There’s a great deal of discussion and debate around what will ultimately happen to banking as a result of the massive changes in connectivity, utility, mobility and customer experience taking place right now. One thing is for sure, the world is changing, and fast.

We see PayPal owning online payments, with others like Stripe hot on their tails.

Square is attempting to disrupt the POS and circumvent the existing payments rails by going cardless.

Simple and Movenbank are vying for the new definition of the ‘bank account.’

Telcos, like Rogers, are applying for banking licenses, and ISYS is pitching head-to-head with banks for mobile wallet dominance in North America.

Facebook and Twitter are becoming increasingly dominant channels for customer dialog.

Then, the mysterious iPhone 5 threatens to disrupt our payments experience in ways we can only imagine!

New Disruptors Abound!

Intermediate or Disintermediation?

So are banks getting disintermediated in all this? Well, yes and no. In classic economics, disintermediation is generally defined as the removal of intermediaries in a supply chain: “cutting out the middleman.” So there’s not too many middlemen in the typical retail banking distribution chain. To some extent in financial services this is already happening with the decline in stock brokers, insurance agents, etc in favor of direct. However, conversely, a bunch of newer aggregators and intermediaries are popping up as the interface to the bank or payments providers.

New intermediary plays in the last couple of years include Square, iTunes, Simple, Mint, and others. Probably the most interesting new intermediary to emerge in the last year or so is Google Wallet (or Google, or THE Google wallet – not like THE Facebook though…).

So we’re likely to see more variations on a theme in banking and payments, where new players are coming into the ecosystem and offering value beyond the traditional methods of distribution. In its purest form, this will be simply a challenge to the branch-led distribution model. How so? Ultimately, with mobile banking and payments, the branch and resultant paperwork processes becomes a convenience “penalty” for transactional and basic onboarding. This friction is a target for disruptors. A great example is Square — after just 18 months of operation, Square supports one-eighth of all U.S. merchants. They didn’t exist two years ago. How did they do it?

Square targeted the friction in onboarding new merchants for credit card operations in the retail environment. They made it far simpler than setting up a merchant account through a bank.

Disruption and Disenfranchising
The disruption that is occurring in the customer experience space is all about removing friction in outmoded or outdated processes for customers. Whenever you tell a customer he needs to fill out manual forms or paperwork, or you need him to visit a physical location today, you’re going to increasingly get kickback from a segment of the market. While many will argue passionately for the role of a face-to-face interaction and the “richness” of the branch experience, the reality is that there are two reasons why most customers will increasingly avoid that.

Firstly, customers don’t have the time or they perceive it is faster to go an alternative route — convenience was always a key driver for disruptors like Amazon and iTunes and was a key component of their replacing bookstores and video rental stores.

Secondly, we’re being trained that you can open pretty much any non-bank relationship completely digitally today — so KYC (Know-Your-Customer) issues aside, the push is for rapid digital onboarding of customers. In usability terms we call the later a design pattern and it ends up driving consumer’s expectations because it is an entrenched behavioral expectation.

Digital natives won’t be able to figure out why you can sign up for Facebook, iTunes, PayPal and other relationships completely electronically, but your bank still requires a signature. It defies logic for the modern consumer, and no amount of arguing regulation will overcome that basic expectation.

The end result of this is that banks being the slow, calculated and risk adverse organizations that they are, will likely allow disruptors the opportunity to come into the space between the bank and the consumer as a ‘friction’ eliminator.

Secondly, geo-location and context of banking products and services, will mean a marketing and engagement layer that is built on either event or location triggers to recognize the need for a financial services product and the capability to stimulate an engagement or journey in real-time.

The mobile, wallet and tablet are all key components in this shift, as is social media and the cloud to some extent.

The outcome?
In the end banks will, for basic products, no longer exclusively own the end consumer. They’ll simply be the underpinning bank manufacturer that supplies the product to a new distribution channel or channel partner.

So will banks be disintermediated? Not really, but they will be disenfranchised, losing direct relationships with customers as banks adapt to becoming pervasive providers of bank products and services, when and where you need them. A split between the distribution and manufacturing of retail FI products will be the core outcome.

Banks can not possibly own the telcos, mobile operating systems, marketing companies, retailers, locations and other elements that will drive the delivery of banking products and services in the near future. This is where the customer will live — this is where they’ll engage. I won’t come to your branch, download your “App” or even visit your website to directly engage the bank if someone else can deliver me that product as I need it.

