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Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

Omnichannel Fiasco 1: Standard Chartered Credit Card

I recently went through two omnichannel experiences, one that started well but went downhill soon thereafter and another that was a disaster from the beginning. Before I deep dive into my experiences, omnichannel is where a single business process is deliberately split across multiple channels so that each channel does what it's really good at and...

/retail

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

Beware of Credit Card Reward Redemption Theft

In Will The Sad State Of Logistics Hurt eCommerce? (hyperlink removed but this post will come up on top of the Google SERP), I’d alluded to how DHL, FedEx and other multinational courier companies are 8-10X costlier than the local ones in India, and are, therefore, used only for high-value consignments. I recently went through an experience which ...

/regulation

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

Let Banks Chase Their Defaulters Instead Of Seeking Bailouts

The old saying “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time” crossed my mind when I recently read this article in which loan defaulters protest against the aggressive procedures adopted by banks to recover their loans. The typical refrain of almost every defaulter profiled in this article seems to be “I couldn’t keep up with my repayments after lo...

/regulation /retail

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

From Multichannel To Omnichannel And Beyond

Over the years, my background in IT marketing and product management has brought me close to the subject of how a software should be extended over new channels. I can recall being involved in drawing up specs for new channel suppport on the following occasions in the past 15-odd years: ERP in Branch Office in the mid '90s Internet ERP in the lat...

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

Why Banks Can't Transform Legacy Applications - Part 2

In Part 1 of this blog post, I'd described three issues with open systems that held banks back from transforming all their legacy applications to open systems. Here are three more: Sudden loss of functionality. In this brilliant article titled When Product Features Disappear – Amazon, Apple and Tesla and the Troubled Future for 21st Century Cons...

/regulation

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

6 Reasons Why Banks Can't Transform Legacy Applications

During a meeting with the CIO of a Top 5 bank in Germany, I was introduced to a lady who was retiring that same weekend. The CIO averred that she was the last employee in the bank's IT department who knew the nitty-gritty of a certain mainframe application. I pitched for a project to transform the legacy application to open system. The CIO promise...

/regulation

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

Is The US Closed Loop Payment System Increasing Credit Risk?

In other words, is the US "Closed Loop" payments system making Americans less creditworthy? For several years, American travelers have been having a tough time trying to use their magstripe credit cards in the EMV Europe. In India, many ecommerce and bill payment websites have recently started refusing American credit cards (click here fo...

/payments

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

Mobile Wallet Has Few Takers - Even At Starbucks

In a world that's awash with exuberant projections of mobile payment spends in 2022 from products that are not yet launched in 2013 - no, I’m not just looking at you, ISIS - GigaOm introduced a sense of reality by providing some actual figures. Quoting Berg Insight in this article, GigaOm reported a total mobile payment spend of US$ 500M in the US...

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

Accelerating Mobile Wallet Adoption By Fixing What's Broken

In Mobile Wallets Should Fix What's Broken - And It Ain't Payments, we saw why consumers were more likely to try out mobile wallets for store loyalty cards than debit or credit cards. In this post, we’ll go beyond initial adoption and see where these two mobile wallet use cases - “mobile loyalty” and “mobile payment” respectively - stand with resp...

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

Mobile Wallets: Fix What's Broken - And It Ain't Payments

My leather wallet wore out recently. With so much buzz around mobile wallets, I was wondering if I should even bother with another leather wallet. Before switching to a mobile wallet, I inventoried the contents of my wallet and arranged them into the following two piles: LHS: This pile contained payment related items such as cash, two credit cards ...

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