January is one of the most exciting months at Celent. The analyst teams are busy reviewing nominations for Model Bank, Insurer and Wealth/ Asset Manager Awards, and passionately discussing which initiatives are most worthy of recognition. Every year we are impressed by the sheer scale of efforts to innovate and transform the industry, and are very grateful that so many financial institutions (FIs) take time to share their success stories with us.

2018 turned out to be another record year for Model Bank. We have just finished reviewing more than 170 nominations from around 100 FIs from all over the world. Yet, while quantity matters, it’s the overall quality of submissions that make our task as judges so exciting and yet so difficult. Every year we think the submissions just can’t get any better, and the following year we have to admit that they just did, again… In the end, we are excited and confident about our selection of winners, yet we are inevitably disappointed that we could not award so many others that clearly also deserve recognition.