Despite the headline, RBC is playing catch up here.  Royal Bank in March began allowing Canadians across the country to buy home and auto insurance online. And while it has been possible to get a variety of insurance quotes online, there is an expansion underway in the types of policies that can actually be purchased over the Net. Source: TheStar.com – RBC sees Internet potential Canadian banks find themselves in the quirky position that they can sell insurance provided they do so online.  This is a government regulation. Earlier this summer, Canada’s banks lost an appeal of a decision that … Continue reading TheStar.com – RBC sees Internet potential, and starts to catch up with BMO in Canada

 This is a tough problem to have.  Lots of cash, and seemingly buoyant customer economics suggesting more profit growth.  “Yet here we are in 2006 and the banks look stronger than ever, — ageing Baby Boomers and a lot of enthusiastic immigrants. “There’s a good steady wind in the sails of the industry,” says Robert Pearce, president and chief executive of personal and commercial clients at Bank of Montreal. That steady wind will only get stronger with favourable demographics, he adds.” Source: “Canadian Banks & Insurance – Mozilla Firefox” The baby boomer wealth transfer has been long predicted for the … Continue reading "Canadian Banks – record earnings: runaway Canadian economy – favourable demographics; time to re-engineer! "

 A significant cost and infrastructure exists at banks to support bank passbooks.  Royal is trying the old fashioned way by charging for it. “By ROB CARRICK for globeandmail.com Royal Bank of Canada is about to start charging a “maintenance fee” of $2 per month for what used to be one of the most basic services a bank provided for its customers. The fee will apply starting July 1 to RBC clients who use a bank book, also called a passbook, and who don’t ante up for one of the bank’s all-inclusive service packages at $4 to $30 a month.” Source: … Continue reading "ePaymentsnews Blog – Post details: Fees speed humble bank book’s demise. Good riddance"

Every once in a while, Scoble comes up with a classic post, and this is another one.  Extracts here, and this is a superb summary of the top players strengths.  This provides a useful backdrop to online banking planning 5 – 10 years out.  For example something I think about, is what banking online will look like in 2020. Scobleizer – Tech Geek Blogger » The coming G/Y/M/A/e developer wars So, let’s go through the players one-by-one. Google. Google has some daunting advantages in the coming developer wars. First, nearly EVERY developer I know uses Google. Most use Gmail. Most … Continue reading if you want your app to be distributed around the world ….. Google/Microsoft/Amazon/Yahoo/eBay

A search on this topic, brought out the following providers in this space.  No particular order.  Also some Forrester links for Forrester subscribers.  If anyone is aware of others vendors in this space, please free to add in the comments. Infosys Finacle With Finacle alerts, financial institutions can instantly notify customers and internal users  whenever an important business event occurs, through the medium of his choice: email,  mobile phone, pager, fax or voice. For example, a customer could choose to be notified  by SMS when an important payment clears or if an account balance exceeds a specified  threshold. Similarly, alerts … Continue reading Account alerts software providers