I recently attended a conference where one manager, in a discussion of her bank’s Information Technology (IT) strategy and operations, expressed the commonly held belief that “IT doesn’t speak the language of business.” She added Read More
It’s become conventional wisdom in the banking industry to say that the “branch of the future” must evolve from a place where customers primarily conduct transactions to one in which they can seek advice, guidance Read More
The cloud. It seems like everyone from technology pundits to mothers in TV commercials is talking about how computing is moving to the cloud – the delivery of applications to distributed users from a central Read More
Years ago, I went from being the senior operations officer for a large bank in a metropolitan area with a flock of VPs at my disposal to being senior vice president and cashier/operations division head Read More
Making life easier for customers – that’s the key principle underlining the innovative products and services that emerged as winners in the 2011 BAI-Finacle Global Banking Innovation Awards. Spain-based “la Caixa,” Australia’s UBank, New Zealand-based Read More
As 2011 draws to a close, most bankers would agree that the financial services industry is sorely in need of a New Paradigm; the old business models look increasingly strained in the wake of the Read More
With its recent announcement of 30,000 job cuts, Bank of America Corp. has fired the opening shot in an industry-wide move toward deep cost reduction in retail banking. Going into 2012, many other revenue-starved banks Read More
It wasn’t too many years ago that banking could be considered a local industry, particularly in the U.S. It wasn’t until the 1990s that the advent of interstate banking created first regional and then national Read More
People rarely visit their bank branch anymore. Our recent research with a number of European banks shows that visits to their Websites outnumber branch visits by a factor of fifty to one hundred. Meanwhile, app Read More
The decline in branch transactions that has been predicted for the last 30 years is finally happening. Online bill payment and the migration of deposits via image capture to the office, the ATM, and the Read More
In today’s sluggish economy, small businesses have not been showing much appetite for taking out loans, although there have been recent signs of a thaw. This provides a challenge for bankers seeking to Read More
As banks struggle in today’s environment of reduced fee income and weak loan demand, financial institutions need to figure out a way to sell more products to their existing customers. Shifting branch staff away from Read More
One result of the recent and continuing rash of government regulations is a renewed desire on the part of banks and credit unions to drive new sources of revenue and profitability. Yet, where can these Read More
The world is changing and the traditional bank branch needs to change with it. Most retail bankers would agree with that statement, at least in part. As customer transactions migrate from branches to electronic channels Read More
Bankers in any one country may be excused for thinking the challenges they face are unique but the fact is that retail financial institutions across the globe are struggling with common problems in the wake Read More
Cybercrooks are stealing as much as $1 billion a year from small and mid-sized bank accounts in the United States and Europe, according to Don Jackson, a security expert at Dell SecureWorks. Online banking, in particular, Read More
It’s a truism in the industry to say that retail banks need to experiment more with change in an era of shrinking revenue and declining branch traffic but the fact remains that few institutions go Read More
If the crisis of 2008-2009 exposed woeful lapses in the banking industry’s risk management practices, the years since have also revealed a strong need for innovation. Squeezed between declining revenues and excessive overhead, banks around Read More
What’s on the minds of top bank marketing executives these days?
Get ready for a long list, according to Nick Papachristou, executive vice president and director of corporate marketing for Green Bay, Wisc.-based Associated Read More
Delivering capital to the millions of restaurants, small retailers and local service businesses in America poses a unique challenge for the banking industry. Such businesses represent a huge market, their demand for capital is strong Read More