Reality Check on Service Fees
The amount of money banks generate from fees on deposit accounts decreased from $36.2 billion in January of 2011 to $34.1 billion by year end, a drop of $2.1 billion or 5.8%. This is not Read More
Best Practices for Accessing Customer Feedback
With external growth prospects clouded by regulatory fee restrictions and a sluggish economy, bankers are focused on increasing revenue from existing customers. The appeal of this strategy is virtually a no-brainer: it’s far less costly Read More
Fixing the Efficiency Ratio for Community Banks
We have all heard the old adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” So, how do you know it ain’t broke?
There are many measures of success in banking: revenue growth, profitability, market share, Read More
Compliance Burden on Community Banks
Uncontrollable compliance costs are often cited by community banks as a reason for selling out to another institution. Is this true? While compliance costs certainly have risen continually over the past decade, we Read More
Profiting from Customer Intimacy
“Customer intimacy” has become the latest buzz word among bank marketing managers. With little prospects of generating new growth in today’s sluggish economy, banks are pursuing deeper relationships with existing customers, also known as “expanding Read More
Deterring Wire Transfer Fraud
As banks continue to make large expenditures on technology for anti-money laundering (AML) compliance, they would be well-advised to continue employing traditional due diligence and following long-standing and basic Know Your Customer procedures. In Read More
Technological Response to Regulatory Challenges
With Dodd-Frank rulemaking slowing to a crawl (most recently a delay in finalizing the Volcker Rule) and ongoing debate in the European Union about where to go next with regulations in the wake of continued Read More
Five Myths of Mobile Banking
The buzz about mobile banking is at an all-time high so maybe it’s time to take the hype down a notch. Below, we have debunked some common myths about mobile banking so that Read More
Betting on Forward Implied Yields
An astonishing number of bankers (rookies and veterans alike) express the view that the forward implied yield is just another generally inaccurate method of predicting future interest rates.
Those who dismiss “forward implied yield” Read More
Visualizing Payments Data for Customer Analytics
Bankers worry a lot: about regulation, about risk and certainly about revenue.
Ironically, bankers already possess data that can allay most of their worries. They have the data to comply with regulations, mitigate risks and Read More
Strategies for Optimal Teller Scheduling
Workforce utilization management – the process of tailoring staff schedules to meet need and thereby eliminating wasted payroll hours – is an especially complex task when it comes to tellers. Banks want to minimize customer Read More
Moven to All-Digital Banking
It’s no secret that Brett King doesn’t like branches. In the past few years, the business author and consultant has appeared at numerous industry conferences to proclaim that the branch is dead (or dying) and Read More
Leveraging Data with High-Performance Analytics
Financial services firms possess the data to make sound decisions – whether to underwrite a loan, extend an offer to retain a customer or reduce exposure in a certain market. The problem is that the Read More
Banks Gain in Wealth Management Marketing
While banks still face a marketing challenge in selling retirement advice and wealth management services, they are making inroads in competing against traditional brokerage firms and self-service brokerages for “mass affluent” customers.
Forty-three percent of Read More
Stress Tests: What About the Other 7,000?
So far, so good. Fifteen of the 19 largest financial institutions passed the latest round of Federal Reserve stress tests, opening the door for increased dividends and stock buybacks. It is indeed reassuring that Read More
Segmentation Comes of Age
Financial institutions have been using customer data for segmentation purposes for many years in order to target customers for more efficient marketing. What they may not realize is that those segmentation strategies established prior to 2008 Read More
Four Steps to Innovation
One theme that appears consistently on agendas at banking industry conferences is the need for innovation to drive revenue and profitability growth. Yet, most of the pioneers in financial services have been non-bank companies as Read More
Leveling the Playing Field with Vendors
No bank can meet the expectations of its customers without significant help from the third party vendors that supply it with labor, software, hardware and services. Considering the role the vendors can play in a Read More
Certificates of Deposits Out of Favor
Certificates of deposits (CDs) have experienced a dramatic change in consumer demand, interest rate levels and type offered in the last five years. And it’s unlikely that the CD market will return to a more Read More
The Painful Price of Portal Proliferation
If you were appointed the bank’s Chief Waste Officer, where could you quickly make your mark in terms of wiping out serious wasted expense? We have a suggestion: Portals. If your bank is like many, Read More