All articles by Dan Jones
Dan Jones
Thinking smart about savings
Singapores OCBC has emulated Western peers such as Bank of America and Wachovia with the launch of SmartChange, an automatic savings programme that rounds up loose change into a linked savings account, becoming the first bank in Asia to roll out such a service Dan Jones reports.OCBC Bank has launched a new savings scheme based largely on Bank of Americas highly successful Keep the Change programme, as the Singapore bank looks to tap into consumer trends in a market that has now entered its second recession of the decade The SmartChange programme rewards customers for using OCBC credit or debit cards by rounding up every purchase to the nearest dollar and passing the difference to an OCBC savings account
TCS looks to retail banking
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) $505 million purchase of Citigroup Global Services will add a phenomenal amount of capability to the companys banking, financial services and insurance division as well as a different level of expertise, said TCS Financial Services president N Ganapathy Subramaniam.
Direct and to the point
Dan Jones talks to Csar Gonzlez-Bueno, general manager at ING Direct and CEO of ING Direct Spain, about the groups strategy.ING Direct has announced ambitious plans to double retail client balances within five years as it looks to use product diversification and multiple price points to maintain growth rates in the face of an economic backdrop very different to the one seen at the banks launch in 1997
A continuing demand for technology
Despite the economic global slowdown and the impact on the banking industry, technology vendors have reported relatively strong results, writes Dan Jones Though fears remain over short-term profit sustainability, longer-term prospects remain strong particularly for Indian outsourcing firms. The worlds leading financial technology companies have so far emerged relatively unscathed from the deepening global slowdown, according, at least, to half-year and quarterly results
FIS takes up m-banking challenge
Fidelity National Information Services (FIS), the worlds largest banking technology supplier measured by contract value, is expanding its mobile banking solutions as it looks to prevent economic headwinds from affecting its strong market position. In a crowded and volatile fintech sector, FIS says it will stick to its strategy of serving a diverse range of banks, ranging from strong global brands to smaller institutions such as credit unions Indeed, community institutions were the single largest source of revenue for FIS in 2007, contributing $1.2 billion out of a total of $2.9 billionThis is particularly pertinent when it comes to m-banking propositions at FIS
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?100 is the magic number
According to benchmark research by RBI, the average profit per retail banking customer for Europe-based banking groups was 100 in the first half of 2008 Overall, Europes banks had a difficult first-half period, with all but a few reporting steep decreases in profit
Tackling fraud head on
Dan Jones talks to David Mitchell, senior manager of operations and fraud at UK bank Barclays, about the groups numerous recent anti-fraud initiatives Barclays has announced that the deployment of hand-held card readers has proved very successful with its UK customers, with around 1.5 million using the system Barclays says its PINsentry digital security system, supplied by Dutch fintech specialist Gemalto, has had a dramatic effect on cutting fraud, with over a million users and higher-than-expected acceptance levels among UK customers
Avoiding the zero sum game
Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), the US-based global IT services giant which operates across industries from aerospace to healthcare, is embarking on a major rebranding exercise later this year as it looks to increase the number of financial services companies it has as clients Michael Arben, director for strategic initiatives in EMEA at Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), and Andrew Crowley, vice-president for financial services consulting in EMEA, told RBI they believe greater opportunities await CSC in a fintech sector that is addressing a host of compliance-related problems against a backdrop of lingering liquidity issues
China’s growing ATM demands
The ATM market in China is booming, with the number of terminals set to reach 230,000 by 2010, according to recent research US-based ATM manufacturer Diebold has just received another Chinese order, this time from Agricultural Bank of China, adding to recent deals from Bank of China and ICBC
The new banking environment
The global ethical retail banking market is growing, catalysed by the likes of HSBC and Bank of America shifting consumer business models along more socially responsible lines One of the earliest pioneers of the market, the UKs Co-operative Bank, argues more banks will turn green