Bank of America thinks several moves ahead in working with MediaLabs

I recently spent the day at MediaLabs to understand how Javelin’s client Bank of America is experimenting to find the next series of financial services breakthroughs, and came away stricken with all the possibilities. While Javelin’s research is all about taking careful aim at a particular problem or opportunity, the MediaLabs approach is something that distinctly compliments quantitative and qualitative research. MediaLabs Center for the Future of Banking is all about unfettered experimentation, and several times during my visit I had to quiet my impatient mind with reminders of the important role MIT played in testing early versions of the Internet as we know it today. At MIT’s MediaLab, a visitor shouldn’t be surprised to see physical wallets indicate the health of one’s available financial resources (including physical and virtual money) by physically expanding or contracting, or these same wallets opening or closing with relatively greater or lesser ease depending on how much virtual cash one owns. Speaking of data and physical movement, Javelin also witnessed the mockup that inspired the spatial movements of Tom Cruise in the movie “Minority Report”, as the actor famously recalled, viewed or discarded records that indicated a suspect was “certain” to commit a crime in their immediate future. Closer to the present, we observed how small teams worked on tackling the vexing convenience and security issues that will either enable or doom mobile payments. As fellow futurists, it’s great to see Bank of America’s investment in unbridled experimentation that could become the inspiration for tomorrow’s mobile wallets, alternative payment instruments or security methods.