Courtesy of Finextra, and interesting approach by BofA to assess future innovations in Banking. I am not convinced on the merit of a lab based approach although it might include mathematical ‘what if’ scenarios, which could be valuable.
Finextra: Bank of America partners MIT for banking research lab
Bank of America says the new centre will serve as an “innovation engine that will seek to transform the ways banking will be conducted in a world of rapidly changing social, economic, and information landscapes”.
Staff at the centre will explore ideas in banking by inventing technologies that reveal and use insights across a wide range of physical and social scales, from one-on-one customer interactions to global transactions.
Researchers will explore issues such as the use of social networks and mobile platforms for banking and the evolution of banking to encompass both physical and virtual worlds.
Bankwatch 
makes total sense to me why a Bank would go to a place like MIT to try and figure out how to invent the future of banking. They obviously need to experiment in a lab before turning any ideas into real products. Banking is becoming far to complex in a modern world to not get the best minds working on the problem. They can’t go to the traditional sources who are stuck in old world mental models about banking so teaming up with an institution known for innovative thinking seems smart to me.
Banks are more than the old Cathedral buildings and trusted website in a modern world they represent the possibility of consumer to organize their economic life.
Hi Ray,
if ‘Banks […] represent the possibility of consumer to organize their economic life’, maybe empowering your customers in doing that and have them develop your future is something else then going to a lab. It’s not that a lab can’t come up with this suggestion of course, but maybe the customers should be the first stop.
“makes total sense to me why a Bank would go to a place like MIT to try and figure out how to invent the future of banking.”
Why? What do technology researchers know about banking? Who was it that said that the MIT guys spend their time writing about “shoes that can send e-mail to other shoes”?
@Cayce .. love that quote!
because a majority of mit grads go to wall street and it has a really good business school and economics program. obviously asking customers is a step and a given step in any consumer oriented service.