Banks have known for a while that retail online banking customers are typically more profitable, but recent research suggests that this is true of small business customers, as well. Looking at companies with $100,000 to $10 million in annual sales, Barlow Research concludes that online banking customers are more likely to purchase additional products from their primary bank and interact with that bank through multiple channels. However, they are also more likely to experience an error.
If there's one thing that holds up lines at the checkout counter . it's people writing checks. A recent survey by Visa
found that that shoppers using debit cards or credit cards pay for their purchases nearly three times faster than check-writers. The study also estimates that Americans waste approximately five hours a year standing in checkout lines.
Demand for expedited payments, which enable people to pay bills at the last minute, is booming, with growth averaging 42% for 2004 and at least 29% this year, according to TowerGroup Inc. A recent report by senior analyst Elizabeth Robertson notes that ACH debit (43% of volume) and cash (32%), or walk-in payments, are the most widely utilized payment methods in this category, followed by credit cards at 13%. See related Banking Strategies article.
Consumers are reluctant to turn off paper media for fear of giving up what they perceive as permanent, convenient and safe records.»more
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PAPER STATEMENTS: EXPENSIVE AND LESS SECURE
Printing and mailing paper statements can cost banks between 55 cents to 75 cents per month per customer, according to a recent report from Javelin Strategy & Research. Online statements, of course, cost nearly nothing. But as motivated as financial institutions are to wean their customers off the pricey paper and despite more than a decade's worth of explosive growth in online banking, relatively few customers have budged.
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E-MAIL ENCRYPTION: OVERKILL OR NO? How secure can e-mail be made, and how secure does it need to be? Not everyone agrees.
Bank Web sites do use secure socket layer (SSL) encryption, which protects e-mail passing through servers. But much of the e-mail sent by banks to customers and vendors is not encrypted, leaving those messages vulnerable to would-be fraudsters. »more
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A CHECK 21 SPOT CHECK Our spot check of the impact of Check 21 (we couldn't let Friday's one-year anniversary of the implementation date pass without a mention) touches on remote capture, substitute checks, new purposes for ATMs, returns processing gains, suppliers and contaminated checks. »more
» SHARED EMPLOYEE DATABASE AIMS TO STOP HIRING MISTAKE An industry initiative designed to keep financial institutions from hiring one another's fraud-perpetrating employees was unveiled yesterday to a largely receptive audience at BAI's 11th Annual Combatting Payments & Check Fraud Conference in Las Vegas. »more
