Congrats to Zopa for beating off the traditional Banks in the Banking category. Beating off competition from Bank of America, Chase Online and The Commonwealth Bank of Australia, we lifted the crown in the Banking/Bill Paying category (ironically enough). Source: Zopa blog   Technorati tags: Zopa, Webby+Awards Continue reading Zopa wins a Webby award

 Zopa link up with a credit company that appears to specialise in lower credit people.  If Zopa declines the borrower, and they choose to accept, they will be referred. …..  However, due to strict criteria Zopa declines many applicants, who are then in need of a provider more suited to their circumstances. All unsecured loan leads distributed through paaleads.com will have actively asked to be contacted to receive advice on the wider market, and will be supplied to the adviser no more than an hour after the customer has been declined, ensuring the lead is active, and the customer is … Continue reading Paaleads.com adds unsecured loan leads from Zopa

 Wesabe continue to drive the new directions in social banking, with this kind of insight, on overdraft charges. When we first launched Wesabe last November, we were not surprised to see that our #1 top merchant at that point was Amazon, and #2 was Netflix. That matched well with the stereotype of “early adopters.” What was surprising, though, was the merchant #20 was Overdraft Fee. If you think overdraft fees just hit people who are “bad with money,” they don’t — they hit a huge percentage of the population, and as Wesabe has grown, we’ve seen that more and more. … Continue reading The power of social networks and banking is only now becoming clear

Nice contrast pointed out by Trey.   What do BofA think about this? BofA sounds like blah-blah-blah; JetBlue’s resonates. Source: JetBlue vs Bank of America   Technorati tags: BofA, JetBlue, Trabian Continue reading JetBlue vs Bank of America

 As a competitor to NTT Docomo’s offerings, KDDI enters the Japanese stage with a mighty partner, the newly merged behemoth, Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ. Japanese telco KDDI and Mitsubishi-Tokyo-UFJ Bank have joined forces to launch a mobile Internet banking business later this year. The move towards live production follows the establishment last year of the Mobile Net Bank Development Corporation in preparation for the two companies to launch a mobile ‘New Bank’. Source: Finextra: KDDI and Mitsubishi-Tokyo-UFJ to launch mobile ‘New Bank The indicate the following capabilities for the usual financial products, including insurance: Customers will be able to log-in directly … Continue reading Shinginko to launch in Japan | KDDI and Mitsubishi-Tokyo-UFJ

Ouch!  It would appear some folks have it in for BMO in the last couple of months, and the press are lapping it up.  The Globe and Mail is a tier one business paper, and this kind of quote that we would normally expect on Perez Hilton is cutting to say the least.  Next we can expect pictures of the senior executive with annotations al la Perez. There’s zombies walking around here [waiting for mergers]. They’ve been dead for 10 years and they’re still on the payroll. Source: Canadian Banks & Insurance The suggestion that employees are zombies I would think should (imho) be directed … Continue reading "There’s zombies walking around here [waiting for mergers]"

 Excellent analysis from the Telegraph on the financials for the RBS offer.  Its clearly a gutsy offer, and one of the largest ever in size, and amount of cash component. No company has ever before attempted to raise €50bn in cash for a takeover. The consortium will split ABN three ways, meaning that each will have to pay €24bn – more than half Fortis’s €44bn market cap. Bond financing is difficult for banks, as is raising straight debt, due to capital adequacy regulations. But a rights issue would have to be the largest ever attempted, topping BT’s record £5.9bn in … Continue reading Where is the €50bn in cash coming from?

Thanks Laurent …. this is hilarious!  Using Twitter for literate communication is about as likely as firing up a CB radio and hearing some guy recite ‘The Iliad’ “ Source: ballpark.ch / blog || interactive thinking Continue reading Twitter and the Iliad