by Kristin Moyer | December 23, 2009 | 1 Comment
A new service called Blippy let’s users share their credit card purchases on Twitter. Each time a person makes a purchase with the cards they register with Blippy (a type of “social card”) and it tweets the cardholder name, purchase amount and merchant name. One of my colleagues saw this and said, “I know I remain [...]
Category: Executive Decisions Tags: blippy, personalization, twitter
by Kristin Moyer | December 18, 2009 | Comments Off
Contactless retail payment is often referred to as a “revolutionary technology” for the payment industry; however, this view is misplaced. It represents an opportunity for some consumers to substitute the use of a payment card for a normal cash transaction and, in certain circumstances, may offer added convenience to the consumer — for example, where [...]
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Category: payments Tags: contactless, nfc, transit
by Kristin Moyer | December 17, 2009 | 3 Comments
Despite predictions that loan origination volumes could drop 40%-60% in 2010 in segments like the US mortgage market (source: “Mortgage Workers: Keep, Cut, Transfer,” American Banker, 4 November 2009), Gartner client interactions reveal that banks are actively working to improve their loan origination processes, data and applications. For banks that seek to improve loan origination, [...]
Category: operations Tags: loan originatoin, p2p lending
by Kristin Moyer | December 10, 2009 | Comments Off
Financial services firms in the East are effectively delivering microfinance to a population that has many living below a poverty line of $2 per day. For example, microinsurance is insurance for the poor. The poor can experience catastrophic financial disruption through the loss of such property as animals, crops and shelter. If a breadwinner dies, [...]
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Category: Executive Decisions Tags: east, microfinance
by Kristin Moyer | December 9, 2009 | 4 Comments
As healthcare costs in the West continue to skyrocket, it is not unthinkable that insurance companies would provide corporate-sponsored plans (across industries — including financial services) that provide incentives for patients to utilize medical tourism. For example, an insurance company may provide 90% coverage for an open-heart surgery in India (leaving the patient to pay $870 [...]
Category: Executive Decisions Tags:
by Kristin Moyer | December 8, 2009 | Comments Off
Financial services firms can learn a lot about marketing from China. The next stage in China’s economic development is to progress from being the factory of the world (that is, from being made in China) to creating things that others have not yet conceived (that is, being created in China). This will enable China to [...]
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Category: Uncategorized Tags:
by Kristin Moyer | December 7, 2009 | Comments Off
The tide is turning in financial services. Governments, responding to constituents infuriated by things like executives going to a spa after recently receiving government bailout money, have been pressuring financial institutions on executive compensations all year. Financial institution executives are now pushing back. The board of RBS is apparently threatening to resign if the government doesn’t [...]
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Category: Executive Decisions Uncategorized Tags: compensation
by Kristin Moyer | December 7, 2009 | 1 Comment
China is the world’s factory, and has been for some time. With its experience in manufacturing, some of China’s best practices can be brought to other markets and become global practices (see “Innovation Is Reshaping China’s Economy“). These best practices include: Coverage of vast areas at low cost A varied mix of technology and labor [...]
Category: Executive Decisions Tags: china, operations
by Kristin Moyer | December 4, 2009 | 1 Comment
The FDIC just announced (see here) that 60 million adults in the US are either unbanked or underbanked. With a population of about 300 million, I calculate this to be about 20% of the population – the FDIC is saying it is 25% of households in the US. Much of the attention this article is [...]
Category: operations Tags: unbanked, underbanked
by Kristin Moyer | December 3, 2009 | 2 Comments
Citigroup Inc. is in the process of consolidating a number of mobile banking initiatives and solutions. This past summer, as what I would think is a precursor to these moves, it consolidated its Internet and mobile groups. The driver behind all of this? Cost? Nope, but consolidating operations will certainly bring cost benefits. Agility? Not [...]
Category: Customer Tags: mobile banking
