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Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

Pushing The Envelope On Technology - Part 2

In Part 1 of this blog post, I had lauded ICICI Bank for pushing the envelope on adopting cutting edge banking technologies by launching a Facebook App and Online Account Opening offering. In this Part 2, let me share the results of my personal experience with these initiatives and voice a few concerns around their implementation. After completing...

/retail

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

Pushing The Envelope On Technology - Part 1

Banks know that they can cut costs and enhance customer experience by adopting mobile, social media and other cutting edge technologies. However, most of them drag their feet on innovation, often citing security concerns, regulatory constraints, and so on. For example, statutory KYC requirements precluding banks from introducing 100% online and au...

/retail

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

How Suitable Is Email For Delivering Bills And Statements?

In the past, I’ve given several reasons to explain my preference for printed bills and statements (hyperlink to personal blog post not included). When I received the following SMS recently, I began wondering if there was a more deep-rooted and fundamental reason behind my aversion for e-bills and e-statements. "Your password is a combination...

/retail

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

ePayments Have A Long Way To Go

My stock trading account and the bank account to which it is linked are both held at the same bank which is a Top 3 private sector bank in India. Around five-six years ago, this bank changed all bank account numbers from 11 to 12 digits by adding a leading zero at the start of the old account number. Therefore, an old account number like 001 0400 ...

/payments /retail

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

How Banks Can Differentiate By Going The Extra Mile - Part 3

When I wrote Differentiate Your Product By Going The Extra Mile, I'd meant it to be the second and concluding post. But, I came across a few more updates on this subject recently that I thought I must share, hence this third part. Yes, as I'd guessed, recent realtime SMS alerts sent by banks in India for credit card transactions are the outcome of...

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

How Banks Can Differentiate By Going The Extra Mile - Part 2

In Part 1 of this blog post, we'd compared the realtime SMS alerts for credit card transactions sent out by two banks, BANK1 and BANK2. In this Part 2, we'll look at these SMS alerts as 'products' and see how well they work for the customer towards detecting and preventing fraudulent credit card transactions. Both banks permit the following modes...

/payments

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

How Banks Can Differentiate By Going The Extra Mile - Part 1

Credit card holders in India might have noticed of late that they’re receiving SMS alerts on their mobile phones each time they use their cards. I’m not sure if this is a bank/card-specific initiative or the outcome of some new government regulation applicable across the industry, but I’ve been receiving these notifications from the issuers of bot...

/payments

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

The Emergence Of ePayment Fraud Chasers

The jury's out – well, not even selected - on this latest one but, at 1:1, the verdicts on the two previous lawsuits around EFT and ACH frauds in the USA are matched evenly between corporates and banks. It seems fair to find in favor of corporates where banks haven't complied with FFIEC and other well-established security guidelines. Issued over fi...

/payments /wholesale

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

Why I Think EBA Clearing's myBank Will Be A Hit

No, not because it's innovative - it isn't. I can think of at least one provider of this type of alternative payment each in the USA, UK, Netherlands and India that has been around for several years. Called 'Secure Vault Payment' or 'SVP' in the USA, these payment methods connect online shoppers with Internet Banking portals of domestic banks se

/payments

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

Do Retailers Want To Have Their Cake And Eat It Too?

A month ago, when I read this news item on Finextra about ISIS ditching Discover and deciding to tie up with Visa and MasterCard, something didn't sound right. After all, creating another payment network seemed to be the raison d'être for the formation of this company. And, since it had the backing of Verizon Wireless, AT&T and other leading A...

/payments

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