I was travelling into the office today listening to my iPod on shuffle and marvelling at how scratchy and lo-fi Public Enemy’s Don’t Believe the Hype sounds these days, when I started playing with the device in my hands. Having been an initial sceptic about the iPod and asserting it was ‘just another walkman fad’ [...]
Filed under: Payments, Retail Banking, Technology | 1 Comment »
Ah, for the good old days when bankers made money by providing useful services – taking deposits and making loans, for example. Is it too much to expect bankers to make money honestly rather than through hidden fees and “gotcha” programs? Now the New York Times reports a massive effort in the industry to keep [...]
Filed under: Retail Banking, Technology | No Comments »
Reinforcing some of the statements in my piece on customer retention in the current issue of Banking Technology, is this amusing comment from Stan Demarest, SVP of segment management at Hibernia National Bank: “There was an article that came out probably 15 years ago in one of the banking trade journals, saying banks were so [...]
Filed under: Corporate Banking, Retail Banking | No Comments »
Among the many consequences of the current economic context is a rise in hostile feelings directed at the banking industry. In France, this appears to have translated into increased rudeness and aggressive behaviour from irate customers interacting with banking staff. The French Banking Association said recently that the number of “incivilities” had risen by 20% [...]
Filed under: Credit Crunch, Retail Banking, Technology | No Comments »
Mobile banking is the way of the future. At least, that is the conclusion of a recent study conducted by pollster Novametrie, and commissioned by the European Financial Management Marketing Association, Crédit Agricole, Microsoft and CapGemini Consulting. Based on a Pan-European survey of 5,000 online banking users and of about forty banking and mobile phone [...]
Filed under: Payments, Retail Banking, Technology | No Comments »
Remember the story that emerged last October about French president Nicolas Sarkozy having his bank account siphoned, or as some hastened to conclude, “hacked into”? Well, as expected, it turns out the scam is far less sophisticated than initially suggested, especially by our friends the vendors of security technology. In fact, the fraud originated at [...]
Filed under: Retail Banking, Technology | No Comments »
The vendor community’s marketing and external communication efforts generally tend to be directed at the corporate world: the financial institutions that make up their client base, and, in the case of listed companies, investors and analysts. But for some technology providers, such as smart card and terminal vendors, while the initial customer usually is a [...]
Filed under: Credit Crunch, Retail Banking, Suppliers, Technology | No Comments »
In the same way that micro-credit – the extension of very small loans to low income individuals or businesses – started in developing countries before gaining traction in Western societies with people excluded from regular banking offerings, could poor countries also be showing the way in terms of mobile payment adoption? Mobile phone operator Orange [...]
Filed under: Payments, Retail Banking, Technology | No Comments »
In the continuously negative news flow that has surrounded the banking industry in the last few months, technology hasn’t really been the main focus of attention. However, there is little doubt that IT spending in European banks will suffer in the coming months, as confirmed by a recent report by research firm Celent. It predicts [...]
Filed under: Credit Crunch, Retail Banking, Suppliers, Technology | No Comments »
SAS, the Cary, NC-based analytics company, has developed a sophisticated replacement for credit scoring which promises greater accuracy, process transparency, and a single number from 1 to 432 which will describe a borrower’s financial position. The score can be tied to a mortgage and remain with it through securitization, providing a quick, in-depth way to [...]
Filed under: Retail Banking, risk, Technology | No Comments »
