This purchase is directly tied to facilitate the value chain for their customers. By making the contractor financing easier this will attract more business for the chain. Ideas & Screening | Reuters.com This approach is distinct in several respects. Consumers would get easy access to lenders who have specialized understanding of the home improvement market. Local contractors would no longer have to watch passively as consumers wrestle with issues relating to whether they will or won't be able to finance their projects. And the intervention of a reputable third party could alleviate frequent tensions between contractors and customers over the … Continue reading Home Depot buys a Bank

Hitesh Patel, KPMG Forensic talk about the escalation of fraud despite the introduction of chip and pin. The criminals are able to move to the weakest point in the system. Why chip & Pin won't stop fraud | This is Money The fastest growing area is 'cardholder not present' fraud. According to the  clearing banks' association Apacs, it shot up 29pc to £90m in the first six  months of 2005 and accounted for more than 40% of total card fraud losses. Its worth noting the fraud escalation is not an intrinsic weakness in chip and pin. In fact we are … Continue reading Why chip & Pin won’t stop fraud

Lloyds notes the increase in fraud in non chip countries, such as Canada, and USA. Bank says overseas card fraud on the rise – Money – Times Online Lloyds TSB has reported a leap in the number of fraudulent withdrawals from overseas ATMs. The bank says criminals are increasingly using cloned debit or credit cards in countries where chip and pin technology has not yet been introduced. The weakest link theory applies here.  Those countries that lag moving to chip and pin, will suffer increased fraud. Lloyds TSB has reported a leap in the number of fraudulent withdrawals from overseas … Continue reading Lloyds Bank says overseas card fraud on the rise

In a move by the criminals they highlight the weakness in combo chip / mag stripe cards. These are cards that have chip and mag stripe on them. This is the primary transitional approach taken by banks, to circumvent issuing separate chip cards, and mag stripe cards. Customers would require mag stripe for usage abroad where chip has not been implemented yet.

Guardian Unlimited | UK Latest | Eight held over chip and pin fraud

The scam works by criminals implanting devices into chip and pin machines which can copy a bank card's magnetic strip and record a person's pin number.The device cannot copy the chip, which means any fake card can only be used in machines where chip and pin is not implemented – often abroad.

Relevance to Bankwatch:
As predicted in an earlier 'relevance' I remain convinced that combo cards could be the death of chip, and the better approach would be to issue chip cards only with no mag stripe. If customers need a mag stripe for travel or other purposes, then they can get those. The problem is the transition of merchants to chip, so customers desire to have chip only cards is the best impetus for them.

Technorati Tags: chip_cards, debit_cards, credit_cards

Continue reading “The weakness in combo chip/ mag stripe cards”

I love this post.  Its the most lucid thing I have read in a while in the general space of memetrackers/ aggregators, and generally staying current. We should all read this, give our heads a shake, and focus! And might I add, Newsvine, Digg, Greatnews, Feeddemon, Bloglines, Tailrank – all of you please read.  You are making this worse, not better.  Creating Passionate Users: The myth of “keeping up” You can’t keep up. There is no way.  And trying to keep up will probably just make you dumber. You can never be current on everything you think you should be. … Continue reading You can’t keep up – trying to will make you dumber!

More research confirming the web lifestyle is here for a majority of US.  Pew Internet & American Life Project Report: The internet at major moments 54% in the number of adults who said the internet played a major role as they  helped another person cope with a major illness. And the number of those who  said the internet played a major role as they coped themselves with a major illness increased 40%. 50% in the number who said the internet played a major role as they pursued more training for their careers. 45% in the number who said the internet … Continue reading PEW – major moments in life, survey

I had to capture these five points, which brilliantly summarise the Pinko Marketing concept, courtesy of Tara. Google Groups- Pinko Marketing Pinko, to me anyway, describes an approach to things including: inbound, rather than outbound messages making tools available for a community, then getting out of the way being part of the community, not a tourist being 100% authentic advocating FOR your community to your company rather than the other way around Relevance to Bankwatch: Where do I start. All five points are the exact opposite for most Banks, a few believers aside, so any changes that can be made … Continue reading Pinkomarketing definition – Google groups

While Wells intentions are likely valid and part of a larger strategy, to encourage elimination of paper statements this "agree or else" approach is not just un-necessary, its rude. Up to now Wells have generally got it right, with quality implementations, but somehow someone has made a mistake here. Interruption marketing is very old-school.  Orcmid's Lair: Wells Fargo Click-Through Thuggery What I encountered instead were two EULA-like statements and a mandatory click-through before I could access my account on-line.The first statement was a single page E-Sign Consent document. It constituted my consent to receive all information in electronic form. The … Continue reading Wells missteps with online “agree or else”

They feel more in control. Alignment of customer and bank goals for turning off paper.

Finextra: Third of UK customers want to pay bills online – Alliance & Leicester

• Seven in ten internet bankers (70%) say they check their statements online and find it easier than receiving paper statements – and
• a third of all adults with access to the internet (33%) wish they could deal with all their bills online. This is no surprise, with
• two thirds of people (67%) receiving between one and five bills through their letter box each month and
• one in ten (10%) receiving six or more bills on their doormat every month.

Continue reading “Online bankers are the most likely to feel fully in control of their finances”

Its worth reading this careful, thoughtful, amazing post, from a believing Microsoftie (his name is Robert Scoble). He took a week off and good grief!!!!

Read it very carefully, and consider this is a company driven by a fellow who was lying on the garage floor scribbling code in 1980 (Bill Gates in case you can't guess) … you are a Bank probably born 100/ 200 years earlier, so what chance do you have?

If you study the words .. Bureacracy. Politics. Committeeisms .. which Bank can lay claim to having solved that problem. Oh, and Mini-Microsoft is a well meaning employee who believes Microsoft is fat and inefficient.  Read on ….. Continue reading “I had a dream – a cry for all Banks!”