Paul at Finextra notes the updated Wells Fargo web site, which takes a highly customer focused approach to ease access to most wanted features. The results have been spectacular with a 50% increase in online applications. The team collated the 100 most-popular search terms to determine what customers most wanted to find and couldn’t. Topping the list were mortgage rates, security information, and ATM/branch locations – which subsequently were handed premium positions on the new home page. Finextra: A new report from Forrester is cited the efforts, after Brad Strothkamp sat down with Stephanie Smith, Senior Vice President and Head … Continue reading Successful Wells Fargo site redesign levers analytics, not opinions

This post amazed me, and when I followed some of the suggestions, I was successful. It is essential that Banks, and credit card companies follow through with enhancements such as “Verified by Visa “. But more so, this article points to the need for online vigilance for card numbers that are available online. This will result in the usual, ‘is it Visa’s job our [the Bank’s] job’, but the need is so clear, surely that can be sorted out. It would be simple for companies like Visa, MasterCard, and Discover to take a list of the most common 8-digit prefixes, … Continue reading Credit cards are still very vulnerable online

Robert asks some provocative questions here (nice to see him back on his game). A lot of money moves from my wallet to somewhere else. Now, I know how to use Google, right? Google monetizes the last click in a complex chain. But how am I, or Maryam, going to be influenced on our choices? Say, for instance, diapers? I just did a search for diapers on Google and found only one brand name I recognize: Huggies. How did that damn name get hammered into my brain? Advertising. Source: Scobleizer This synopsises (huh!) the perennial argument. Big bang advertising or … Continue reading Huggies or ….? How will Robert know ….

WordPress, the service I use, has gone over 1 million blogs. When I set up with them, in Jan 2006, there were about 300K if I recall. 1,002,584 blogs on WordPress.com. WordPress does everything well, but the main thing I like is the constant iterative improvement. Yes they have the best comment spam filter system of anyone, bar none, but the improvements are continuous ( I have had 11K spams in that 17 month interval). A few months ago they operationalised domain mapping, which allowed me to use thebankwatch.com for this WP hosted blog, even though the real underlying address … Continue reading WordPress grows beyond 1 million blogs

This article is about Google, but the underlying thread is intersting, and relevant for Banks. Just when you thought it would be great when customers could locate your bank/service/product using search, after your mammoth efforts at sucessful Search Engine Optimization (SEO) up pops a little helper to suggest your offer might not be the best.

Thats the promise of new technology from Autonomy, and inferred by Google.

Autonomy, the UK-based search company is also developing technology for “transaction hijacking”, which monitors when internet surfers are about to make a purchase online, and can suggest cheaper alternatives. Although such monitoring could raise privacy issues, Google stresses that the iGoogle and personalisation services are optional.

This just reminds me, that one approach, such as SEO, is never enough. Constant innovation within the internet space, and improvements to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to incorporate online and especially email, is essential to ensure your customers want to think of you. I am not talking about spamming here. I am thinking of being proactive and appropriately re-active with customers at those moments of truth, to turn them into yourBank advocates. Continue reading Transaction hijacking – cheaper alternatives, at point of purchase

There have been a few more developments reported in the press, in this situation, surrounding the expected loss of $450 million at BMO, as a result of allegedly excessive risky positions in natural gas options. For context that loss represents about 80% of one quarters net income. Executives at Optionable Inc., the New York commodities broker linked to Bank of Montreal’s natural-gas trading fiasco, cashed in stock worth US$27-million days before the Canadian bank received a strongly worded auditor’s report into the activities of its options trading desk. Source: Canadian Banks & Insurance Executives at Optionable potentially make Martha Stewart’s … Continue reading BMO and Optionable saga continues to deteriorate

BarCampBank comes to North America, with the next one in Seattle expected later this year, date TBD. The focus is on innovations, and disruptions within the banking world, and has generally been centred in Paris so far, and its nice to see Frederic planning to attend, and he drew my attention to the arrangements. If you are an innovator, a disruptor or a professional of the banking and finance industry, if you are excited by or just curious about all the innovations that the new technologies could bring to the banking and finance world, if you want to present a … Continue reading BarCampBankSeattle coming soon

New study from McKinsey points out the gap in Emotional Quotient (EQ) between Banks and their customers. A big prize awaits companies that can develop deeper and more lasting relationships with their customers. Yet many businesses rely too much on IT and perform poorly on the front line. In particular this point resonates, and supports the points made by Ron here. …. a different perspective by showing how the aggressive behavior of some sales teams at leading North American banks generated negative moments of truth and has conspicuously weakened the reputation of these institutions. This is interesting because earlier in … Continue reading Banks, and the downside to aggressive selling