Over the past year, most of the banks I deal with have dropped the word ‘innovation’ from their mantra. It’s strange but true that the focus upon being innovative had been such a focal point during the 2000s and now it’s all over. To illustrate the point, the Top 10 American banks used the word innovation’ an average 1.2 times per annual report in 2000, rising to over six times per report by 2007.Heads of Innovation were popping up everywhere and innovation was the key to being different, attracting customers, growing business and increasing revenues.Now the Heads of Innovation have all gone and Innovation is at the bottom of the banks ‘to-do’ lists… in other words, the Heads have become Bottoms.Banks have realised that the last thing they want to be is innovative.They want to be boring.So innovation has disappeared over the parapets as fast as Tiger Wood’s pants.But that’s … Continue reading →