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278 Results from 2008, /retail

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Message to Barclays: Don't call us, we'll call you

As a Liverpudlian, I'm pleased to see Barclays creating new jobs in my home town. But as a Barclays' customer my heart sinks at the creation of this new 'proactive' call centre. Explaining the investment in a second outbound telesales operation, Alan Longmuir, head, premium segments, Barclays, says: "Our proactive contact centre division has g...

/retail

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

The silent but deadly bank run

"We are not currently processing any deposits or any withdrawal requests through our Icesave internet accounts. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause our customers. We hope to provide you with more information shortly." The notice posted on the Icesave Web site today is the electronic equivalent of a Great Depression bank shut...

/retail Trends in Financial Services

Roy McPherson

Roy McPherson 

Turkeys home to roost

I've been made acutely aware of the financial turkeys coming home to roost by receiving a single call from an elderly relative. Aunty X, by no stretch of the imagination a person of huge personal means, had recently moved her assets to take advantage of better interest rates on offer through internet banks. I realised with chilling clarity just h...

/retail

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Demonstrating marketing budgets during the downturn

It’s a torrid time out there and there seems to be no limit to the industries in line for the chopping block. One of the first to truly feel the effects of this credit storm is, of course, the retail sector. There is scarcely a day goes by without hearing some more dismal results from the high street or another 11th hour buy-out. With the excepti...

/retail

Gary Wright

Gary Wright Analyst at BISS Research

Staff shortage will threaten recovery

The lay offs have already begun as banks look to bring their costs down and protect their profitability. UBS were the latest to cut 2000 jobs and they will not be the last as the crisis begins to bite hard and as usual the finance industry is reactive in chasing the market down. I can however; guarantee that once the good times roll the banks will...

/retail Operational Risk Management

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Uncertainty Principle - Physics and Finance

In 1927, Heisenberg putforth uncertainty principle to the world of quantum physics. It stated that, more precisely the position is determined, less precisely momentum could be determined. The uncertainty principle was in the context of subatomic particles. Mathematically, the principle states that the product of error (Root Mean Square in dev...

/regulation /retail Innovation in Financial Services

Gary Wright

Gary Wright Analyst at BISS Research

A return to Vanilla: What will the banks do next?

One thing is for sure the banks are going to be very careful not to create financial products that look like those that have helped create the crisis. We can anticipate that many financial firms will revert to plain vanilla trading to try and build up some confidence with their clients. Keep simple, keep it stupid, might be the order of the day, f...

/retail /wholesale Data Management 101

Retired Member

Retired Member 

What do Boris Johnson and Wikipedia have in common?

Well not the most obvious question I know. Boris Johnson – London’s headline grabbing mayor – and Wikipedia – an on-line encyclopaedia with definitions generated and maintained by its users – don’t seem to have obvious overlaps. However, they do both generate strong polarised opinions. Take Boris’s famous, or should that be infamous, “ping pong” s...

/retail /wholesale Trends in Financial Services

Chris Barry

Chris Barry Managing Director at V2 Innovations

Why create a new brand?

What processes and decisions lead a company to create an offshoot of their main brand? I get the direct bank concept and the attraction; however it appears that the common theme is to basically make the direct bank a separate entity entirely with the hopes that cross sell with the main brand will eventually occur. How successful are these separat...

/retail Innovation in Financial Services

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Barclaycard logo saves world

Barclaycard has unveiled a new logo and visual identity. It is a break from the logos used by the bank during the last four decades, which had been designed to be seen on the traditional plastic card. Says Anthony Jenkins, Barclaycard CEO: "Our new identity expresses where we see the future, freeing the chip on the credit card from the constra...

/payments /retail

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