OCTOBER 2016 / NO. 2
TAGS: CITIGROUP, SWAT TEAM, FINTECH, COMPANY RADAR ROOM

Establishing special intelligence teams to make things happen fast

“Why did US-based Citigroup establish a SWAT Team (Special Weapons and Tactics) Team?”
Citigroup established a SWAT team to take the lead from the new fintech start-ups, which are threatening the global multi-trillion-dollar banking industry. Citigroup wants to ‘fintegrate’ fast because they want to be ahead of the revolution, according to Fortune Magazine in July 2016.
The SWAT Team is necessary because this revolution in the banking sector cannot be managed traditional bankers. Well-funded start-ups, around 50 of them, are active in the following banking segments:
  1. Investment banking: Axial, IEX, Circleup, Equidate, Angellist, Kensho – 6 start-ups
  2. Retail banking: Mozido, Circle Internet Financial – 2 start-ups
  3. Lending: Prosper, Sofi, Ondeck, Lendup, Avant, Funding Circle, Kabbage, Lending Club and Credit Karma – 9 start-ups
  4. Treasury: Blockstream, Ripple, Digital Assets Holdings and Coinbase – 4 start-ups
  5. Payments: Square, Coin, Transferwise, Stripe, Paypal and another 8-10 newcomers from the telecommunications sector, with spin-offs from Apple, Amazon, Samsung, Facebook and other 15-20 start-ups
  1. Wealth Management: Robinhood, Wealthfront and Betterment – 3 start-ups
We all know that Apple, Facebook, Google NeXT, LinkedIn, Twitter, Android, Netflix, and WhatsApp began as ‘start-ups’. Not all the start-ups in fintech will be successful, but the revolution and disruption already began several years ago, and will completely disrupt the competitive banking arena.
Citigroup used a SWAT Team to help make disruption happen. In our firm’s best practices, we have established similar solutions to counteract the dynamics of future change within client organizations; we have called them: Rapid Response Team, SEALS Team, Corporate Radar Team and MI7. Our precondition to establishing these teams is that they report only to the Board of Management.
Citigroup understood perfectly that to successfully manage disruption, special strategic intelligence teams were needed.
“Intellectual courage is necessary to challenge conventional wisdom and imagine new possibilities”, Rosabeth Moss Kanter
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