All articles by Hugh Fasken
Hugh Fasken
Wincor Nixdorf looks to m-banking and consultancy
Wincor Nixdorf, the German self-service and ATM leader, is looking to expand its business into areas such as mobile banking and consultancy But the worlds second-largest ATM manufacturer also remains focused on its core hardware proposition as Bradescos use of biometric ATMs in Brazil illustrates.
Tech-led targets drive Deutsche to 2011
Deutsche Bank, Germanys largest commercial retail bank, has outlined strategic goals for 2011 They include a renewed push on fee income and product sales, and the redevelopment of its IT platform in conjunction with Deutsche Postbank based on lean and industrialised processing
RBI Round table: What price customer loyalty?
Representatives from some of the leading banking, payments and loyalty agencies in the UK and Europe met to discuss and debate loyalty in financial services and the overall conclusion was that customer stickiness is more important than ever. In an age of operational cost cutting and greater efficiencies, what place does loyalty and the expanding range of loyalty schemes have in retail financial services and payments?
Postbank outlines three-year targets
The bank, 29.75 percent owned by rival German giant Deutsche Bank, has improved its performance in 2009 after posting a 1 billion ($1.5 billion) loss in 2008, though it remains under pressure in a German market dominated by the countrys state-owned savings banks (Sparkassen), co-operatives and building societies (Bausparkassen).
The prepaid card agenda
Over 300 delegates attended this years Prepaid Cards Summit, held in Rome on 12-13 November The success of Poste Italianes prepaid portfolio, which now has 5.6 million participants, was an excellent indication of the opportunities in prepaid a point the first-rate line-up of speakers keenly discussed.
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The land of the m-bank.
Third Generation phones such as Apples iPhone and Apples vast apps market (see RBI 616, 620) are growing in popularity, and m-commerce business conducted via mobile devices has now become a mainstream industry in its own right
Fiserv, IBM lead 2009 fintech rankings
The annual breakdown of the worlds largest banking technology players and enterprise technology vendors based on revenues has named companies such as Fiserv, Sungard, Fidelity National Information Services, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Fujitsu as leaders in their fields.Fiserv, the US-based financial services solutions provider, has again been named the largest fintech player based on revenues in the leading annual ranking by US publisher SourceMedia and research group IDC Financial Insights.
Robust earnings drive India’s ascent
Indias banks have recorded strong second-quarter earnings, underlining again that the country is in the middle of a financial services boom in sharp contrast to other parts of the world
The rise of the all-powerful Sparkassen
In fact, as Thomas Keidel at the German Savings Bank Association tells Hugh Fasken, they have become even more important.Germanys savings banks the Sparkassen came under intense discussion in the run up to the global financial crisis in 2007. As the dominant retail banking entity in Germany with, collectively, a 40 percent market share and 750 billion ($1.13 trillion) in deposits, the 438 publicly-owned savings banks were labelled as fiercely uncompetitive and a huge block to commercial domestic and foreign banks looking to expand in Europes richest and largest economy.
The state of the European marketplace
In a major new report for VRL, financial consultant Chris Skinner examines the evolution of the Payment Services Directive and Single European Payments Area During the summer of 2009, The Financial Services Club, a UK-based consultancy, ran an extensive research project sponsored by Logica, BT and Earthport in an attempt to get a real sense of the state of transposition of the Payment Services Directive (PSD) and the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA).