All articles by William Cain
William Cain
BBVA helps push rise of ‘Facebanking’
Spains BBVA has rolled out a Facebook-only savings account as well as a comprehensive online personal account management system examples, says the bank, of the sort of Intelligent Web 3.0 services that will increasingly define the future of consumer banking
Can a bank sell furniture too?
African Bank took the unusual step of buying out a furniture retailer earlier this year in a move the bank said would give it a competitive leg-up in the changing South African banking market African Bank CEO Leon Kirkinis has shrugged off criticisms of the banks acquisition of retailer Ellerines and says it will succeed or fail on whether it delivers value to customers
The cutting edge of retail banking
Tony Turner, CEO of HSBC Georgia, wants to get the bank up to speed quickly aiming to achieve as much in the first three years as was accomplished in 12 years at neighbouring HSBC Armenia
All to play for
The chairman of Moscow Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Sergey Zaytsev, tells William Cain that foreign interest in Russia remains very high and that he himself is already talking to a number of potential banking partners Illustrating the continuing, strong interest in Russia, Sergey Zaytsev, chairman of Moscow Bank for Reconstruction and Development (MBRD) told RBI that three of Europes largest financial services groups BBVA, Erste Bank and Eurobank have recently been looking at acquiring banks or setting up greenfield banking operations in his country
Billion-dollar branches
The past year has been good for the UKs fifth-largest banking group, Lloyds TSB For years seen as the weakest of the main UK bank groups, seemingly under near-constant threat of being bought, it is now enjoying a stronger business profile as its new seven-year branch revamp programme illustrates
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High leverage model is ‘bankrupt’
HSBCs group chairman, Stephen Green, believes the importance of a strong retail banking franchise has been underscored by the recent credit crisis Green, during a speech at a British Bankers Association conference in London, said the drying up of liquidity in capital markets signalled the end of highly leveraged business models a strategy he described as bankrupt.
Poor US m-banking uptake mars Citi’s global distribution ambitions
Vikram Pandit, chief executive of US banking giant Citi, has told RBI the bank will be as focused on distribution particularly in mobile and internet banking as it was under his predecessor Chuck Prince But it has emerged the bank has managed to attract just 20,000 m-banking subscribers to its CitiMobile service, launched in April 2007 (see RBI 570) In sharp contrast, rival Bank of America revealed on 11 June that it had over one million m-banking users a year after launching its service (see News Digest).
The fairness agenda
Huge bonuses have been handed out to executives at some of the worlds top banks despite disastrous results and massive writedowns Neville Richardson, CEO of the UKs Britannia Building Society, tells William Cain why big bonuses in hard times do not tally with its fairness branding agenda Neville Richardson, CEO of Britannia Building Society, the UKs second-largest mutual, has criticised some of the huge bonuses awarded to banking executives
Virgin continues online finance push
William Cain spoke to CEO Jayne-Anne Gadhia about what might have happened had the deal gone ahead and her future plans for the business.Virgin Money UK, the consumer finance arm of Virgin Group, is to launch a charitable donations website following its sponsorship of the London Marathon continuing the business move into social media financial services
At the cutting edge of banking
Turkey has become a test-bed for some innovative retail banking products, and one of the more interesting players is GarantiBank Personal loans and credit cards are in high demand, according to Ali Fuat Erbil, Garanti’s head of retail banking, though deposit growth is proving harder to come by