🤔 Vipps is about simplification

Last week we wrote about Vipps, and if it made sense for them to take on other industries than finance . This week we got a reply from the CEO of Vipps, Rune Garborg, stating that Vipps is not about finance but simplification . That is undoubtedly an interesting and bold strategy! We've seen very few examples of fintechs taking on other industries and the long term ramifications of that move. What we've seen, however, is the other way around: other industries taking on banking. As an example, Goldman Sachs last week launched a Banking as a Service solution , helping any company in the world become a bank. As per usual, 11:FS has written their take on this move.

🙈 PSD2 is not that simple

Vipps has also been in the spotlight this week for having better PSD2-conditions than its competitors. It all started when Horde reported banks' PSD2 handling to both the Financial supervisory authority of Norway and the Norwegian Competition Authority . Alf Gunnar Andersen, CEO in Horde, states that the technical solutions that the banks have created for PSD2 are unstable and, at times, even non-existing. Many of the data they provide is inadequate and offers Vipps distortive advantages since they are the only provider allowed to carry out customer authentication directly in the app.

All of the companies in Norway with a PSD2-license, except Vipps and Lendo, criticize the banks' PSD2-handling . One of the examples one small Norwegian banks had their API down for six weeks (!!) before finally getting them back up. The Financial supervisory authority of Norway is not pleased and believes that the banks have a job to do so that Vipps and other third-party providers get a level playing field.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Joint accounts - simplified

Last week the Danish challenger bank Lunar stepped into the world of joint accounts , allowing users to add up to ten (!) people to their account. This is undoubtedly a new and exciting take on social banking, with much potential. Connected accounts will be able to use emojis and add comments to purchases, making a social platform as well as a bank. Read more on their website.

👴 Simplified pensions

We've worked on this in a few projects over the last year, but last week the legislation became final: All pension savings for a person will be gathered in one place (called EPK) from January 2021. This means that 1.5 million Norwegians will receive both the current pension scheme and previous pension capital certificates in one account. This will hopefully mean lower costs and better overview for consumers and more competition and more innovation for the suppliers.

🙌 User Experience is getting better

Last week, Nielsen Norman Group reported that, on average, UX changes now have a smaller impact than they had in 2006 . Said in other terms: If you had a site and made UX-improvements in 2006, you would get more return on your investment than you probably will today.

Does this mean that UX professionals are getting worse? No, rather the opposite: The UX-design community and our collective knowledge and experience, which shows that we as an industry are getting better.

Does this mean that UX is less critical or impactful today? Probably not - it just means that experiences overall are getting better, and thereby user expectations have gotten much, much higher. Even small improvements in the UX may be worth the expense. Getting 75% more people through your sign up flow (the average improvement score in 2020) is certainly not something you would say no to. As a comparison, it was 247% in 2006-2008.

🙏 Please don't keep it a secret!

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Marius Hauken, partner Stacc X