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Trends in Financial Services

A community to discuss the future of financial services and any other interesting trends, strategies, ideas, views.

Elton Cane

Elton Cane Digital product delivery at News Corp Australia

Bank branch technology and the leapfrog effect

I was talking today to Andreas Andreades, CEO of core banking system vendor Temenos, about the company's tie-up in the US with Metavante (more on that in my next post). Something he said as an aside particularly caught my attention: "Bank customers in Thailand get a better in-branch experience than bank customers in the UK." The context ...

/retail

Retired Member

Retired Member 

More on recovering bank charges

I too have been trying to recover unnecessary charges; from my bank of choice, The Abbey. About two weeks ago I sent in my £10 cheque (It took me a while to remember where my cheque book was and blow all the dust of it) and my request for my last six years of statements. To my amazement they replied yesterday with FOURTEEN envelopes! Each envelop...

/retail

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Recovering Bank Charges - 2

I rang the Alliance & Leicester this morning and spoke to the Call Centre and explained that I had read a lot about the recovery of charges and wanted to know what I had to do to query and possibly recover mine. The very nice lady explained that they would send me a form and I had to complete it and return it with 10 pounds and that the bank th...

/payments /retail

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Zopa continues preparation for expansion outside UK

Zopa beefs up the management strucuture with a seasoned expert in the unsecured field appointed as Global CEO. With $34 million raised now, and the appointment of this position, this may be signalling that they are getting closer to US opening.

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Recovering Bank Charges - 1

Finextra, in common with much of the financial press has covered the issue of bank charges in depth and because of the press coverage I conducted my own investigation this weekend and was surprised to discover that my bank, the Alliance & Leicester, has charged me over 1,500 pounds in the last 2 years for overdraft, bounced payments and intere...

/payments /retail

Elton Cane

Elton Cane Digital product delivery at News Corp Australia

ABN AMRO carve-up: the IT implications

The business pages over the weekend featured coverage of the merger talks between Barclays and ABN AMRO. Whether or not Barclays succeeds, the pressure from hedge fund investors and the number of other suitors interested in parts of the Dutch bank’s global business means that a break-up of the group is increasingly likely, though not certain. But...

/retail /wholesale

Elton Cane

Elton Cane Digital product delivery at News Corp Australia

Trouble in India, and its impact on outsourcing

Finextra received some interesting feedback from a reader today about this story, which covered NAB considering further Indian outsourcing. Our reader pointed out that with Maoist insurgents having slaughtered 40 Indian policemen this week, moving operations there now requires a hard second look. “Forget the weather issues, training, infrastruct...

/regulation

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Digital Alcohol

I am just back from an entertaining and informative session at SunLive07, with particular items of note including two MiFID experts (Bob Fuller of Equiduct and Nick Gibson of ABN) actually agreeing on most things, not least and not surprisingly that rapid decisions by CESR are required on Best Execution and Transaction Reporting to aid implementat...

/wholesale

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Zopa introduce a new investment asset class

Zopa continue to send disruptive signals into the financial services space. They are progressing well on discussions to include Zopa loans within Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP). This asset class, would be unsecured personal loans. Social lender Zopa is offering Sipp investors the chance to make between 6% and 14% on their cash in the run u...

/retail

Elton Cane

Elton Cane Digital product delivery at News Corp Australia

Making banking channels more accessible

The trained dog at the ATM story got me thinking about how well banks are catering to disabled communities with their banking channels -- whether branch, ATM or website. I recall that some banks have given thought to ATM accessibility in the past by having at least one machine in a row of several positioned much lower than the rest so short people,...

/retail

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