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With no disrespect to Steve Jobs, we all need a break from our electronic toys from time to time. Last week, my husband forgot his BlackBerry while on a business trip and did not miss it except for e-mails. It was like the old days: he would just call me from his hotel-room phone. If you feel the need to take a break from your cell phone, read on for a list of good reasons to do so:

1. Checking your e-mail night and day is exhausting. Besides, unless you’re President Obama, you’re not that important!

2. It feels good to give your fingers a rest.

3. Watching the previews at a movie theatre isn’t so bad.

4. Talking on a cell phone is disruptive to others in public.

5. It’s more fun to hold someone’s hand than a phone.

6. Cell phone use may cause brain tumors.

7. It just feels better to hold the handset of a landline phone.

8. No more dirty looks at church or the grocery store.

9. You’ll decrease your risk of car accidents.

10. Think of all the money you’ll save!

11. You won’t have to rudely and sometimes unknowingly drop calls.

12. You won’t have to be accessible 24/7.

13. Your kids won’t be begging you for a phone at eight years of age. (Monkey see, monkey do.)

14. You won’t miss so much of what’s going on in the world around you.

15. You won’t have to spend hundreds of dollars to replace a lost phone.

16. You will decrease the chance of someone eavesdropping on your conversation.

17. You are more likely to have an accident while talking on a cell phone while driving than if driving drunk.

18. It’s good to slow down sometimes and smell the roses.

19. You’ll no longer be a prime target for thieves.

20. Quite simply, cell phones are distracting, both to their users and to those around them.

21. 21 is my lucky number. It’s the year of the Dragon!

Lisa Mirza Grotts is a recognized etiquette expert, an on-air contributor, and the author of A Traveler’s Passport to Etiquette. She is a former director of protocol for the city and county of San Francisco and the founder and CEO of The AML Group (www.AMLGroup.com), certified etiquette and protocol consultants. Her clients range from Stanford Hospital to Cornell University and Levi Strauss. She has been quoted by Condé Nast Traveler, InStyle Magazine, and the Los Angeles Times. To learn more about Lisa, follow her on www.Twitter.com/LisaGrotts and www.Facebook.com/LisaGrotts.

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By Jamie Beckman

One of the best tools for peeling off pounds is already in your bag: It’s your smartphone or iPad. In fact, all that texting, tweeting and posting — the average woman spends more than 80 minutes a day on her phone, according to a recent report from the mobile apps analytics firm Flurry — can tip the scales in your favor.

And one in three of us are already using social sites like Facebook to get slender, reports research from the University of Arizona. So go ahead and steal these suggestions from women who took their shape-up viral.

For more on weight loss, click here.

Nancy Tessier, 50, lost 28 pounds by posting all her meals and snacks to Tweet What You Eat (@twye), an online food journal that lets others eyeball your noshes. “Sometimes it was a lot easier to decide not to eat something than to have to tweet it for the world to see,” she says.

Posting your weight-loss numbers can help, too. The University of Arizona research suggests that women who reveal shape-up victories on a weekly basis trim down faster than those who update less frequently. If you’re feeling shy, think up a Twitter handle and upload a cartoon character as your avatar so you can share the skinny without feeling self-conscious.

More from Health.com:
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Nancy Tessier, 50, lost 28 pounds by posting all her meals and snacks to Tweet What You Eat (@twye), an online food journal that lets others eyeball your noshes. “Sometimes it was a lot easier to decide not to eat something than to have to tweet it for the world to see,” she says.

Posting your weight-loss numbers can help, too. The University of Arizona research suggests that women who reveal shape-up victories on a weekly basis trim down faster than those who update less frequently. If you’re feeling shy, think up a Twitter handle and upload a cartoon character as your avatar so you can share the skinny without feeling self-conscious.

More from Health.com:
Diet Tricks the Pros Tell Their Friends
Diet Crutches: What Works, What Doesn’t
The Natural Way to Ward Off Winter Weight

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NASA has released an app that sends users the latest downlink photos from Mars. File this one under the “very cool app” category.

The Mars Images app (iPhone and Android) is very basic in functionality and features a scrolling list of the downlink Mars photos which are individually viewable and shareable via email.

The only real gripe is that it would be great if the functionality included sharing the photos to social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Developers take note!

With the Mars rover Opportunity still trucking along, significant discoveries are still being made. Last year, strong evidence for gypsum was discovered on the surface of Mars. Had this app been available when the initial photo was taken, who knows, maybe some savvy Mars Images app user would have spotted the significance first.

With NASA’s new Curiosity Rover set to land on the surface in August, this app will get even more interesting.

Take a look at some of the most recent images from early January featured on the Mars Images app.

We know the lengths one might go for a Klondike Bar; but what would you do-woo-woo for a different kind of Ice Cream Sandwich, Android 4.0 perhaps?

While you can attempt all manner of feats to obtain a Klondike Bar, there’s not much you can legally do to get Google’s Ice Cream Sandwich (the newest version of the Android mobile operating system announced in October) if your own an older Android smartphone. Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus smartphone was released in mid-December and comes pre-loaded with ICS; it remains one of a couple of smartphones with Ice Cream Sandwich, as owners of non-Galaxy Nexus and non-Nexus S phones await their updates.

