As the banking industry’s ability to generate fee income comes under pressure from recent regulatory actions, financial institutions will inevitably need to place more focus on front-line sales effectiveness, particularly in the branches. Easier said Read More
Life is not easy for community banks these days. Like the rest of the industry, they struggle with increased regulatory burdens and costs while dealing with the added disadvantage of competing with larger national and Read More
The airline business has never been an easy one in which to make a profit as the companies routinely cope with roller-coaster fuel costs, fare wars and heavy government regulation, a tumultuous environment that tends Read More
Bank marketing and product management executives have arguably never faced a greater challenge than they do today in the wake of recent regulatory changes involving overdraft fees and debit card interchange and even more heightened Read More
Faced with a slow-growth economy and shrinking revenues, bank managers are pulling the only lever they have left: expense control. Rather than looking to massive across-the-board cuts to boost returns, most financial companies are seeking Read More
The recent financial crisis and continuing impact of a slow growth economy and increased regulation has focused financial institutions on the need to be more agile and innovative. This requires greater flexibility from the technology Read More
Innovation is something that comes and goes in banking like chief executives and heads of risk … as in it appears and disappears pretty often.
During the build up to the financial crisis, innovation was everywhere. Then Read More
Banks across the nation continue to robustly target the small business customer as a prime source of revenue and differentiation although the going has been tough lately. This sector of the market has been Read More
Before Captain Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger III taxied US Airways Flight 1549 to take-off on January 15, 2009, he and his co-pilot took out the pre-flight checklist for the Airbus A320 and went through Read More
I am no fan of needless regulation. The industry has enough to deal with right now with Dodd-Frank, a new (and leaderless) Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, derivative regulations and the like. But I question the Read More
To the banking institutions that spend millions of dollars every year in the pursuit of satisfying customers, Jeffrey VanDeVelde has a bold statement to make – you’ve got it all wrong. VanDeVelde, director of client experience Read More
The first time we were asked to map the Information Technology (IT) infrastructure of a large financial institution, the picture we drew could have been titled “Rootbound.” On the surface, the technology appeared to be Read More
Many industry analysts and practitioners clearly believe the future of retail banking requires a dramatic reduction in the absolute numbers of bank branches across the U.S. In a recent column, banking investor and analyst Tom Read More
Mired in a long-term revenue drought, the retail banking industry now must deal with the reality that the current branch banking model is unsustainable. Along with eroding sales productivity, today’s staff-intensive outlets are sliding in Read More
Over the last year, almost every strategic technology planning discussion or project in which I participated focused in large part on alternative delivery planning. Most banks are asking a variant of two questions: How do we Read More
For a good decade or more, when it came to knowing the customer, the banking spirit was willing but the technology was weak. Now, new strengths in analytics make it possible for banks to rise Read More
With customer loyalty in the financial services markets still in flux, banks have an opportunity to strengthen consumer relationships through rewards programs that are relevant to their customers. This is particularly important because as many Read More
Much has been written about the opportunity for banks to advise affluent customers on retirement planning. Indeed, Mercatus has seen the importance of retirement as a financial priority hold steady year after year in our Read More
Let’s face it, consumers are not rational in their purchase and use of checking accounts. Instead, they make decisions affected by their emotional needs, particularly concerning simplicity, acceptance and immediate gratification.
While some of us Read More
As banks struggle with the current environment of weak revenue growth, effective cost-control returns to the fore. This provides the Collections function with an opportunity to demonstrate its value to the organization not only by Read More