Bruce Tempkin opened the conference with a great speech, telling Banks to get rid of the siloes.  Not the usual organisational siloes though. He talked of siloes in marketing, products, channels, everything in terms of how we talk to customers. Key change drivers: changing customer needs intense competition new capabilities Solutions were listed, and generally were all tied to listening and thinking about the customer. His watchword was “help customers make good decisions”.  The opposite to siloes is responsiveness.  Social computing comes up a lot, as a means to responsiveness.  Thats as much detail as I will post publicly.  Good … Continue reading Blow up the siloes

Well, today and tomorrow I am at the Forrester conference in NY. Just visited the trade show, and some interesting people there. Agencies – Organic, and Razorfish Every email & chat company you can imagine – Claremail, Strongmail, online lead companies, like Leadfusion Google, Yahoo, and Liveperson – must spend more time there RSA and PassMark – interesting, that RSA are promoting Passmark big time Webtrends, and Interwoven More to come throughout the day Its great they have a network set up, with decent speed too. Even more interesting though, compared to MESH last week, I don't see any other … Continue reading Forrester Research Conference – New York

Well, I’m here in NY for the Forrester Forum tomorrow. Looking forward to this one. Last week we had MESH in Toronto, which was the perfect lead in to this conference. Forrester are good at making us look at the Financial Services industry critically to understand where the competition is taking us. Anyhow, I think they have a network this year, so expect some liveblogging. Technorati Tags: Forrester_finance_forum Continue reading Forrester Research: Finance Forum 2006

I saw this the other day, but when my wife mentioned it just now, what really struck me is the disruption effect this will cause to telecommunications forever.  The Bell’s, AT&T’s, Verizon’s etc must be absolutely scared right now. Skype – The whole world can talk for free. Calling people on Skype is totally free. It’s also free to call landlines and mobiles within the US and Canada until the end of the year. So what would it take for banks to get that kind of scare.  Arguably its already started with Zopa, & ING, but there is no big … Continue reading Skype: free calls anywhere in North America

New stats from Checkfree indicate the pervasiveness of bill pay. Finextra: Two-thirds of US households pay bills online – Checkfree The survey, which tracks bill payment behavior, revealed that 69 percent of U.S. online households say they are paying at least one bill online, up from 56 percent in March 2005. This includes consumers who pay any bill from a single “consolidated” website, such as a bank, and those who pay individual bills at a “biller direct” website, such as a telecommunications or credit card company. Online payments are steadily replacing check writing as the way to pay bills among … Continue reading Two-thirds of US households pay bills online – Checkfree

I have met these folks from Source Technologies, and I believe they are on to something, with the teller assisted concept.  In the US there is also the explosion of self service in convenience stores, supporting the “unbanked”.

Source Technologies Hosts Financial Self-Service eForum to Educate Financial Institutions, Billers, and Retailers; Online Event Discusses Next-Generation Financial Kiosk Technology and Applications

In June 2006, Source Technologies, a leading provider of integrated solutions for managing financial transactions and other secure business processes, will host a series of four consecutive online forums for companies exploring financial self-service kiosk applications.

The teller assisted concept says that people will still come into branches for the foreseeable future to conduct transactions, so in order to manage them cost effectively, have the customer perform part of the activity on a machine (kiosk/ hybrid ATM containing specialised functions), and have the teller in effect manage multiple customers simultaneously.

I have seen the demo, but that was over a year ago, so I am curious to see what progress has been made, and in particular, which functions have successfully been managed via these devices.  The theory is that the device is an extension of the branch transaction platform, and so commercial deposits is one obvious one, but which others?  I am curious about wires for example, or stop payments – those slightly more complex transactions that would benefit from teller assistance.

Anyhow this online forum is free, and may be worth your attention to listen in.  I will be there.

Continue reading “Source Technologies Hosts Financial Self-Service eForum to Educate Financial Institutions, Billers, and Retailers”

Excellent discussion of the evolution of marketing in the Web 2.0 era, of blogs, and social networks. Marqui – Marqui Whitepaper Downloads The evolution of technology has caused a fundamental power shift in consumer behavior. Thus, businesses that wish to maintain their competitive edge must rethink the way they market. This paper offers an introduction to the concept of Marketing 2.0 and provides advice to marketers looking to understand and succeed in the new “invisible” domain. Relevance to Bankwatch:Understanding the new world requires much thought, and iterative change for Banks.  This paper provides excellent context, and some ideas suggestions. Technorati … Continue reading Whitepaper on the New Marketing

Steve Rubel made some interesting points about marketing in the Web 2.0 world.  its not a replacement for traditional marketing incremental effort is required to adopt the new marketing there are new skills required, to listen and engage with the influencers in the blogging community potential metrics are: conversations engagement with influencers touchpoints with influencers inbound links much discussion about character blogs traditional marketers say they are good Steve says bad I say bad .. they are telling a message ” I talk, you listen” Technorati Tags: mesh_conference Continue reading New Marketing – MESH

Web 2.0 is regarded by many as a solution, looking for a problem lots of questions, I would characterise as Long Tailish – are new markets being created, or canabilising old ones Netwrok effect of creating new groups, solidifying opinions, and views economic model of blogging – much too much talk abut monetisation, metrics Om spoke eloquently about blogging putting a personal face on corporations, such as Scoble Disruption: lots still truing to fit new models into old thinking Om again – blogs provide context MESH Technorati Tags: mesh conference, toronto Continue reading MESH Day 1 themes

Worth reading for everyone, and all bankers, just to understand the human dimension of internet fraud.

The New Yorker: Fact

How a Massachusetts psychotherapist fell for a Nigerian e-mail scam.

The true irony is that the credulous American here is the only one who went to jail.  His trust in 'God' and belief in the "poor" Nigerian people he was dealing with ruined him, and his family.  He was a 57 years old, churchgoing veteran.  The Banks lost in this too, because of the bad cheques for several hundred thousand, that Worley negotiated.

The trial took six days, and the jury found Worley guilty on all counts. On February 15th, Worley, now sixty-two, returned to the federal courthouse at the edge of Boston Harbor to face sentencing. 

Continue reading “THE PERFECT MARK – a sobering, detailed description of email fraud”