Dan Poswolsky | Source | Chief Product Officer at Curve

The banks want to own the customer relationship. They do not want to be behind the scenes. If you look at American Express’ financial report last year and look at the executive compensation, and the criteria by which they assess those executives, one of the measures is increasing usage and adoption of the Amex mobile app. Why? Because you want to own that customer relationship. You want the customer to interact with you and not with someone else to get to you.

The more you have to interact with someone else to get to the bank’s services, the more the bank becomes just a commodity. It’s not like an Intel chip inside; it’s more like you’re the batteries, and they have less ability to upsell customers and build strong relationships. The banks really just become the plumbing of the payment system rather than the owner of the payment system.