Q&A with Ron Shevlin

Hi, there!

Welcome to another riveting Q&A with a leading FinTech commentator and go-to analyst for all things US and banking, Ron Shevlin.

But first, a few asks:

• If you haven’t done this yet, follow him on LinkedIn here,
• If you prefer Twitter, follow his profile here,
• Or check out his published articles here.

Let’s get to it!

Tell us a little bit about yourself and how/when you got into the banking/FinTech space?

I’ve been a consultant and analyst for a long time. My consulting career was focused on IT strategy—how technology helps support and shape business strategy. Hated the constant traveling and was fortunate to land a position with Forrester Research in the late 90s. Have been a technology analyst ever since. Started focusing on financial services in 1999 before the term fintech was popular, but that was basically what I was researching and writing about.

You publish interesting articles on Forbes. Why and when did you start sharing this??

I started blogging in 2006, and after a few years started calling my blog Snarketing. My boss at Forrester came to me one day and said, “You know what your problem is?” And I replied, “I only have one problem?” He said, “That’s part of it—you’re pretty snarky, and that doesn’t always play well with people.” Well, as we all know, snark is the most intelligent form of humor, so if it doesn’t play well with you, well….

At the end of 2018, I got a call from a guy at Forbes who asked me if I wanted to be a Forbes contributor. I said yes (of course), renamed my blog the Fintech Snark Tank, and have been publishing there pretty much every week since January 2019.

Which do you think are the FinTech/digital banking trends to watch out for in the next 6-18 months?

1) Embedded finance. The distribution of financial products through non-financial services firms is (and will be) a huge trend. It’s a win-win-win scenario. Consumers get financial products more seamlessly, and in the context of the non-financial products they use, merchants win by generating additional revenue and—more importantly—more loyal customers. The banks win because they’re able to distribute products and services more efficiently and usually to a broader range of customers than they reach.

2) Embedded fintech. If embedded finance is the distribution of financial products through non-financial services firms, then embedded fintech is the opposite: The delivery of fintechs’ products and services through bank platforms. The smarter banks realize that they can’t develop all the ancillary financial products that consumers want and use. Bank-fintech partnerships will continue to be big for the next few years.

I’d like to note that trends regarding DeFi, blockchain, and cryptocurrencies should be on banks’ and fintechs’ radar, but the maturity of these trends is much longer than the 6 to the 18-month timeframe you asked about.

What are the best and worst calls you’ve made as an analyst?

The best call I’ve made was probably back in July 2000 when I published a report titled The Atomization of Financial Services and predicted the unbundling of banking and the distribution of financial services through brands and other non-financial services firms. The worst call was predicting that Lending Tree wasn’t going to succeed. Man, that was a bad call.

Are there any other thought leaders in FinTech you follow and others should follow as well?

There’s a long list of people I follow and that others should follow, as well. But in the interest of not offending anyone by leaving them off the list, I won’t name names.

What’s on your bookshelf/ reading list?

Probably nothing that anyone else would be interested in. I don’t read business books, and certainly not fintech books (with one exception: Paolo Sironi’s Banks and Fintech on Platform Economies). I usually read fiction—love the spy thriller genre.

Ron Shevlin is an industry analyst specializing in fintech and banking. He’s the Chief Research Officer at Cornerstone Advisors, Senior Contributor at Forbes, and writer of the Fintech Snark Tank Blog.