the time they started.  And that their laser focus on the digital transformation of the backend of transactional banking has been key to their success, enabling partner Bank’s like Tide to improve their customer facing propositions. 

In a panel with Diana Avila Global Banking Expansion officer Wise, Philip Belamant CEO Zilch, Iana Dimitrova CEO OpenPayD, Charles looked forward and highlighted the need for, capital incentivisation, the Pensions industry to invest in Fintech’s and for Fintech players to scale significantly. Lana wanted proportional quality regulation for Fintech entrepreneurs and was keen we move on the AI and Stable coins opportunity. Philip wanted incentives for entrepreneurs that have exited their businesses, to keep their money in the UK and reinvest. And they all agreed the industry needs to move fast and at scale, as the global competition has caught up and is accelerating away.

Looking back to 2016 I was hearing much the same in my role as an (FSI) strategy lead for Microsoft.  In that role I supported the move to the cloud and it’s use to support the transformation of the banking industry via Open Banking, the API economy, Fintech’s and Challenger Banks. The names and the technical options were different then, but we too needed regulatory support, capital to scale the nascent industry, consistent signals from Government, and we felt the hot breath of competition from around the world.

What made the difference then, as now, was action and innovators, stories of first mover success and ‘FOMO’. The capital followed these first movers, but often from abroad.  The regulators crowded in, the accelerators blossomed, and the laggards moved from denial to reluctant acceptance and started to join in. A slow pace at the time but clearly transformative over ten years.

Clear Bank was the Microsoft poster child for using Azure in transactional banking and others followed on using various cloud’s, be that Revolut, Starling, Monzo et al. Ten years on the cloud is hardly mentioned in these transformation stories but it was and is clearly a fundamental enabler.

Seeking other signs of progress, I dropped into the Open Banking panel with Helen Child CEO Open Banking Excellence, Louise Beaumont SVP Open Banking Mastercard, Charlotte Croswell Chair CFIT, Henk Van Hulle CEO OBL and Nilixia Devlukia Chair Open Finance Association. I heard a story of millions invested post the Competition Market Authority (CMA) call for choice after the 2008 financial crisis.  I heard of significant efforts, tracks laid but not perhaps the myriad success stories we had hoped for when we were all trying to embrace PSD2 and Secure Customer Authentication (SCA) to enable customer choice and mobility between banks and PSP’s (Payment service provider).

As I attended the Net 0 panel with Jane Michotte CCO Vested Impact, Katherine Wilson VC Illuminate Financial, Julie Louvrier Market Expansion WeeFin, Kerstin Mathias Policy and Innovation Director City of London and Dr Enass Abo-Hamed Co-founder HG20 power, I felt a sense of déjà vu. Here the discussion ranged from a call for clear policy and scripted scenarios from Abo-Hamed of HG20 power, to the need to serve profit and jobs, with absolute focus on emissions from Wilson of Illuminate Financial. Louvrier of WeeFin emphasized the need for decision ready data, while Mathias of City of London highlighted the success in jobs growth and over £200BN invested in renewable energy since 2010. Her call was for coherent planning and regulation with collaboration across the public and private sector. The main difference was the salutary note from Wilson that Net 0 is being politically weaponised and the need to have a nuanced debate with focus on the risk /reward and the need to highlight positive stories.

Ten years on it is obvious Clear Bank, Revolut et al have done well. The clarity of how they did well, standing on the shoulders of cloud platforms and Open Banking is lost to time. But no doubt those hard-fought specifications, regulations, educations, pilots, and pioneers paved the way.

In ten years’, time I am sure the Net 0, Sustainable Finance, Impact and the ESG pioneers will wonder if they made the progress they wanted. But I am sure we will be listening to keynotes from successful, profitable, sustainable entrepreneurs at IFGS 2035 who have turned vision into reality.