All articles by Douglas Blakey
Douglas Blakey
Visa reports credit card spending at ‘pre-recession levels’
UK credit card expenditure has returned to pre-recession levels, but year-on-year growth was the slowest in the last quarter. Visa Europes UK Expenditure Index has reported credit card spending grew for the fifth consecutive quarter, but growth dipped in the third quarter to 7.9%, down from 11.3% and 8.4% in the previous two quarters.
ING bucks trend with 3.5% jump
For the first time in a decade, the amount of deposits held at “cyber” branches of banks in the US is on the decline. In the 12-month period to 30 September, total deposits in the US dropped by 2.4% to $132.4bn. The amount of online deposits as apercentage of total deposits also fell, by 10 basis points from 1.8% last June to 1.7% in June this year.
Santander to miss full-year targets
The third quarter was affected by Bank of Spains new regulations for provisions, which meant a one-off allocation of 693m, resulting in profits of 6.08bn in the first nine months of 2010, 9.8% lower than in the same period of 2009.
RBC to focus on domestic retail strength
Canadas largest lender by assets, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), is to focus its efforts on growing income from its domestic retail operations. It is to augment an ongoing branch investment programme involving touch-screen computer displays and high definition video systems with increased investment in its low-cost digital platforms. Third quarter net profit at RBCs domestic retail unit increased by 14% to C$766m ($749.9m) compared to the same period last year.
BofA sets out new retail fees strategy
Bank of America, (BofA), the biggest retail lender in the US, is to introduce a variety of new customer accounts in order to generate more revenue from its retail business. BofA president and CEO Brian Moynihan told analysts “We were too customer-friendly in terms of the decision we made on charging.”
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Fiserv remains top of industry power list
This years ranking of the fintech industrys 100 leading players is again led by Fiserv, but looking ahead 12 months, its position at the head of the rankings is under threat from FIS. Fiserv, the Wisconsin-headquartered end-to-end business and technology solution provider, has been ranked first in every annual FinTech 100 listing other than 2007 when it was nudged out by FIS since the survey debuted in 2004. Karen Massey, senior analyst for consumer banking at IDC Financial Insights, co-authors of the report, said: “We will likely see a new top seed next year in FIS with its late 2009 acquisition of Metavante which ranked 10th in 2008
IE launches mobinetic
James Richards, director of mobiles at IE, told RBI: “Mobinetic gives banks a platform that they can roll out in under 90 days without having to invest in product development in-house, wait for a common standard or to see which mobile operating systems prevail.
ANZ beats forecasts with 33% rise in full year profits
ANZ has posted an underlying profit for the 12 months to 30 September of A$5.0bn ($5.07bn), up 33% on the previous year. ANZs retail unit reported an 8% rise in profits despite a fall in the net interest margin in the second half due to higher wholesale funding costs and intense deposit pricing competition
Regulation, trust and recovery
Sibos 2010 kicked off for one week on 25 October in Amsterdam, with 8,000 attendees expected at Europes biggest banking conference of the year Organised by the member-owned cooperative SWIFT the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication the event is now in its 37th year, reports Douglas Blakey. With headline speakers including Stephen Hester, CEO, Royal Bank of Scotland; Om Prakash Bhatt, chairman, State Bank of India; Hans van der Noordaa, CEO, Banking Benelux, ING and Martin Blessing, CEO, Commerzbank, Sibos 2010 in Amsterdam was built around three major themes.
Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank posts record quarterly profit
Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) has posted a record quarterly net profit of AED314.5m ($85.6m) in the third quarter, 31.3% up on the corresponding period a year ago.