All articles by Douglas Blakey
Douglas Blakey
Bank of America ramps up mass affluent efforts
Now this is rather interesting. Bank of America has breezed some life into marketing to the mass affluent segment with the roll out of Bank of America Preferred Rewards, writes Douglas Blakey
Virgin reveals debut current account
Virgin Money has unveiled its long-awaited first current account: The Virgin Essential Current Account. It is, says Virgin Money, designed to be simple, fair and transparent. Its appeal will be limited. For starters, it is available only to customers resident in Scotland and Ulster, writes Douglas Blakey
SBI’s INTOUCH concept blazes digital branch trail
The digitalisation of the humble bank branch is the one of the hottest topics in global retail banking right now. In as few words as I can: retail banks need to aim to transform themselves into tech firms holding a banking licence instead of being financial institutions with an IT capability, writes Douglas Blakey
Memo to PRs: the branch is alive and kicking
News today from analysts Juniper Research that globally over 1.75bn mobile phone users will have used their devices for banking by the end of 2019, compared to 800m this year coincides with yet another set of headlines about the impending death of the UK bank branch, writes Douglas Blakey
Am I alone in being underwhelmed? Tesco takes wraps off its current account
Well, at last. Tesco Bank has revealed details of its first current account. First reaction: is this really what we waited three years for.To be fair, we cannot say we were not warned, writes Douglas Blakey
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Virgin Money aims to offer first class branch experience
Virgin has opened the doors to its London Lounge, in the heart of the ‘Theatre District’ of the West End of the city. It offers private banking standards level of comfort exclusively for the use of its mass market customers and membership is free. Douglas Blakey reports
Tablet Banking to overtake m-banking in 6 key European markets: Forrester
An eye-catching forecast hits my inbox from the good guys at Forrester Research. Its report, European Digital Banking Forecast, 2014 to 2018 authored by Stephen Walker and Benjamin Ensor forecasts that more consumers will bank on their tablets than on mobile phones in Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the UK by as soon as 2016, writes Douglas Blakey
Tesco Bank readies current account launch, to roll out digital wallet
By contrast with the year endured by its parent group – the supermarket chain Tesco has had a troubled year – Tesco Bank has grounds for feeling pretty chipper. At group level, for the 12 months to the end of February, group level profits fell by 6% to £3.31bn ($5.6bn), writes Douglas Blakey
Consumers call for more and better PFM tools
Consumers throughout Europe are crying out for their banks to do more to help them manage their increasingly complex financial landscapes. So says ING – and it backs up its claim with some hard stats that will cause PFM sceptics such as the writer to take notice. Douglas Blakey reports