All articles by Hugh Fasken
Hugh Fasken
The quiet franchise
Swedens Handelsbanken Group is ploughing more money into its northern European, non-Swedish retail banking franchise It already has 32 branches in the UK, for instance, and is looking to roll out up to 40 more before the end of the year in markets such as Denmark, Germany, Norway and Finland. Quietly but steadily, Svenska Handelsbanken, Swedens third-largest financial services group, is building a strong branch-based network across northern Europe
The future of distribution in their hands
It is early days for mobile banking and adoption is still low M-banking use does not exceed 1 percent of banking customers in most markets
A decade of retail banking growth
The balance-sheet total of all banks in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) grew by 28 percent in 2006, after a record growth rate of 31.2 percent for 2005, and breached the 1 trillion ($1.4 trillion) barrier for the first time.Looking forward, the retail banking markets in CEE are expected to show major long-term growth potential, with market volume to double by year-end 2011 to 2.5 trillion
M-banking becomes mainstream
Two of Turkeys largest banking groups, Trkiye Bankas and GarantiBank, have announced plans for mobile phone-based banking services at a time when interest in the mobile channel is at an all-time global high. September was a busy month for the development of m-banking: in addition to the launches in Turkey, JPMorgan Chase in the US announced plans for a text message-based banking service (meaning all the Big Five US banking groups now offer some sort of m-banking product) while HSBCs first direct subsidiary said it will be the first group in the UK to offer banking services on Apples iPhone.Trkiye Bankas (IsBank), using a platform from local technology vendor Pozitron, has introduced a Java-based mobile banking and payments application called IsCep
Cetelem continues international push with Russian move
Cetelem, Europes largest consumer finance player, has added Russia to its portfolio of new markets as it continues its strategy of entering high-growth emerging economies and lessening its reliance on its core French business Franois Villeroy de Galhau, CEO of Cetelem, said: Our deployment in Russia is in line with our strategy of international development in high-growth countries, like our recent acquisition in Brazil, Banco BGN
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HSBC’s ATMs go on the defensive
In an effort to quell the significant media and consumer attention focused on bank overdraft fees, HSBC, the UKs largest retail bank, has announced it is programming its 3,500 ATMs in the UK to tell customers if and when a cash withdrawal will cause them to exceed their overdraft limit. From 1 October, HSBCs ATMs will tell its current account customers that they may incur a service fee if they go ahead with a cash withdrawal that takes them over their agreed overdraft limit.Joe Garner, general manager HSBC personal financial services, said that more than 95 percent of HSBC cash withdrawals are now made at ATMs. While they can already check your account balance before you make a withdrawal, few people do We believe that by alerting customers at this point will enable them to make an informed choice about whether to proceed.Garner added that HSBC introduced a Fair Fees Policy in 2002 that waives overdraft fees in a range of circumstances that we consider unfair.This year so far, HSBC has paid out £120 million ($240 million) in overdraft refunds.Rival UK bank Lloyds TSB has rolled out an SMS based text service alerting current account customers if they are close to, or over, their overdraft limit
ING Direct keeps pushing forwards
After ten profitable years pioneering the direct banking model across the world, will ING Direct find the next ten years altogether tougher?Increasing competition and thinning profit margins, coupled with rises in costs, made a serious dent in its profits for the first time in 2007 a 2.6 percent fall in half-yearly profit this year, from 345 million ($480 million) to 336 million in H106, and an even bigger 10 percent fall between the second quarter of 2007 and Q206.It also reported a loss in the UK for the first half of the year (a market it had just begun to make a profit in) and a 67 percent fall in profits in the US.Despite the profit weakness, Dutch insurance giant ING remains bullish on the prospects of its online banking unit
Godzilla awakes
The privatisation of Japans vast postal service operation which begins in October 2007 and is scheduled to finish by 2017 will create the countrys largest savings bank and a significant player in retail insurance.The first phase involves Japan Post being broken into four separate businesses: an insurance company, a savings bank, a traditional mail courier and a post office management company
A new era of treating customers fairly
Harper Wright, the financial capability manager for Bank of America, and Capcos principal consultant Francesco Burelli, discuss the challenge of tackling over-indebtedness in the UK A new era of high consumer debt in the country has lent extra momentum to the FSAs Treating Customers Fairly agenda.
Private equity to look at fintech deals
Private equity to look at fintech deals Research group TowerGroup says private equity firms may start taking more of an interest in the financial technology industry