All articles by Hugh Fasken
Hugh Fasken
A price war breaks out in Australia
Retail banking fees have become a hot potato across the world over the past two years In Australia, in particular, the issue continues to shape the countrys banking industry, especially since the latest survey by the central bank found that banking fees rose 7.9 percent year-on-year.Two months after a critical survey of banking fees in Australia, and a price war has broken out The countrys banks had already begun to compete on ATM fees under self imposed reforms spurred on by the Reserve Bank of Australia (see RBI 605, 608)
M-Pesa transfers up 718% year-on-year
In developing markets where the majority of consumers are unbanked, person-to-person transfers using a mobile phone have emerged as a powerful and potentially disruptive payments and banking mechanism The most successful programme of its type is the M-Pesa service in Kenya, and it has reported a bumper year.Safaricoms wildly successful person-to-person (P2P) and mobile banking service, M-Pesa, saw the number of registered users skyrocket from 2.075 million as of March 2008 to 6.175 million at the end of March this year an annual growth rate of 198 percent
UK deposit auctions competition hots up
The recent growth in the popularity of websites running live auctions where banks compete to provide the best rates of interest has extended to the UK, with the launch on 22 July of Licuro.com, five months after rival Maxbips.com set up shop (see RBI 607) Licuro, based on Europes first and largest online interest rate auction house, mybanker.biz, founded in Denmark in 2002, is being targeted at individuals, companies or organisations looking for competitive interest rates on deposits of over £12,000 ($19,676) for a fixed term of between 14 and 730 days.
French, German banks press ahead with Monnet debit project
A number of leading French and German banks, including Socit Gnrale, BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank, remain committed to establishing a European debit-card payment scheme in a direct challenge to the current duopoly of Visas V Pay and MasterCards Maestro.
US earnings rise, but cards collapse
Contrary to a year ago, when retail banking businesses helped support critically damaged investment banking units (indeed, investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley changed their legal structure to become deposit-taking entities as a means to receive federal support), it is the capital markets and investment banking arms of the big banks now supporting enfeebled retail banking divisions. JPMorgan Chase, largely viewed as having navigated its way through the chaos the best of any bank in the US, reported second-quarter 2009 net income of $2.7 billion, an increase of 36 percent compared with net income of $2 billion in Q208
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UK intensifies banking reform agenda
The UK Treasury has published a consultation document, Reforming Financial Markets, dealing with a wide range of subjects including consumer protection and risk management, largely backing up proposals set out in a report published in March by Adair Turner, chairman of regulator the Financial Services Agency (FSA). Proposals to ban lenders from raising borrowers credit card limits without their consent, sending out unsolicited credit card cheques or increasing interest rates on existing debts are also contained in the document, together with a tightening of the regulations relating to second-charge mortgages.
Insurance helped US banks in the downturn
US banks that sold insurance during 2008 were generally more profitable than those that had no involvement in insurance, indicates a study by data research firm Bank Insurance Market Research Group (BIMRG). Overall median net income for all 7,563 banks fell from $1.071 million in 2007 to $686,000 in 2008, a decline of 36 percent, noted BIMRGs managing director Andrew Singer.
Wells Fargo tops US web league
Wells Fargo, still digesting the mighty Wachovia franchise, has come top in a leading survey of online services in the US beating not just all other US banks but a host of web-savvy retailers, entertainment sites and other consumer-focused corporations One of its more successful applications has been m-banking.Wells Fargo, now the largest US banking group ranked by branches (over 10,400 stores according to RBIs Superbanks survey see RBI 615), is now also the best in terms of its online banking set-up
National Australia Bank in free ATM joint venture
National Australia Bank (NAB) and Cuscal have entered into an agreement to create an ATM network of more than 3,100 terminals in Australia. Under the agreement, NABs 1,700 ATM fleet will combine with the Cuscal-managed 1,400 rediATM sub-network of more than 100 participating retail financial institutions, to create one of the largest ATM networks in Australia
Sberbank’s Q1 profit falls 98 percent to $19m
Russias largest banking group, Sberbank, has reported first-quarter net profit down 98 percent year-on-year to RUB600 million ($18.7 million). The bank, 60 percent owned by the Russian state, said that the quality of its loan book deteriorated off the back of a worsening economic environment both in Russia and globally: non-performing loans (NPL) totalled RUB190.7 billion at 31 March 2009