This is the last in a well written and researched series on Islamic Banking from Ozrisk.   There are some interesting lessons to be learned here. The Islamic financial services sector should continue its recent compound annual growth for some time to come. It is a valuable addition to the more conventional, Western, style of financial services. Because of the nature of the products issued, it should also have some appeal beyond the Muslim community and some of its products could well be adopted by the financial community at large. Source: Islamic Financial Services – Current Developments « Risk Management in … Continue reading Islamic Financial Services – Current Developments « Risk Management in Australia

 Branded gift cards feature highly for consumers according to this poll.   The poll, conducted by BK Research, found that branded gift cards were chosen more often as an item on a consumer’s shopping list than a branded toy (18%), an iPod or mp3 player (14%), a computer or laptop (12%) and a game console (7%) Source: Payments News: Branded Gift Cards Popular With Consumers – November 06, 2006 A significant percentage of consumers will buy them. …..  one in five consumers plans to purchase branded gift cards (a gift card with an American Express, Discover, MasterCard, or Visa brand logo) … Continue reading Payments News: Branded Gift Cards Popular With Consumers

 I got kind of intrigued by this note on new kind of Bank from SanFrancisco, specializing in environmental type customer assistance. But when I went to their site, its not as clear about the environmental part, although I like the simplicity and transparency. We know there are many choices in banking today. We are committed to setting a new standard in convenient, attentive and customized banking. PEOPLE We are experienced bankers who love relationship banking and who want to know you. Easy access to decision makers helps give you greater speed of execution. ACCESS You have the convenience of branch, … Continue reading Customer Service > About Us: New Resource Bank ( www.newresourcebank.com )

James is at the the Delphi Business & Process Innovation Summit.  The conference themes sound more interesting than usual.  This from the “Continuously Bridging the Gap Between Business and IT” session. 

This set of guidelines stands us all well when we are into a requirements session.  Invariably someone has developed a business need … it can be ourselves … stop, take a step back and consider these elements. 

Learning’s from the project:

• Try and abstract a more general problem/solution before building a specific one for a specific problem
• Focus on business operations not on the flow of a specific object flowing through a process. This means modeling transitions between activities and interactions between participants
• Find the “push/pull” point between top-down BPM drivers and bottom-up technology drivers
• Various kinds of processes – flow(sequential), connected (one connects to the next), disconnected (gaps), jumbled (all mixed up) – and need to understand the kind of process to model and manage them correctly. You can manage at a higher level for coherent processes (and must do so at a lower level for more jumbled ones)
• Need to consider content / data as well as process flow
• Phased approach with quick hits
• Question official procedures as may not be what really happens * Align process and IT architectures

Source: James Taylor’s Decision Management – ebizQ

Other links from the conference below: Continue reading “Continuously Bridging the Gap Between Business and IT”

Anything that claims it can launched in 1 week gets my vote!  Yodlee says the technology is suitable for all financial institutions in the US, Canada, and the UK that offer Web banking services and banks using the system could launch a mobile banking pilot in less than a week. Source: Finextra: Yodlee releases mobile banking package Yodlee continue to impressively march along with real value add applications, and they will do well.   Technorati tags: yodlee, online+banking Continue reading Finextra: Yodlee releases mobile banking package

Today is the 10th anniversary of mbanx starting direct banking.  mbanx (a division of Bank of Montreal) was the first direct banking operation in the world, and followed closely by many, such as Wingspan (BancOne), and ING.  There has been a host of learning about what to do, and how to get the right pace of execution since then. Some links: mbanx/clive (online chat) Harvard Business Review bmo City of Toronto Intuit joint marketing arrangment CBA Canadian Business empire club 7-24 Solutions     Technorati tags: direct+banking, mbanx Continue reading 10 years since mbanx started it all

 Tara talks here about the discussion at BarCampBerlin on the topic of Community, and what makes it effective.  I found this simple statement highly revealing in its simplicity, and clarity. …  demonstrate with this example why community doesn’t happen separately from product or environment. Source: ::HorsePigCow:: marketing uncommon: Discussion: When community doesn’t happen (from BarCampBerlin) She goes on to compare processes followed by two separate developer groups, one of which was less effective, and apparently somewhat demoralising, whereas the better one, Microformats, has had rampant success in one year. I thought I was going to write here about social networks but … Continue reading ::HorsePigCow:: marketing uncommon: Discussion: When community doesn’t happen

HSBC has opened an Internet-only bank in Taiwan that offers higher interest rates on deposits, hoping to lure new customers to the no-branch model. Since the bank opened in late September, 80% of the customers opening accounts are new to HSBC. About half of all customers are between the ages of 25 and 35, but they only account for 30% of the deposits. Roughly 13% of the accounts belong to customers over the age of 45, and they account for more than half of the deposits. Source: BankNet 360 – HSBC Launches Internet-Only Bank in Taiwan   Technorati tags: hsbc, … Continue reading BankNet 360 – HSBC Launches Internet-Only Bank in Taiwan

 This is a very cool application, and great use of texting/ mobile technology in a useful way.  We need to build this at the Bank! Need to find an ATM machine?  A new cell phone service from MasterCard provides cardholders with a mobile, location-based search and directory service so they can request to have the location of the nearest ATM sent to their cellular phone via an SMS text message.  …. The voice-activated ATM Locator application is provided by Convergys Corporation, which built the application for MasterCard. Hosted on Convergys’ SpeechPort ‘platform, incoming calls are received and processed. … It … Continue reading Bank Systems & Technology| Texting Service Locates ATM’s