When ANZ decided to make its acquisition of New Zealand’s National Bank into a single brand, it had some wide-ranging rationalisation ahead of it to reduce costs while expanding service coverage. Software from Californian geographic information systems specialist Esri helped.
An interesting trend is developing in the halal sector: regional hubs are developing in places that have some local demand but not the size that would be significant markets on their own. Think of Malaysia (the largest) or Dubai or tiny Brunei. Each sees the halal sector as being strategic to their economic growth, and for Dubai and Brunei at least, as key aspects of their economic diversification. This trend has the potential to support global growth in the Islamic economy as well as SME development but need a lot of (costly) infrastructure put in place to open up the international side to SMEs
Online-only bank Fidor has launched in the UK, promising to change the way retail banking works by letting the customer build the services and products they want to use. The bank is part of a new wave of fresh banks entering the market, many of which focus their efforts online rather than on the high street.
UK building society Nationwide has begun a £500 million project to improve its branch network using NCR latest generation of self-service ATMs. The project aims to bring the kind of self-service experience customers can get at supermarkets to the retail bank branch.
Figures from Link, the UK’s cash machine network, show that the number of ATMs in the UK reached 70,180 in July, passing 70,000 for the first time. ATM figures from July, show that the total amount withdrawn from cash machines in July 2015 was £11.3 billion, up 4% compared with July 2014.
More than £2.5 billion was spent in the UK using contactless cards in the first half of 2015 and this is likely to increase even more as the upper limit for contactless payments increases from £20 to £30 from today.
Credit unions play a critical role in local economies of countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, serving as a vital savings and credit conduit to vast numbers of people, especially those in the lower rungs of the income pyramid who are in many cases, priced out of the traditional banking system
Equifax, the consumer and business information specialist, has launched a new service providing real-time, integrated data on companies and the individuals who own and run them.
Mobile phones will take an increasingly leading role in the payments space over the next five years as a result of technologies that allow safe storage of payment details in smartphones, according to a report prepared by the Consult Hyperion on behalf of Payments UK.
There has been hype around wearable technology for some time now but only now is it reaching market maturity with the introduction and subsequent adoption by consumers of smart watches and wristbands. Just as we saw with smart phones and tablets, consumer technology, in this case wearables, has the potential to have a huge impact on the business world. The implications for the financial services industry are significant
UK digital-only bank Atom has chosen financial technology company IRESS to provide the basis for its mortgage platform. Atom received its licence in June and plans to launch later this year.
ATM maker Wincor Nixdorf is to expand its ATM business in Brazil, following a deal with Brazilian hardware company Perto. The deal comes as the BRIC market expands its retail banking infrastructure to serve the growing middle class of Brazilian society.
Reports of the death of cash have dominated the 2015 news agenda. A variety of industry developments – from the launch of Apple Pay through to a Danish proposal to end the obligation of retailers to accept cash – work together to imply that paper notes and coins could soon lose relevance. All this is underpinned by apparently irrefutable stats from the Payments Council which reveal that cashless transactions have now overtaken the use of cash in the UK
Look at most technology initiatives around you, most are obsessed with taking the cost out e.g. ATMs, online banking or selling more e.g. marketing automation, emails. As a business it’s important to manage the cost, but when cost becomes the primary driver, it creates more problems than it solves
More than a million people switched their current account to a rival bank in the year leading up to July 2015, according to new figures published by UK payments system Bacs. The numbers represent only a minimal increase on the year before – undermining hopes that making switching easier would lead to dramatic improvements in the competitiveness of UK retail banks.
Santander has launched a group money management app called KiTTI, which is a virtual ‘cash kitty’ that allows groups of people to create a collective pot of money using a mobile app and a prepaid contactless MasterCard.
Nearly half of UK consumers say that faster payments are a factor in their choice of back account provider, with 45% saying that the offer of faster electronic payments would encourage them to switch their bank account provider.
Recent studies suggest that banks in the UK are rebuilding their reputation among consumers and investments in mobile and digital are at least in part responsible –though trust remains fragile and other studies highlight concerns over pricing and transparency. Customer satisfaction across all sectors in the UK has flat-lined over the past six months, but some that regularly attract scrutiny – including banking – have shown signs of improvement,
UK banks rank bottom in a nine-country survey of how well banks match up to customer expectations in terms of rewarding customer loyalty and helping them manage their finance. Overall, the UK banks rank third, behind the US and Germany.
