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Bank Systems & Technology: The Blog

« September 2007 | Main | November 2007 »

While Maria Bruno Britz takes a much needed vacation in Hawaii this week — no, I'm not at all jealous — I’m taking over her newsletter duties.

There's a lot of bad news in the financial services sector these days, and I'm sure it's real — problems with subprime mortgages, problems with the investment banking units of large banks, poor quarterly earnings by some of the giant banks, downturn in the national economy, slump in the housing market, deterioration in credit quality, and not-so-encouraging comments by the Ben & Alan Duo saying things could get worse.

Congress introduced legislation on Oct. 22 to combat abuses in the mortgage lending market and "to provide basic protections to mortgage consumers and investors."

There's some VERY good news for bank tech vendors, and there's some PRETTY good news. But the BAD news is, most bank tech vendors don't see the hidden opportunities. First I'd like to explain what might appear as contradictions to anyone who has tracked my previous blogs.

I recently heard about a new approach to aggregation that a firm called Mint is taking. Essentially, it uses Yodlee's platform to aggregate users' credit card and banking balances and then analyzes the data to recommend other products and services to customers. It's an interesting approach, but one that ultimately relies on the consumer wanting to be sold to.

Here’s a bit of news that ties in very nicely with an article I wrote for the upcoming November issue. HSBC has launched a decoupled debit card program where it issues debits cards for merchants so that consumers can earn rewards.

Canada's official full-scale trial of chip and PIN debit transactions begins this month in Ontario. According to Canadian debit card payments association Interac, the new cards will provide consumers with a safer alternative to the old magnetic stripe card, which is the norm in the U.S.

Welcome. My name is Mike Ellison and I am the EVP at Corporate Insight. We’re a firm that looks at the retail experience at a number of banking , mutual fund, and brokerage firms. From time to time, I’m going to be blogging on subjects related to retail banking - particularly the online customer experience. Much of what I will be talking about will come from our experiences in maintaining live accounts at the firms we follow in our research. When we uncover something I feel would generate some lively discussion, I’ll post it and hopefully you’ll chime in with your opinions.

Well, it looks like toy maker Hasbro got the memo about moving to electronic payments. The company now offers an electronic banking version of the classic board game Monopoly. I saw a commercial for the souped up game only recently and couldn't resist writing about it.

I have never viewed more than ten seconds of a Dr. Phil episode, so I apologize in advance if I used the wrong metaphor. And since I'm in an apologetic mood, I should admit up front that I will step on lots of toes in the process of getting across a very important message: "Don't play politics with technology."

For the October issue of Bank Systems & Technology, I wrote a piece on channel preferences and generational differences. The article cited a recent survey from the American Bankers Association that found that 37 percent of all consumers use the branch more often than any other channel, but the number jumps to 47 percent among the 55 and older set.

It happened with gasoline, it happens all the time with your cable bill and now it's happening (again) with ATM surcharges. Several major banks recently announced plans to increase the fees they charge non-customers when using their ATMs.

Fifteen to twenty years ago, it would have been quite ordinary to observe the large number of start-up companies based on a single-product offering under the broad heading of bank tech systems. Major events fed that creativity, including the availability of PCs, document imaging, Internet banking, check clearing legislation, telecom speeds and powerful database management systems. In recent years, however, the scene switched to a different kind of world - that of consolidation. Big companies got bigger, while small privately owned companies disappeared, at least in name.

Another Sibos has come and gone and with it, we hope, many lessons were learned. What I saw as the most prominent message at the show was the fact that corporates the world over want more control, more say over how their payments are processed and how they interact with their banks.

SAP (Walldorf, Germany) has announced that it intends to purchase Business Objects (Paris) for $6.78 billion. The deal is meant to enhance SAP's existing business software, including a full suite of banking solutions, with Business Objects' business intelligence capabilities.

By Maria Bruno-Britz, Bank Systems & Technology

Standards and information have increasingly become the focus of the commercial payments world. Corporates desire a more uniform way of interacting with their banks. Further, as commercial payments become more commoditized, banks need to do much more than simply process payments. They need to provide rich information to accompany those transmissions. All parties know what needs to be done. The trick is actually getting there.

Kenneth Lewis, chairman and CEO of Bank of America, spoke of the role of confidence in financial services, especially in the face of volatile markets during the opening plenary at this year's Sibos conference.

By Maria Bruno-Britz, Bank Systems & Technology

There's always talk in the payments world about the need for greater harmonization and standardization in the ways that payments are processed. That's no less true at this year's Sibos. However, in spite of the calls to action that we hear from the industry, the world still operates along very nationalistic lines. I had a chance to sit with TowerGroup's Ted Iacobuzio, managing director and practice leader for payments, while at the show to discuss such issues.

I don't think so. And here are the reasons.

• Before 2007 even had a chance to show its strength I wrote a blog titled, This is a Pretty Dull Time for Bank Technology." I was hoping to generate some objections, disagreements, differences of opinion or even insults. I didn't get a whimper. Instead, I received a note from the Editor of Computerworld saying a reporter's story and my blog must have crossed in Cyberspace because the idea was the same. She called the industry "dull and boring."

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