Customers expect their interactions to be as short, and as easy as possible, with a satisfactory outcome. This ideal customer experience can be achieved through a combination of the right strategy, the right resources, the right workforce skills and supporting tools and technology . But so many firms still fail to get it right
While a child as young as nine years old can use Facebook and Twitter (despite rules saying users should be over 13), multi-million dollar financial service companies often fall behind in their adoption of social media.
The financial services sector needs to be wary of payments solutions that may be solving phantom problems that are of little relevance to the consumer, according to speakers at the Experian payments conference in London on Tuesday.
UK Treasury officials and senior bank representatives showed diverging views over the future of retail banking at an event hosted by Experian in London yesterday, revealing differences of opinion about how best to reform the sector.
Nationwide Building Society has brought in a new tool from ATM maker NCR designed to protect its customers against card-skimming, a type of fraud in which criminals steal customer data from ATMs.
In early 2009, soon after the global subprime fallout, the official Vatican newsletter published a rather contextual referral for Islamic banking, observing that the ‘ethical principles on which Islamic finance is based may bring banks closer to their clients and to the true spirit which should mark every financial service‘, writes Riaz Akhtar, senior consultant, […]
The latest figures from UK retailers show a significant move to debit cards and new mechanisms like PayPal as consumers shy away from cash and credit cards.
The UK retail banking sector is characterised by a continuing lack of competition and resultant limited customer churn between financial services providers. This has made it difficult even for new market entrants to gain market share from long-standing, less popular competitors, due to the inconvenience and complexity involved in switching banks.
The idea of sending money via email is not entirely new. This month, however, a new financial player entered this arena: Google announced that it will integrate Google Wallet into Gmail.
Traditional finance is not as we once knew it. The internet has completely disrupted the financial services value chain. The banks are struggling to keep up with advancing technology. Understanding mobile, cloud computing, social media, big data and how to utilise each capability are key challenges for the banks to overcome.
Swift’s innovation-focused spin-off Innotribe has announced the five Singapore finalists for its global startup challenge, which aims to help innovative new companies in financial services to develop their ideas and transform them into working businesses.
Across Europe many banks feel unprepared for the next phase of the ‘digital revolution’, while factors such as expensive compliance regulations, poor data management and outdated systems are constraining them from implementing new solutions
Social investment network eToro is to open up shop in the UK, having won approval from new regulator the FCA this month. Founded in 2007, eToro is a social trading network that aims to revolutionise the way retail investors and high net-worth individuals connect with the market.
Ukraine’s Oschadbank has installed a remote banking service that it says will help it to create a single ‘payment ecosystem’ that covers cards, security, payments and transfers.
Two different visions of the future of retail financial services did battle at the Building Societies Association annual conference in Harrogate this week , revealing a dilemma facing UK building societies.
Bank has named FIS as its technology partner to provide a technology platform in a fully-hosted outsourcing deal that will run for the next four years.
In the debate about the future of UK retail banking, the role of the building society is often overlooked, but technological change is playing to their strengths.
Financial institutions have owned the commercial payment space for centuries, but are now seeing a threat to their incumbency from new technologies that have opened up the industry to other business sectors. Mobile transactions in particular are shaking-up banking.
Brett King, founder of Moven, speaks to Banking Technology editor David Bannister about how banks have to cope with the move to a virtual world and the emergence of what he calls “smarter payments”.
Lloyds Banking Group says it is well advanced in plans for the separation of branches that it had hoped to sell to Co-op Bank in compliance with a European Commission ruling following the state aid it was given by the UK government.
US banks Heritage Bank and Central Valley Bank have adopted an account processing tool called DNA from financial technology provider Fiserv. Parent company Heritage Financial says the platform’s flexibility will help the banks grow.
The world is embracing digital technology in every area of economic and social activity, including those that appeared impossible to convert to a digital format completely, such as payments.
A journalist, a politician and a banker walk into a bar … sounds like the beginning of a joke, doesn’t it? Feel free to submit a punchline: personally, I’m starting to think that it would be a very sour joke. With banker-bashing now an established national pastime, the press having spectacularly fouled their own nest […]
At the beginning of March, George Osborne travelled to the English seaside town of Bournemouth to make a speech at the JP Morgan operations centre there. It wasn’t Henry V’s St Crispin’s Day speech, but it may well go down as a watershed moment in the history of the UK financial services sector. Osborne is […]
Banks should pay attention to the needs of a new generation of consumers if they want to secure their business lines for the future, according to Mark Hale, head of payments at KPMG.
Disruptive digital technologies such as mobile and the internet will destroy the established retail banking business models by removing the physical product and replacing it with a digitised bank account, according to Brett King, speaking at the IPS show in London today. “In the old days there was a physical product, and a physical store,” […]
Bank of America has launched a new ATM service that will allow users to have a video conversation with a human teller at the machine.
Technology company NCR has introduced contactless ATMs in Poland that allow customers to withdraw cash without inserting a card, through a joint project with MasterCard and ING Bank Slaski.
A new generation of ATMs that offer customers more personalised services will provide a core tool for increasing levels of banking competition, according to a new report by business consultancy Navigant.
Personal financial management tools have spluttered in and out of fashion, but a combination of mobile, tablet and internet banking uptake may mean their time has come, Recent years have seen the emergence of a plethora of PFM tools, each of which purports to be the best way to keep track of your finances.
Banks in the UK and Ireland need to adjust to changing consumer behaviour as customers cut back on the amount of time they spend banking online and visiting bank branches, according to new research by Accenture.
In future, the possibility of a bank failure will be accepted as a normal market process, and barriers to entry for new start-ups, including a removal of capital requirement obstacles, will be removed, the Financial Services Authority and the Bank of England have confirmed.
In today’s multi-channel age, banks cannot afford to focus all their efforts on a single digital strategy any more than solely on the branch experience – the winners will be those that can see beyond channel-specific efforts and provide a truly integrated offering.
PKO Bank Polski has added a mobile payment service that covers all payment situations using the Mobile Everywhere platform from Stockholm-based Accumulate.
Almost 200 million mobile users will be making bill payments via their mobile by 2017, according to research. According to Juniper Research, there is a growing user acceptance of ‘push’ mobile banking and a sharp rise in tablet adoption that will drive users of transactional tablet banking services. The report also finds that, adoption of […]
Rising to the challenge of reconnecting with customers, rebuilding trust and renewing the banking experience, banks are starting to explore digital technologies and solutions.
Reforms to the UK’s retail banking industry will help bring greater competition and consumer choice – but more needs to be done, according to delegates at the Westminster Business Forum on the future of retail banking in London this week.
US bank USAA Bank has adopted a mobile virtual assistant called Nina, developed by Nuance Communications, which lets customers interact with their bank account in novel ways that simulate a conversation with a real human.
Bank of America has introduced a new credit card that rewards customers with up to £100 annually for responsibly managing their monthly credit card payments.
The introduction of a seven-day account switching service in the autumn is meant to increase competition among UK High Street banks. Will it succeed?