Apple Pay has launched in the UK without the participation of HSBC and Barclays, two of the UK’s largest retail banks.
iPhone devices account for more than one in three mobile transactions, and are used for 10% of all global online transactions, according to new figures published by payment specialist Adyen.
Since the financial crash retail banks are faced with more regulatory and financial restrictions than could have been envisioned. This is coupled with increased levels of competition and much reduced consumer trust. Intelligent analytics may offer part of the solution.
Western Union is to install self-service kiosks in 300 of UK retailer WH Smith’s stores later this year. The kiosks allow customers to enter the details of money transfer transactions and then use the retailer’s self-checkout to pay.
Talking used to be a positive thing. For many years, BT reminded us that it was “good to talk”; whilst in the 1980s the Midland Bank (since acquired by HSBC) promoted itself extensively as “the listening bank”. Now, there is a new breed of bank coming to the UK; one that doesn’t have branches or want a ‘physical’ interaction with its customers
Challenger UK retail bank Atom has received its licence from the Bank of England, meaning it will now be able to go ahead with plans to launch later this year. The bank will add competition to the UK retail banking sector, which until 2010 had not seen a single new entrant for 150 years.
If children trust Google more than they trust a bank, tomorrow’s customers may well hold their money with digital companies instead of traditional banks. That thought worries senior banking industry speakers speaking at the BBA conference in London on Thursday.
Banking by mobile phone and tablet has become the primary way UK customers manage their finance, according to new research published by the British Bankers Association.
Apple Pay will be available in the UK from next month, with eight of the UK’s most established banks and the major credit and debit card networks supporting it – along with Transport for London.
As consumer adoption of mobile devices and social media increases, banks can’t really rely on standard details such as income, age and geography to serve customers better than their competitors, according to a new report by payments company TSYS and software firm FICO. Instead, they may need to recognise the different kinds of customers based on how they interact with digital technology and tailor their services accordingly.
Nearly half of smartphone users do not want to use their device to make contactless payments, mostly over fears about security, according to a survey.
Leeds Building Society is to revamp its customer engagement tools through a ten-year deal with HP Enterprise Services, which will encompass a number of independent software vendors working on different parts of the business. The deal builds on the earlier deal between the two firms in 2013, which focused on the building society’s core banking platform.
The Banking industry is at a digital crossroad as it faces both a wave of technology companies poised to disaggregate every facet of the business and a changing consumer that is increasingly demanding that banks products match the state-of-the-art digital services they are receiving from other industries
India’s Axis Bank has released a mobile payments service called Ping Pay, which allows customers to send money to each other using Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, email or phone number. The bank says the service will help it to reach young consumers and smartphone users.
UK consumers are spending more on their payment cards than ever before, with over a billion transactions in February, according to newly-released figures provided by the UK Cards Association.
UK retail bank Halifax reports that two-thirds of its customers are now using mobile to login, doubling the number of mobile banking sessions compared to a year ago.
Global interoperability of real-time payments systems will require harmonisation of market practices and standards. A group of international clearing houses, banks, vendors, payments associations and other parties have proposed setting up an activity to look at how to deliver this under the aegis of the International Standards Organisation – and set an ambitious target of collating an initial variant of ISO 20022 usage guidelines for real-time payments before the summer.
EMV card usage is increasing almost everywhere in the world as a billion new EMV cards enter circulation – but the US continues to lag behind, despite the fact that liability shifts to the retailer from 15 October this year.
Can the right combination of self-service device management, cash management and end-to-end transaction monitoring enable banks to embrace enterprise-wide performance awareness, and take a holistic approach to managing their multi-channel banking environments?
http://d36omcu95vpmg5.cloudfront.net/webinars/2015/Misys_May2015.mp4 Digital innovation is disrupting the retail banking industry worldwide. Many perceive the trailblazers to be the hot start-ups – creative, legacy-free, pioneering the latest digital and analytics technologies. But established ‘traditional’ banks have the opportunity to reinvent or reinvigorate their brands in the digital world – with an already captive audience and decades […]
As mobile handsets become more prevalent as a tool for retailers, for payments, loyalty and engaging with consumers in and out of the store, security of sensitive data becomes increasingly more important.
