All articles by Douglas Blakey
Douglas Blakey
Diebold seals UniCredit deal in Hungary
The Hungary country unit of UniCredit has rolled out new generation Diebold Opteva ATMs featuring self-service deposit. According to UniCredit, it is the first bank in Hungary to offer automated deposit services. Following a successful pilot project, UniCredit will deploy 60 ATMs featuring cash deposit-enabled ATMs by the end of the year, with the aim of improving efficiency and boosting customer service.
Callatay, Wincor, team up to modernise BPS’ IT infrastructure
Callata & Wouters and Wincor Nixdorf have announced that they have teamed up to implement the formers Thaler software platform for Polish retail banking group Bank Polskiej Spdzielczoci (BPS). Headquartered in Warsaw, it has a network of about 80 branches serving retail, small- to medium-sized businesses and corporate clients, with the bulk of its offices located in Southeastern Poland.
SBI rolls out Mobicash m-banking trial
State Bank of India (SBI) has rolled out a mobile banking project in New Delhi and Mumbai dubbed Mobicash to target the unbanked segment of the market. Mobicash will offer customers the option to load cash onto their mobile phone handset in a joint venture with service provider, Oxygen. A one-off fee of INR60 ($1.20) will be charged to customers registering to use the service with Mobicash requiring a minimum opening deposit of INR200.
Citi fine tunes India segmentation strategy with Citibanking
Citigroup’s India-based retail banking unit has launched ‘Citibanking’ aimed at customers who maintain a minimum balance of INR200,000 ($4,002) with the bank. The sector consists primarily of salaried professionals as well self-employed individuals with an annual income of between INR300,000 and INR1.5m.
Standard Bank of Namibia goes live with Finacle platform
Migration to the new system kicked off in 2009 and was completed last month, in line with the regulatory requirements of the Namibian Central Bank. Standard Bank chairman Herbert Maier said that the new system will empower the group to derive optimal value from data at its disposal and meet a whole range of operational, business and strategic objectives
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Canadian mortgage price war breaks out
From 11 March, BMO is running a three week price promotion offering a five year mortgage at 2.99% and a 10 year deal at 3.99%.
PNC targets $50m savings from greater use of ATMs
PNC, the sixth-largest US bank by deposits, has announced ambitious chanel cost-savings targets based on greater customer use of ATMs. At present, only 10% of PNC customers use ATMs to make a deposit with only 1% of customers using them to cash a cheque. PNC is aiming to raise these percentages to 40% and 20% respectively as part of a cost cutting strategy designed to save $50m.
OTP FY11 net profit falls by 29%
Hungary-based OTP has reported a full year net profit of HUF83.8bn ($377m), down 29% year-on-year following a fourth-quarterly loss, its first quarterly reverse since the final quarter of fiscal 2008. OTP was hammered by a Hungarian-government sponsored scheme enabling foreign currency mortgage customers to repay loans early at a market discounted rate. OTP said that almost 20% of its foreign exchange mortgage customers took advantage of the scheme, hitting OTPs bottom line by HUF31.6bn in 2011.
BBVA snaps up failed Unnim Banc, doubles market share in Catalonia
BBVA is to acquire failed Catalonia-based lender Unnim Bank following an auction conducted by Spains Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring As a result of the deal BBVA will become the second largest bank in the Catalonia region by loans and the third-largest by deposits. Unnim has assets of around 29bn ($38.5bn), total loans of 17.5bn and a customer base of around 1m served by 561 branches.
ING Direct sets the standard for UK customer service: DigitalMR
ING Direct has ranked top for positive customer comments online among UK lenders, according to the Web Listening Report from social media research specialists DigitalMR. At the opposite end of the scale, HSBC accounted for 28% of negative customer comments. DigitalMR analysed thousands of customer comments about high street banks for the month of November 2011