All articles by Douglas Blakey
Douglas Blakey
Deutsche Postbank and Shell offer service station cash withdrawals
Deutsche Postbank, Germanys largest commercial retail institution, has signed a deal with petroleum multinational Shell which will see cash withdrawal and point-of-sale functions united at up to 1,300 Shell service stations across Germany by mid-2010. The service, which is initially being offered at service stations in Hamburg, enables Postbank customers to withdraw cash while paying fuel bills using Wincor Nixdorfs Intelligent Cash Management systems. Postbank envisages making the service available to customers of other banks later in 2009.
RBS limps towards full state control
The worlds largest bank by assets, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), said it expects to report the UKs biggest ever corporate loss up to £28 billion ($41 billion) in fiscal 2008 including an expected impairment charge of between £15 billion and £20 billion on its involvement in the disastrous 2007 acquisition of ABN AMRO. News of RBSs crippling trading position on 19 January coincided with the UK government launching its second multi-billion pound rescue plan for its banking sector, including an asset protection scheme under which banks will be able to insure large-scale loan losses, a mere four months after investing £37 billion in RBS, Lloyds TSB and HBOS.
UK commission ban set to reshape industry
In a further sign of the sweeping regulatory changes taking place in the UK, the countrys regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), is planning to ban financial advisers, including those working for retail banks, from receiving commissions for selling investment products, in an attempt to ensure recommendations made by advisers are not influenced by product providers. The RDR is about regaining consumer trust and confidence in the retail investment market, building a more sustainable sector and making it easier for people to find their way around and get the help they need this is more important now than ever before, said Jon Pain, FSA managing director of retail markets
French superbank BPCE set for August debut
The government-sponsored merger of Caisse dEpargne and Banque Populaire, to form the countrys third-largest retail bank after Crdit Agricole and La Banque Postale, is on target for a 3 August launch. The new bank, to be known as BPCE, taking the initials of Banque Populaire and Caisse dEpargne in capitals, will be 20 percent state-owned and have around 34 million customers, around 8,200 branches, (exceeding both BNP Paribas and Socit Gnrale), 110,000 employees and over 7 million members. BPCE will also have deposits of around 480 billion ($675 billion), 22 percent of total French banking deposits, revenue of about 17.5 billion and Tier 1 capital of 36.5 billion
Banks dominate Chinese branding survey
The financial services sector continues to dominate the Hurun Institutes Most Valuable Chinese Brands list, providing 20 of the top 100 brands in the 2009 survey. China Mobile tops the list for the third year running with a brand value of $29.3 billion, followed by three banks: ICBC, China Construction Bank and Bank of China Agricultural Bank of China (7th) and Bank of Communication (8th) also featured in the top 10 with China Merchants Bank (12th) and China Citic Bank (18th) best of the rest.
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Intesa to restructure bancassurance unit
Italys second-largest bank, Intesa Sanpaolo (ISP), is to significantly reorganise its bancassurance business and has asked the countrys antitrust authority to remove an obligation to sell its bancassurance unit Sud Polo Vita. The sale of Sud Polo Vita was ordered by the regulator as part the merger two years ago between Banca Intesa and Sanpaolo IMI. The aim is to set up a single company serving the groups banking networks and a life company at the service of the financial advisors of Banca Fideuram, the bank said in a statement.
Chase jacks up card fees
In what is expected to be the first of a series of such announcements by US banks, Chase, the retail arm of JPMorgan Chase, the largest credit card issuer in the US by cards outstanding, is to raise balance-transfer fees to 5 percent from August, just as legislation designed to limit interest-rate increases comes into force. The Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act, signed off by President Obama on 22 May, also requires issuers to apply payments to balances with the highest interest rates first and prohibits universal default, a practice that increased rates on existing balances if cardholders missed payments to other lenders, even if their card accounts were in order (see RBI 613). Chase CEO Jamie Dimon had estimated that the new regulations could cost his bank about $500 million; its card unit reported Q1 losses of $547 million and analysts do not expect it return to the black this year
Nigeria set for further wave of consolidation
The odds on a fresh wave of consolidation among the Nigerian banking sector have shortened markedly following comments from the recently appointed central bank governor, Lamido Sanusi, the former CEO of First Nigeria Bank, who told reporters he was prepared to relax the rules relating to foreign ownership of the countrys banks. An initial consolidation programme launched five years ago cut the number of financial institutions in Nigeria to 25 firms from 89, but a second wave of deals has long been anticipated, fuelled by the ongoing global banking crisis. Since 2004, the only banking merger of note in the country has been South African-based Standards purchase of Nigerias IBTC Chartered in August 2007, subsequently merged with Standards Stanbic Bank subsidiary to form Stanbic IBTC.
Japanese suspension adds to Citi gloom
Citis annus horribilis has now extended to Japan in the form of a one-month suspension of all retail sales activities at its 35-strong-branch network, including advertising and marketing activity, as a result of a failure to comply with local regulations relating to suspicious transactions, including money laundering The ban, imposed by the countrys Financial Services Agency, runs from 15 July to 14 August and is the banks second such suspension in Japan in the past five years To add to the banks embarrassment, it was also ordered to revamp its corporate governance structure and internal controls.
ICICI teams with mChek to boost mobile channel
Indias largest private sector bank, ICICI, has partnered with local technology vendor mChek to boost the banks mobile payments offering for its debit and credit cardholders. In terms of the deal, ICICI will issue electronic cards to customers with the mChek application on their handsets while the card data is stored in an encrypted format on the phone to boost security. The service will enable customers to make bill payments, top up prepaid phone balances, make money transfers, pay insurance premiums and buy travel and movie tickets.