All articles by Douglas Blakey
Douglas Blakey
ISA searches soar: Greenlight
Leading independent digital marketing agency, Greenlight, has reported that internet searches for the term ISA rates increased by 82% in April compared to January. Greenlights quarterly report, Retail Banking Sector Report Issue 12 noted that by contrast to ISA searches, interest in the term savings accounts fell by 18% in April compared with January. Greenlights figures are unsurprising given the surge in deposits into cash ISAs as the UK tax year end approached on 5 April.
RBI Supplement: Next-Generation Branch Design
Predictions of the end of the branch channel as we know it have become commonplace; they are also widely exaggerated. It is acknowledged that branch visits are down and bank branch closures have accelerated across mature markets for around a decade. On the other hand, there is a growing requirement for banks to decide how to maximise the potential of the branch and, in particular, to work out the extent to which future customer relationships are managed remotely rather than face-to-face. Interestingly, a number of banks have developed a new-found enthusiasm for the branch, as they have learned just how hard it can be to sell or build relationships through digital channels.
Less than 1-in-3 Britons optimistic about money: Santander
A survey conducted for Santander by the consultancy FreshMinds reports that although 69% of people in the UK manage to save something each month, only 1-in 2 people surveyed has £100 or more left in their current account at the end of the month.
RBI Awards: The winners
Standard Chartered has scooped the top honour at RBIs annual industry awards: Global Retail Bank of the Year. StanChart also received the award for Best Online banking strategy. Royal Bank of Canada, BNP Paribas Fortis, ABSA, Dubai Islamic Bank, Itau and DBS each won regional awards for banking excellence. Douglas Blakey reports. RBI received nominations from and on behalf of just under 300 banks for its annual Awards, sponsored by Fiserv. This represented a record number of nominations in the 27 years the awards have been running. Cutting down the nominations to a shortlist of five banks for each category brought out 62 separate banks shortlisted across the 22 Awards categories. Standard Chartered (StanChart) was a worthy winner of the award for Best Retail Bank, Global. It reported record income and operating profit for the ninth consecutive year.
BofA m-banking customers pass 10m; Chase, Wells Fargo not far behind
Bank of America (BofA) mobile banking customer numbers now exceed 10m, up by almost 40% or almost 3m from this time last year. In the past 12 months, BofA m-banking customer numbers have grown at an average rate of more than 40,000 customers every week.
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RBI Awards 2011: winners revealed
Standard Chartered (StanChart) has scooped the top honour at RBIs annual industry awards: Global Retail Bank of the Year. StanChart also received the award for Best Online banking strategy. Royal Bank of Canada, BNP Paribas Fortis, ABSA, Dubai Islamic Bank, Itau Unibanco and DBS each won regional awards for retail banking excellence. RBI received nominations from and on behalf of just under 300 banks.
RBI Awards: Nominations
The shortlist for the 2012 Retail Banker International Awards has now been finalised. In all, there are 22 categories with 62 separate banks nominated, with names such as Standard Chartered, RBC, Chase, HSBC and Itau Unibanco nominated at least three times. Winners will be announced in the next issue. RBI sets out details of a number of the key Awards categories and summarises the reasons for the banks being nominated. Best Retail Bank Global. Abu DhabiIslamic Bank. In the past three years ADIB has more than doubled customer financing assets and attracted over AED27bn ($734.94m) in new deposits; built the balance sheet to AED75.3bn; doubled the number of customers, increased its branch network to 66 and quadrupled the number of ATM’s. Recent new products and services have been launched including SME banking, ladies banking, wealth management, private banking, childrens banking, and Etihad branded cards.
Banking job losses – the worst is yet to come
News the other day that Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is to outsource 215 back office jobs to India is just the latest banking bad news story to make the front pages. According to RBS, shipping out the jobs to India will increase efficiency (at best, debatable) and allow it to improve customer service (pull the other one). David Fleming, national officer of the union Unite, described RBS decision as outrageous. In the next few years, Fleming is going to become more and more outraged; he is in for a very busy time. Since the banking crisis gathered pace post Lehman in 2008, job losses have tended to focus on the back office; investment banking roles have also been scaled back.
Metro Bank turns two
March 2012 marks the second anniversary of Metro Bank obtaining a license from the UK Financial Services Agency to set up shop. Metro Bank chairman Anthony Thomson tells Douglas Blakey that the timing could not have been better to launch the first new UK retail bank for 100 years. Just dont use the word branches. It was not a good start to a far-reaching interview with Metro Bank chairman Anthony Thomson. With that slip of the tongue out of the way Metro Bank operates stores not branches Thomson could not have been more positive as he looked back over the first two years of Metro Banks existence. We have 70,000 customers already and are adding to customer numbers at the rate of 1,500 to 2,000 customers each week.
ING Belgium teams up with Finacle
The Belgium unit of ING has selected Infosys Finacle solution to transform its core banking software. Finacle will power multiple lines of ING Belgiums business including savings and current accounts, deposits and loans ING said that the core banking project will modernise services for its growing customer base in Belgium, deliver operational efficiencies, bring products to market faster and improve customer experience.