All articles by Hugh Fasken
Hugh Fasken
Intesa Sanpaolo, BNP Paribas reach agreement on Findomestic
Intesa Sanpaolo and BNP Paribas have reached an agreement on Findomestic, the large Italian consumer credit company 50 percent owned by each group. Under the terms of the agreement, Intesa Sanpaolo is to sell its stake to the French group in two stages: 25 percent in 2009, with the remaining stake to be sold between 2011 and 2013 by choice of the BNP Paribas Group as either a purchase on the part of the BNP Paribas Group itself, an IPO or a sale to a third party The value of the first 25 percent stake is equal to 500 million, while the value of the remaining stake is to be determined, within a range of 350 and 650 million.
Barclays pioneers new media wave
Barclays Waterslide marketing campaign has now become the number one free downloaded application or app on the Apple iPhone in 57 countries worldwide Barclaycards Waterslide promotional campaign, originally launched in late 2008 as a means of promoting its line of contactless debit and credit cards, has been one of the most successful financial services advertising campaigns in recent memory, with 9 million consumers having engaged with the campaign in the online space alone. But it is the Waterslide Extreme Apple iPhone game, launched in July this year, that is the most interesting aspect of Barclays campaign and a stark illustration of the power of both social media and mobile commerce in retail financial services
Barclays to buy Citi’s Portuguese credit cards
UK lender Barclays Bank has agreed to acquire the Portuguese credit card business of troubled US bank Citigroup Barclays will acquire approximately 400,000 credit card accounts, gross assets of approximately 644 million ($949 million) of which substantially all relate to receivables, as well as Citibanks employees. Barclays has said it intends to integrate the business into its existing Barclays Portugal business, which is part of the Barclays Global Retail and Commercial Banking Western Europe division.
JPMorgan Chase’s Q3 income up 85% y-o-y
JPMorgan Chase has reported net income of $3.6 billion for the third quarter, an 85 percent year-on-year increase that has again been driven by strong investment banking and asset management figures but hampered by underperforming retail financial services (RFS) and card units. Though Chases retail banking sub-segment reported an 8 percent quarterly rise in net income to $1 billion, this was offset by a $1 billion loss in the consumer lending unit
Bank of America invests in the Merrill Lynch ‘wealth brand’
Bank of America (BofA) has re-launched the Merrill Lynch brand just over a year after the banks highly controversial, politically engineered $20 billion acquisition of the group at the peak of the financial crisis last September BofA has resurrected MLs famous bull icon as a part of a major marketing push called help2, officially launched on 5 October across television, radio, online and in a variety of daily and weekly publications and trade magazines
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France’s BPCE puts cross-border M&A deals on the agenda
BPCE, the recently formed French banking giant, will publish a four-year plan at the start of 2010 which will focus in part on international acquisitions, a spokesperson for the bank told RBI BPCE, which was formed in July through the merger of Banques Populaires and Caisses dEpargne, recorded a pro forma net loss of 757 million ($1.1 billion) in the first half of 2009. The group has 8,200 branches, making it the third-largest after La Banque Postale and Credit Agricole in terms of network, and 37 million customers
Dutch state takes control of DSB Bank
DSB Bank, a mid-tier Dutch retail bank with a 0.5 percent share of mortgages and 15 percent share of consumer loans, has been taken over by the Dutch central bank after it had failed to sell the lender to a consortium of local banks
Non-cash payments keep rising
The overall conclusion from the latest World Payments Report is that non-cash payment volumes continue to rise despite the fraught economic backdrop of 2007 and 2008 The report, published in September by consultancy Capgemini, Royal Bank of Scotland and the European Financial Management & Marketing Association (EFMA), covers the global payments industry up to the end of 2008 and states: Continued growth in non-cash payments indicate that the strength of the market depends more on infrastructure, end-user education and user preferences than on overall market conditions.
Online now the top retail banking channel in the US, says ABA
For the first time since client preferences were recorded by trade body the American Bankers Association (ABA), the countrys retail bank customers prefer to do their banking online compared to any other method. According to a recent ABA report, 25 percent of those surveyed named internet banking as their preferred channel, compared with branch-banking (21 percent) and ATMs (17 percent). The report added that the online channel was the preferred channel among all age groups under 55; for those aged over 55, the branch topped the poll with ATM use second.
UK Ombudsman names and shames UK banks
The UK Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has, for the first time, named and shamed UK banks, insurers and credit card issuers in terms of customer complaints in an effort to encourage better self-policing (see table below) The move is further indication of a stiffening regulatory environment in the UK in the wake of the financial crisis. In all, the FOS received 69,841 complaints in the first half of the year