Great question, that I cannot resist. can an Internet-only bank work? Source: BankerVision: Egg Internet bank So I will leap in to the fray with an answer than might be expected from someone who is bullish on internet banking. I say yes it will work. I say this despite the evidence against.  We have the evidence, mbanx, Wingspan, and possibly Egg.  But let me qualify.  The first two failed because their costs were higher than their revenue. fulfillment costs:  account opening kits cost a lot, and getting them to customers is expensive account opening costs:  accounts opened but many customers … Continue reading BankerVision: Can an “Internet only” bank work?

I started to reply to a great comment question to this post on Wal-mart, and realised this deserves a post. The question from Jeff was “Can this in any way be used as an end run around the opposition in the United States?”, and Jeff started it off on his blog here. ______________________________ I have to think it cannot be a co-incidence that Canada and the US are right beside each other. However Canada is tiny (32 million pop) at 10% of the US in population. When I listened to Jane Thompson speak she went out of her way to … Continue reading More on Wal-Mart and their Canadian banking entree

 At the Forrester conference in May, I blogged about Wal-Mart trying to get into banking in the US, which has successfully been lobbied into submission. So here comes the Canadian angle. Wal-Mart Canada Corp. is looking to expand into the financial services business, a potentially lucrative growth area as the retailing price war intensifies over food, clothing and other consumer staples. The big-box giant recently hired Trudy Fahie as vice-president of financial services at Wal-Mart Canada, a role created for assessing the retailer’s options in the sector. Ms. Fahie is the former vice-president of financial services for American Express Canada. … Continue reading Wal-Mart eyes banking in Canada

David at Infoworld succinctly sums up the problem with CRM. The customer benefit is not there. Quick. When was the last time you remember being pleasantly surprised by how effectively a company used data about you to improve your customer experience? Source: Customer Relationship Management (CRM)? So What? I wrote about the frustration with CRM recently. David goes on to touch on why this problem exists. Based on surveys it appears that corporations have simply not decided to make good use of customer data a priority, mostly because no single person or part of the organization owns the issue. He … Continue reading Putting data to work for the bottom line