Notch one up for the War on Cash
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.
Retail Banking
Banking on the user-centric experience? Begin with robust data and analytics
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.
Money via email: will Google bring the breakthrough?
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.
Tearing up the financial services value chain
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.
Digital progression in retail banking: Europe’s banks are not fully prepared
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phase of the ‘digital revolution’, while factors such as expensive compliance regulations, poor data management and outdated systems are constraining them from implementing new solutions
eToro prepares to bring social investing to Britain
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.
FIS picks up four-year outsourcing deal at Sainsbury’s
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.
Building a better society
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.
Mobile is there for the taking …
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.
Video: Brett King, Moven, at International Payments Summit 2013
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”.
Plan (TS)B back on as Co-op pulls out of Lloyds branch purchase
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 and Central Valley adopt Fiserv tools
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.
Beyond a joke
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 […]
State banking: reforming the UK infrastructure
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 […]
Dealing with Generation Y
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.
Mobile will kill the traditional bank branch says Brett King
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 launches video banking ATMs
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.
Competition stirs ATM revolution
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.
PFM: looking after the pennies
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.
FSA’s swansong opens a fast track for new entrant banks
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.
Resistant to digital banking? Consumers have never demanded it more.
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.
Mobile bill payments to grow rapidly and migrate to tablets
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 […]
Banking on digital solutions to build trust and innovation
Rising to the challenge of reconnecting with customers, rebuilding trust and renewing the banking experience, banks are starting to explore digital technologies and solutions.
Competition and fair play dominate retail banking debate
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.
USAA Bank enlists talking mobile banking app
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 unveils new “responsible rewards” card
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.
Mixing up the pieces
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?
Study reveals customer motives for switching banks
A majority of consumers would prefer portable bank account numbers to make switching between banks easier, according to a new YouGov poll conducted by BT – and the reasons may surprise advocates of Banking 2.0.
Wincor Nixdorf predicts mobile cash withdrawal explosion
While most large banks in the UK offer a mobile app, some do not yet offer mobile cash withdrawal as a feature. That is likely to change soon, according to Ian Byrne, banking director UK and Ireland at ATM maker Wincor Nixdorf.
Rawbank revamps internet banking services with Clear2Pay
Kinshasa-based Rawbank has selected Clear2Pay’s e-Banking solution to revamp its online and customer loyalty strategy. Since its launch 10 years ago, Rawbank has become the largest bank by total deposits and total assets in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with a network of branches 30+ providing a local service to retail and corporate clients. Rawbank, […]
Ready for retail revival
Today, maximising profit is harder than ever for banks. The large retail banks have been forced to sell off branches and their investment arms are under increasing scrutiny, writes Tim FitzGerald, finance & banking sales manager, Casewise. The need to change – be it adapting to newly-imposed regulatory frameworks, to differentiating yourself from the competition and […]
Inside Eurograbber: the £30m mobile banking heist
In the history of bank robberies, the £30 million stolen by the Eurograbber attack in 2012 ranks as one of the all-time biggest, globally. And when you consider that this sum was stolen from more than 30,000 accounts across 30 banks in four European countries, using malware that affected both PCs and bank customers’ mobile […]
Temenos debuts LiveDesigner at Finovate Europe
Financial systems supplier Temenos made something of a splash at the Finovate Europe conference in London with the launch of LiveDesigner, a dynamic user interface designer.
Banks: bribe customers to stay put …
Hey! Mr Retail Banker, don’t get too worried about the new UK Account Switching regulation that comes into play in September – just offer your customers some money. About 100 quid should do it.
Customer complaints – a.k.a. customer feedback
Payment protection insurance has dominated the coverage of complaints against banks for some time now, but many observers think that it is just the beginning of a wave of grievances about to engulf the retail banking industry.
Mobile to dominate rise in retail bank IT spending
Further evidence that bank IT spending is growing again comes from industry analysts at Ovum, which is predicting overall growth of 3.4% among retail banks, reaching $118.6 billion in 2013, as they focus on “customer satisfaction and revenue growth”.
Banks to go the same way as pubs? OFT boss moots branch sharing to increase competition
UK retail banks could be forced to share branch premises with rivals under plans to increase competition in the market, according to the chief executive of the UK’s Office of Fair Trading, Clive Maxwell.
Customer relationships in a multichannel world
The public perception of banks has been battered in recent years, but financial institutions have been working hard to repair the damage. A key tool in their strategy has been to improve customer service in a multichannel environment.
Citi rolls out “branchless” ATMs in Asia
Citi has introduced a new kind of ATM designed to help customers do virtually all their banking without visiting a branch.
Rise of the machines: banks embrace automation despite the cost
Flawed decisions taken by machines are causing financial services firms to lose customers and suffer unexpected costs, according to new report by the Economist Intelligence unit. Yet retail banks are increasingly turning to technology to assess customers.
