Generation Overlooked: s Serving silver user GUEST EDITOR án Natasha de Ter
PHYSICAL TO DIGITAL: ONEBANKS HUB Bridging the gap: Many consumers still want that human touch
‘Remote’ banking
OneBanks Hub is attempting to restore the ‘face of banking’ with a physical presence in branchless communities across the UK. Natasha de Terán spoke to Founder Duncan Cockburn about his mission In developing Square, Jack Dorsey says he set out to meet his customers where they were. His customers were out and about on their phones, but weren’t using them to take payments, so he decided to build the simplest thing to enable them to do so.
In coming up with the OneBanks Hub concept, Duncan Cockburn is essentially doing the same thing. His (potential) customers are out and about on the high street, in stations and supermarkets, but aren’t being banked there (any longer). He’s planning to change that. It takes a certain type to make those leaps – leaps that are pure genius at inception and so obvious in hindsight. Dorsey wasn’t in payments or retail. Cockburn wasn’t in banking. But, whether OneBanks Hub aims to be as ubiquitous as Square, or Cockburn has ambitions as big as Dorsey’s, it’s hard to argue that a high street solution for (open) banking isn’t needed. Cockburn is, one senses, a serious soul; ambitious and commercial, he’s also thoughtful – enough to stand back and
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realise that, for all the virtual opportunities and efficiencies that technology is bringing to banking, banking still needs to meet people where they are, physically. What seems somewhat remarkable – at least to me – is that Cockburn reached this conclusion in California, while learning to code. In other words, it was when he was (presumably) surrounded by techno-evangelists and deeply immersed in technology that he realised how much others would be left behind by its progress. Having quickly been taken by the promise of open banking and APIs, he returned to Scotland where between 2010 and 2020 the number of bank branches had fallen from 1,500 to around 690. “I had really got into open banking and APIs during my period in California and could easily have gone down a pure fintech route, but the thing with open banking is that it only reaches people who are digitally savvy,” says Cockburn. “It doesn’t help those who aren’t, particularly the older generations. And so, while I was really excited about open banking, I was also concerned about what this transition
meant for those who weren’t being taken on its journey, particularly in the face of all those branch closures.”
POP-UP BANKING Passionate about financial inclusion and about making technology more accessible, Cockburn’s idea was OneBanks Hub, a visible, physical entry point to open and digital banking. No matter which bank they were with, customers could pop into a OneBanks Hub to deposit and withdraw cash, make payments and get help with setting up or using online banking. Cockburn’s banking kiosks have so far popped up only in Scotland and the North of England, although perhaps we can expect more openings soon. Combining the physical with the virtual, staff with machines, the personal with the impersonal, they even update the ATM for the digital age. In fact, OneBanks Hub’s open-bankingpowered cardless ATM withdrawal facility recently won an API VRP hackathon award. The facility is both a useful tool and an appealing entry point to digital, which is, of course, core to the OneBanks Hub mission. ffnews.com
