Innovation

ShinseiBank: About PowerflexPowerFlex

Colin Henderson

 In doing some research for a friend in Tokyo, I came across this bank.  They have full online banking in Japanese and English.  Their services are very pro-active with pretty decent free coverage, given Japan’s usual service charges. They are trying to be innovative, within a highly competitive banking marketplace. Get 32 Color cash card. Choose your favorite color from 32 available colors. FREE account maintenance fee # FREE ATM transactions at over 65,000 ATM’s nationwide 1 including Shinsei Bank ATM’s(24/7) and other available ATM’s FREE PowerCall 24-hour bilingual telephone banking FREE PowerDirect 24-hour bilingual online banking FREE unlimited automatic … Continue reading ShinseiBank: About PowerflexPowerFlex

Business Models3 Comments

Forrester: Financial consumers are becoming more sophisticated

Colin Henderson

James wrote something here that nicely summarizes the opportunity at a high level that exists for banks to evolve their current delivery distribution to better reflect the evolving consumer.  He refers to the increasing sophistication that consumers exhibit, and I thought I would take a crack at helping out with that. Benjamin Ensor at Forrester came out with this piece in January 2006.  The premise is that Internet is driving changes in consumers behaviour, and it goes on to back this up with their Technographic quantitative research. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Length: 27 pages Consumers’ financial behavior is changing fast as a result … Continue reading Forrester: Financial consumers are becoming more sophisticated

Social networks3 Comments

Wells Fargo launches second blog, and let the readers decide

Colin Henderson

I had to respond this comment on Opensourcecu and in fact take the unusual step of defending Wells on this.  First the comment … Who in the world is the target market of “Guided by History?” Granted, you (Trey) subscribe to the blog, because you are particularly interested in financial institutions who blog. But I can’t imagine the kind of average consumer who would want a “new the world is ending tip” or article showing up in their feeds every day. You’d have to be a creeped-out paranoid consumer to have an ongoing interest in that. Source: Wells Fargo launches second blog … Continue reading Wells Fargo launches second blog, and let the readers decide

Business Models, Innovation

Sneak preview – Wells Fargo newest blog

Colin Henderson

Ed over at Wells tipped me off to the newest blog offering from Wells Fargo, that is being announced tomorrow.  They continue to impress me with small steps, yet meaningful steps in the social Internet space.  This new offering is highly relevant to Banking. The new blog is an industry first.  It is cutely (is that a word) entitled The Student LoanDown.  Its positioned and structured as a genuine conversation to listen and learn, and in turn better support students.  They will be bringing in guest bloggers to help them with that. I am impressed.  First of all it looks … Continue reading Sneak preview – Wells Fargo newest blog

AI

Canadian Banks get smarter about branding

Colin Henderson

 Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) lead the pack but amongst banks, TD & BMO are catching up. This from Interbrand’s list of Canada’s top 25 brands. RBC is at an advantage, Mr. Torrance said, because the bank has been using the same brand positioning for decades. Its position as the most blue-suited of the banks also helps because it can be applied to both retail and corporate banking, he said. Jeff Swystun, global director for Interbrand, says Canada’s top three banking brands — RBC, TD (No. 2 on the list of Canada’s top brands) and Bank of Montreal (No. 7) — … Continue reading Canadian Banks get smarter about branding

AI2 Comments

TheStar.com – Marketers muse about MySpace

Colin Henderson

 Windsor Motor city Credit Union tries out MySpace to connect to its younger consumers. Windsor’s Motor City Community Credit Union is among the Canadian organizations with a profile on MySpace. Mike Quinlan, the marketing director of the credit union, said he was aware of the dangers, but the experience has been more successful than he hoped. “It came about because of listening to my eldest daughter, who was 24. The profile site is intended to give young people a forum to learn about and discuss financial issues, he said. “It’s a great channel, it’s very cost-efficient. “It’s too early to … Continue reading TheStar.com – Marketers muse about MySpace

Uncategorized

CTO Blog | Is Technology Asynchronous and Business Process Synchronous?

Colin Henderson

Andy asks an interesting question that helped me frame a different problem of customer centricity, discussed earlier.  …  for systems and solutions design and the reason for my pondering on the issue, we are planning around using new technology abilities to do things ‘on demand’, or as an when needed, and in conjunction with the dynamic orchestration of other systems, processes and services. But how do we know that there will not be a restriction from synchronous issues? Source: CTO Blog | Is Technology Asynchronous and Business Process Synchronous? He uses asynchronous/ synchronous to explain the difficulty in applying real time tchnology … Continue reading CTO Blog | Is Technology Asynchronous and Business Process Synchronous?

Payments

Aneace’s Blog: Visa’s No Signature Required program is working … how will contactless compete?

Colin Henderson

For all the push to contactless cards, this release from Visa, noted by Aneace,  confirms the viability of small payments with no signature is not dependent on contactless. Last week, Visa reported that its volume on purchases less than $25 in small ticket segments totaled $27.3 billion in the first six months of the year, an increase of 17 percent over the same period in 2005. Those transactions were performed almost entirely using traditional magnetic stripe cards, not contactless cards. Source: Aneace’s Blog: Visa’s No Signature Required program is working … how will contactless compete? This service is apparently particularly relevant … Continue reading Aneace’s Blog: Visa’s No Signature Required program is working … how will contactless compete?

AI

Blogger Survey 2005 – Edelman/ Technorati

Colin Henderson

Edelman, one of the few PR firms that are genuinely attempting to understand the new media, have a joint piece of research with Technorati here. This slide is particularly illuminating, reflecting the thought process of bloggers in determining facts about products.  In fact, I caught myself this week asking friends about their experience with a new phone service that I am considering.  My actions bear out that slide. tags: trust, marketing, social+networks Continue reading Blogger Survey 2005 – Edelman/ Technorati

Business Models1 Comment

Turning the world I-side out | Linux Journal

Colin Henderson

Doc Searls continues his exploration of all that’s wrong in the interactions between customers and the services and products they need.  All the identities in our wallets and purses, from social security numbers to credit card numbers to library and museum memberships, are given to us by organizations. More importantly, they represent “customer relationship management” (CRM) systems that at best respect a tiny fraction of who we are and what we might bring to a “relationship”. What CRM systems call a “relationship” is so confined, so minimal, so impoverished and so incomplete that it insults the word. Source: Turning the world … Continue reading Turning the world I-side out | Linux Journal