All articles by Verdict Staff
Verdict Staff
Global banks take short-term view with risk management priorities – SunGard
A global study has found that banks continue to take a short-term view when it comes to risk management priorities, impacting future competitive advantage and profitability.
UKs Payments Council announces the 33 banks in account switching service
The Payments Council, a body that oversees UK payments strategy, has revealed a list of banks that will participate in the new current account switching service when it launches in September 2013.
Not a bot at BofA, just what “social banking” looks like
So people seem to think the Bank of America Twitter account set up to “help” you with your account is a bot. My money would be on a flesh and blood human but we will probably never know if @BofA_Help was sending out automated tweets, not that you would not be able to tell the difference anyway, writes Billy Bambrough
Could digital banking be the saviour of the branch?
Bank branches are becoming less and less important aren’t they? We have seen a continuous flow of news articles proclaiming the end of the branch since the late 1990s when we were all thinking that this new phenomenon, the internet, would in only a few years, make face to face transactions a thing of the past. We had just seen the rationalisation of the branch network with back office functions being moved into huge service centres and only a skeleton sales office remaining on the high street. Now there was a much greater threat, writes Jerry Mulle
Are you omniscient about ‘omni-channel’ banking?
While many banks are jumping on the bandwagon of adopting digital channels – fuelled by the fear of customers attrition, combined with the attraction of cutting cost:income ratios – a digital banking strategy alone will not provide the panacea these banks seek. Alex Bray, retail channel director at Misys, considers the need of an ‘omni-channel’ banking strategy, which puts the customer interaction at the heart of the strategy.
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Benefits Culture
The local benefits conundrum has gripped the UK press over the last 12 months. There are calls for changes coming from all corners of the country. Critics are adamant that the current benefits structure is seen to reward the wrong behaviours. I for one feel that the UK banking industry is going through a similar benefits crisis. The culture of proving and demanding big benefits has been at the core of UK banking’s failure to move on from legacy processes, technology and products. Approving a project because it meets an artificial benefit figure should never be your sole decision criteria, writes Michael Nuciforo
US to witness “dramatic” bank branch reduction – Celent
After 40 years of building branch networks, the US is to witness a massive reduction in operating branches, according to a new report from Celent: Branch Boom Gone Bust. Katy Maydon takes a closer look a the report
Sustainable banking: a model in transition
Access to microfinance is undergoing significant change, both from a demand and supply perspective, but the most significant challenge to its long term success will be the ability to create a self-sustainable model of financing, argues José Francisco de Conrado, chairman of MicroBank
Augmented reality in FS – Got your Goggles?
Mobile banking’ is not a very precise term. Today, we know it as meaning using your mobile phone for banking. However, back in the late 1990s, all that it meant was SMS banking. If your bank was particularly advanced, it may also have meant a WAP-based mobile banking service. It has only been since the launch of smartphones in the mid-2000s, that ‘mobile banking’ has come to mean a browser- or mobile app-based banking service, writes Alex Bray
Why are Contactless Payments so Difficult?
In the UK alone, there are now over 30m contactless cards in circulation. As someone in the payments industry who knows what to do when they see a contactless sign at the till, there is still a great deal of work to be done to make tapping for payments an everyday habit. Apart from ‘reconditioning’ the public that it’s now secure and safe to tap your card instead of inserting the Chip into the reader with a PIN, the POS usage experience and awareness level at merchants needs some more work, writes Paul Bartholomew-Keen