This article from The Pueblo Chieftain is especially succinct, clear, and to the point.  The headline says it all, and the article makes perfect sense for bankers to read. The Pueblo Chieftain Online – Pueblo, Colorado U.S.A The nation’s youngest adults have developed split-second reaction time with their playing of video games. They take camera and video cell phones for granted. And, they do their comparison shopping, even for banking services, on the Internet. Alice Birch, market president and district manager of U S Bank’s Pueblo, Canon City and La Junta branches, said her bank’s Internet banking and bill paying … Continue reading Banks look to Internet to draw Gen Y patrons

Banks pay a lot for enterprise licencing, and office applications are one of those.  So one Bank I am familiar with, has an Enterprise licence with Microsoft, that cost 10’s of millions.  A large part of that is the use of MS Office on 35K +/- desktops.  I would consider myself a relatively power user in Bank terms, using Powerpoint, Word, and Excel daily, and Visio if someone sends me a file. So why are we seeing simple office applications being developed that function in the browser and do 90% of what is required, and, and built from the ground … Continue reading Time to re-consider Microsoft Office?

Charlene makes an excellent point, that in order to get into blogging, recruitment makes the ideal forum.  It will match with the demographic expectations of your prospective employees, and permit a safe simple method to experiment and get into blogging, for risk averse banks.  In fact I would argue you will get better quality recruits this way.  They will be the recruits that “get it”. Charlene Li’s Blog: Recruitment blogs – a no-brainer But there’s one area that I think is a no-brainer and a greater starting point for companies interested in blogging — and that’s in recruitment. Think about … Continue reading Recruitment blogs – a no-brainer for banks

Yodlee continue to successfully build out functionality, and capability founded on aggregation of all a consumers financial accounts. Finextra: Yodlee launches personal finance platform The Yodlee MoneyCenter suite includes Yodlee PersonalFinance, Yodlee BillPay, and Yodlee FundsTransfer. The integrated solution gives consumers everything they need to answer the ever-important and ever-changing question: where is my money? Key Yodlee MoneyCenter Features: Account Consolidation – from over 8,000 financial, bill and rewards accounts Personal Data Reports – such as a net worth statement, cash flow report, and historical  account balances Expense Categorization – for all credit card and bank account transactions Budgeting – … Continue reading Yodlee launches personal finance platform

This really go me thinking about how do do this and do it right.  What are the guiding principles that ought to guide such a venture if the opportunity arose to do it from scratch and do it right ? Some guiding principles that leapt out at me: Laser like focus on customers.  Listen to them, talk to them, and above all, do not lecture them.  This will always drive the right answer, and provide strong guidance to the other principles.  There can be no deviation from this one, because switching costs are much less in the direct environment, and … Continue reading In interesting question: how to start a direct bank from scratch