So when can you expect Ice Cream Sandwich to be available on your Android phone? Below, we’ve rounded up the latest, manufacturer by manufacturer:

SONY

If you’ve got a Sony Xperia, Ice Cream Sandwich should be arriving at the end of March or beginning of April 2012. In a post on the official Sony blog, Martina Johansson of Sony Ericsson provides a timeline for the roll-out, writing that Sony’s developers are busy “merging…current Xperia software with the new features in Android 4.0.” The big update is due in a few months and will come first to the Xperia arc S, the Xperia neo V and the Xperia ray; these will be followed by the Xperia arc, the Xperia PLAY, the Xperia neo, the Xperia mini/mini pro, the Xperia pro and the Xperia active.

Basically, all your Xperia devices are going to get Ice Cream Sandwich eventually, as will the Sony Tablet S; there is no firm release date for the Tablet S as of yet, however.

By way of explanation for the wait, Johansson also lays out the process for integrating Android 4.0 with Sony’s own software. Since many mobile manufacturers place their own skins or flavors on top of Android (think Motorola’s MotoBlur or HTC’s Sense), it takes some time to satisfactorily combine the two. These bullet points from the Sony blog serve as a nice primer on the ICS delay for all manufacturers:

• It starts with public push when we as a manufacturer get access to the new Android release from Google
• Our developers take the existing Xperia software and combine it with the new Android release
• Once the coding is done we want to make sure the quality of the new software meets our, our partners and your expectations
• Now we feel the new software is ready but we also need to make sure it’s approved by our external partners
• All good. We’re all set to roll-out the new software. The story continues in your Xperia smartphone

SAMSUNG

Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus already has Ice Cream Sandwich, of course, and most Nexus S phones should have already received an over-the-air update. The status of Android 4.0 for other Samsung smartphones is less clear. Here’s what we know, for now:

- Samsung Nexus S phones started getting Ice Cream Sandwich on December 16. If you own a Nexus S, you should be using an Ice Cream Sandwich device at this point.
- The Samsung Galaxy S II will get Android 4.0 in the first quarter of 2012, as will the Galaxy Note.
- The Samsung Galaxy S and Samsung Galaxy Tabs were both on track for Ice Cream Sandwich, until they weren’t, until they were again, maybe. Basically, Samsung claimed that they would update the Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab to Android 4.0 and then announced that they would not, due to the limitations of the device’s RAM and ROM to run both ICS and a bit of touch-interface software called TouchWiz simultaneously. Now, apparently bowing to consumer pressure, Samsung is re-examining ICS for the Galaxy S and Galaxy Tabs, as reported by MSN Korea.

LG

Ice Cream Sandwich updates to LG devices will start in Q2 2012 (that’s some time between April and June) and will come in two phases.

1. In the first phase, the Optimus LTE, Prada Phone by LG 3.0, Optimus 2X, Optimus Sol, myTouch Q and Eclipse will all get ICS. This will begin in Q2 2012.
2. In the second phase, the Optimus 3D, Optimus Black, Optimus Big, Optimus Q2 and Optimus EX will be updated. That will start in Q3 2012, or some time between July and September 2012.

Missing from the list, as noted by the Los Angeles Times: the LG Nitro HD, the G2X, the Thrill 4G, the DoublePlay, the G-Slate and the MyTouch.

MOTOROLA

There’s not a boatload of Motorola ICS info — especially on specific phones — though the company, which Google recently agreed to acquire, is gearing up to push forward Google’s newest mobile OS to its handsets.

- The Motorola Droid RAZR will get Ice Cream Sandwich in early 2012, according to Motorola’s senior vice president portfolio and product management Alain Mutricy.
- The Droid Bionic and all Xoom tablets will be upgraded to ICS eventually, according to a December 7 post on the Motorola website.
- No updates on the Droid X or Droid 3, the Atrix 4G or the Photon 4G; Motorola says it is “planning on upgrading as many of [its] phones as possible.”
- On specific devices, a post on the official Motorola website from December 7 had this to say about specific devices and ICS: “[O]ver the next month we will be determining which devices will get the upgrade and when — and we will communicate this as information becomes available.” It’s been about twenty days since that pronouncement; look for additional details and decisions about individual Motorola phones and Ice Cream Sandwich, then, within the next two weeks.

HTC

Finally, we come to HTC, maker of several well-selling Android handsets, including the popular HTC Evo. A brief statement on the company’s UK Facebook page is all we’ve heard:

Ice Cream Sandwich is coming in early 2012 to a variety of devices including the HTC Sensation, HTC Sensation XL and HTC Sensation XE, as well as the HTC Rezound*, HTC EVO 3D, HTC EVO Design 4G* and HTC Amaze 4G* through close integration with our carrier partners.

We also got a glimpse of what is supposedly one of HTC’s first Ice Cream Sandwich phones, the HTC Ville, via tech website Boy Genius Report. BGR says the Ville is set to launch in April.

—–

And that’s almost everything we know on the mobile Ice Cream Sandwich front! Developing and testing a new Android operating system can clearly be a difficult and lengthy process for the manufacturers, so all of this is subject to change and could become irrelevant overnight. In the meantime, we’ll keep you updated on all the latest major developments in the Android 4.0 world as the news breaks.

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