All articles by Hugh Fasken
Hugh Fasken
MetLife looks to cross-sell mortgages to insurance customers
Hugh Fasken talks to Timothy Kirchner, vice-president of MetLife Bank, the banking subsidiary of the largest life insurance group in the US He says that cross-selling mortgages via the banks website as well as MetLife insurance agents represents a huge opportunity for the unit, which has 90,000 customers.Four years after Dutch insurer ING pioneered the direct bank-insurance business model in Canada in 1997, MetLife, the largest life insurer in the US, rolled out its direct banking subsidiary in its domestic US market Since 2001 the banking unit has grown surely if not somewhat slowly: it ended 2008 with 90,000 retail savings customers (ING Direct USAs total customer base, in comparison, is 7.5 million)
La Banque Postale launches ‘a new way of banking’ in France
La Banque Postale, Frances mighty postal bank, has underlined its intention to push even further into domestic retail financial services with a major new advertising campaign The banking unit, facing growing competition in France, estimates that 90 percent of French consumers aged between 25 and 49 will see the new campaign.In the middle of a changing French retail banking market, La Banque Postale, the 12,000-branch-strong banking arm of the French post office, has rolled out a major new advertising campaign built around the notion of a new way of banking for France. Focusing on its extensive distribution capabilities, the established role of the French post office in local communities and French society, and a strong customer service ethos, the aim of campaign is to resolutely position La Banque Postale as a serious banking player
Tesco ups gear in retail banking play
Nine months after buying Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) out of their UK retail banking joint venture for £950 million ($1.4 billion), UK supermarket chain Tesco, the worlds third-largest retailer, has said it will open bank branches in 30 of its British stores by the end of 2009 as part of plans to compete head-on with established UK retail banks.
ING starts to shrink itself
ING Group, the eurozones second-largest banking group by deposits, is to make divestments of up to 8 billion ($10.5 billion) almost three times the amount originally planned at the start of the year and reduce the number of markets in which it operates as part of a comprehensive restructuring plan under new CEO Jan Hommen. In order to do so, the banking businesses will shift to an integrated balance sheet, with ING amalgamating its Retail & Commercial Bank and the struggling ING Direct business into a single reporting unit, ING Bank
Service, value, convenience and advice’
Hugh Fasken talks to David McKay, group head of Canadian banking at Royal Bank of Canada The bank now has five million active online customers and next month is expanding its highly successful RBC Rewards loyalty programme to all its consumer banking product categories, not just credit cards. It could be argued that David McKay, group head of Canadian banking at Royal Bank of Canada, has one of the most interesting and responsible and keenly watched jobs in global retail banking at the moment.
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Banking for a new age
Representatives from HSBC, Barclays, Santander, Rabobank and Absa joined RBI and other industry experts for an in-depth discussion on the role direct banking will play in the retail banking sales and service mix over the next few years Retail Banker International had the pleasure of hosting its first round table in March and the key question of direct banking and its role in a cost-conscious world was the topic up for debate
We offer a better proposition’
CFS, looking to merge with Britannia Building Society to form an £80-billion-asset super mutual, posted a 70 percent rise in banking profits for 2008 as record numbers of customers migrated away from commercial banks. The Co-operative Bank benefitted from an upswing of some 640 percent in the number of new customers joining it from Royal Bank of Scotland across the period March 2008 to March 2009
Banks are retailers too’
The project, a seven-year deal initially revealed in RBI in June last year (see RBI 594) before the UK economy went into a nosedive, now means that Lloyds Banking Group controls the largest branch network in the country, some 3,450 branches.
American Depressed
American Express (Amex), which changed into a bank holding company late last year to take $3.4 billion in US government funds, reported a 79 percent fourth-quarter loss in its 2008 results with net income of $172 million.
Refocusing on retail
Hugh Fasken talks to Zvi Ziv, president and CEO of Israels largest retail bank, Bank Hapoalim Despite forecasts of a substantial slowdown in the Israeli economy, he expects his bank to generate a positive return on equity in 2009, with retail and private banking at the heart of its long-term business strategy. Bank Hapoalim vies with local rival Bank Leumi as Israels largest banking group (see RBI 582)