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“By law, fintechs must work with a bank to do these things, and right now that means a legacy high street bank with mainframes. Griffin is the bank plus technol

“By law, fintechs must work with a bank to do these things, and right now that means a legacy high street bank with mainframes. Griffin is the bank plus technology platform that all future fintechs would build on.” Did they write this in 2016? The market has moved on. Griffin looks neat but they’re years behind many others, a nice API for banking exists from well established players, like ClearBank. There’s room for more so it’s great to see Griffin join the market but I hope their pitch isn’t this weak.

varispeed 3y ago
> that all future fintechs would build on This also sounds awfully like a single point of failure and embodiment of what's wrong with late stage capitalism - where competition is an illusion.
- ehhthing 3y ago
  I'm confused by this statement. fintechs aren't just proxies for banks, they're financial products that people want to use. There are plenty of cool and innovative things you can do with just a banking API beyond just creating another bank Sure the costs for any fintech using these products are the same, but they can offer a million different types of products which make them unique.
  - varispeed 3y ago
    Then company underpinning those fintech businesses decides to pull the plug and suddenly everyone finds themselves up in a creek without a paddle.
    - ehhthing 3y ago
      This is true for basically everything powered by an API. I mean if you want to start your own bank and deal with compliance then sure do that! I don't see your point here, there is no sensible alternative to this problem.
venantius 3y ago
There still isn’t a ton of choice in market - ClearBank is one of three other banks that actually have decent offerings. And having a good API is not enough; you need a holistic operating model that is aligned with your customer base, which is much harder to build for.

varispeed 3y ago

> that all future fintechs would build on This also sounds awfully like a single point of failure and embodiment of what's wrong with late stage capitalism - where competition is an illusion.

ehhthing 3y ago
I'm confused by this statement. fintechs aren't just proxies for banks, they're financial products that people want to use. There are plenty of cool and innovative things you can do with just a banking API beyond just creating another bank Sure the costs for any fintech using these products are the same, but they can offer a million different types of products which make them unique.
- varispeed 3y ago
  Then company underpinning those fintech businesses decides to pull the plug and suddenly everyone finds themselves up in a creek without a paddle.
  - ehhthing 3y ago
    This is true for basically everything powered by an API. I mean if you want to start your own bank and deal with compliance then sure do that! I don't see your point here, there is no sensible alternative to this problem.

venantius 3y ago

There still isn’t a ton of choice in market - ClearBank is one of three other banks that actually have decent offerings. And having a good API is not enough; you need a holistic operating model that is aligned with your customer base, which is much harder to build for.