Online Banking Report Archives - Page 2 of 6

New Issue Published: The Finovate Quarterly from Online Banking Report

By Jim Bruene Posted on April 2, 2013
Categories: FinovateEurope 2013, Online Banking Report

For the past year, we’ve been publishing a wrap-up of each Finovate event. Since there is now a Finovate every quarter, we are rolling event coverage into a quarterly publication and expanding it to include other significant fintech developments.

The Finovate Quarterly is complimentary for Online Banking Report subscribers and is automatically delivered to them via mail. Anyone else can purchase here.

The report focuses primarily on the highlights from FinovateEurope, including profiles of the Best of Show winners:

Credit-Agricole for its app store where it is wooing outside developers
ETRONIKA for its BANKTRON e-channel management platform
mBank with Efigence for their Facebook & social platform
Meniga for its PFM platform, including “buy” vs “not buy” feature
Moven (Movenbank) for the worldwide launch of its mobile-optimized bank
Pockets United for its group purchasing mobile solution
SumUp for its mobile point-of-sale system
Virtual Piggy for its kids’ payment system with parental controls

The report also contains a run-down of the quarterly highlights and milestones at Finovate alums and other fintech companies.

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About the report
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Finovate Quarterly (link)
Highlights of Q1 2013, including a look at the best new products from FinovateEurope

Author: Julie Schicktanz & David Penn, Finovate Group Research Analysts
Editor: Jim Bruene, Finovate Group Founder

Published: 31 March 2013

Length: 64 pages; 10,000 words

Cost: No extra charge to OBR subscribers, US$150 for others here
The printed version will be mailed to subscribers next week.

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Note:
1. See Best of Show methodology here.

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New Online Banking Report Published: Breaking Down the Digital/Mobile Wallet Hype

By Jim Bruene Posted on February 22, 2013
Categories: Credit/Debit Cards, Mobile Payments, Online Banking Report

We now have digital wallets, cloud wallets and mobile wallets. There’s the Google Wallet, PayPal wallet, ISIS, Serve, MCX, V.me, PayPass, Lemon, Pageonce, Wallaby, Passbook, LevelUp (see screenshot below) and 280 mobile payment startups listed on Angel List. NFC is coming, or is it? Why not just use the QR code? Or do we wait until EMV, Oct 2015? Does this make money or just add another layer of costs? Are we having fun yet?

Bottom line: With consumers carrying a powerful computer on their person, the days of the dumb mag-stripe are numbered. No one debates that. But what is a financial institution to do today?

That’s what we set out to answer in our latest report on Digital & Mobile Wallets.

If you are not a major credit-card issuer, you may choose to ignore the issue until the dust settles. That’s a valid strategy, but it won’t help you pick up market share during the upcoming market confusion.

We believe every bank and credit union with a mobile app should dip its toes into the wallet space now with some relatively low- to no-cost positioning moves, while waiting for the tech questions to be answered this year and next.

And if you are a big issuer, you have a very interesting few years in front of you. Do you build or buy? Which of the major wallets, if any, do you throw your marketing support behind? And how do you explain any of this to your shell-shocked customers who just want to pay their tab and get away from the cash register as fast as possible?

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About the report
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Digital & Mobile Wallets (link)
Payments in the smartphone era

Author: Jim Bruene, Editor & Founder

Published: 21 Feb 2013

Length: 36 pages, 10 tables, 12,000 words

Cost: No extra charge to OBR subscribers, US$495 for others (here)

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Report excerpt:

First Trade Union Bank is teasing its LevelUp mobile wallet partnership on its homepage (19 Feb 2013).

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New Online Banking Report Published: Online & Mobile Forecast Through 2022

By Jim Bruene Posted on January 8, 2013
Categories: Lending Club, Metrics & Market Research, Online Banking Report, P2P Lending

Our latest research is now available: Online Banking Report 2013 to 2022 Forecast. The report includes our latest 10-year online banking, mobile banking and bill-pay forecast for the U.S. market. Online banking remains relatively flat, growing less than 5%, while mobile expanded by 40% last year (see note 1).

Based on recent mobile growth, we now project that in 2019, mobile account access will equal online account access in the United States (based on household penetration of each service).

The report also includes a revised 10-year forecast for U.S. peer-to-peer lending. After growing almost fifteen-fold in the past three years (2012 vs. 2009), we expect continued strong growth of nearly 30% compounded annually through 2022.

Finally, we took one last look at 2012 and documented the top-10 innovations or trends of the year (see below). We also updated our top-10 project priorities for 2013.

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Top innovations & trends of 2012
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The report includes a summary of the top-10 innovations or trends during the past year (in alphabetic order):

Alt-biz lending disrupts commercial lending for the smaller business
Balance forecasting launched by Simple and Key Bank
Banking websites get “simple” makeovers
Digital (cloud) wallets find a value proposition, best-case routing
iPads appear at the POS and new accounts desk
Mobile deposit goes mainstream
P2P lending pops!
Pay As You Go auto insurance launched by MetroMile
Prepaid cards gain as “basic checking”
Virtual gift cards get a boost as Square launches 200,000 in a single day

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New entrants to the OBR Hall of Fame
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Each year we rank the top online/mobile innovations of all time (North America). A total of 48 achievements are listed from 50 companies:

17 banks
5 credit unions
11 non-bank financial services companies
17 fintech companies

The class of 2012 included two new entrants:

City Bank of Texas’s mobile on/off switch for debit cards (powered by Malauzai)
Simple and Key Bank both launched real-time balance forecast tools

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About the report
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Online & Mobile Banking Forecast (link)
The next 10 years: 2013 through 2022

Author: Jim Bruene, Editor & Founder

Published: 7 Jan 2013

Length: 32 pages, 26 tables, 12,000 words

Cost: No extra charge to OBR subscribers, US$495 for others here

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Report excerpt:

Lending Club is the biggest fintech startup success of 2012
The company originated nearly three-quarter billion dollars in new loans in 2012 and surpassed $1 billion in cumulative originations in November.

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New Report Published: The Best of FinovateAsia 2012

By Jim Bruene Posted on November 26, 2012
Categories: FinovateAsia 2012, National Australia Bank, Online Banking Report

Our first Finovate in Asia did not disappoint. With 350 attendees, it was smaller than recent U.S. shows, but it had a ton of energy. While that made it hard to herd folks back to the auditorium amidst all their animated conversations, it’s exactly what we hope for. And we are looking forward to a return next year.

FinovateAsia featured 35 companies, each delivering a seven-minute demo. As is our habit, we’ve summarized the innovations from the crowd favorites and are deliver it to subscribers in the latest report:

The Best New Products at FinovateAsia 2012

Each of the four companies voted Best of Show by the attendees at the event (note 1) are profiled:

CurrencyFair showed off its new Marketplace for
peer-to-peer international transfers
Finantix launched Sharp digital banking platform to
improve sales and service interaction
SocietyOne debuted its ClearMatch technology used
to streamline the loan application process
Ubank, a unit of National Australian Bank (NAB), launched
its peer-spending comparison tool, People like U

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About the report
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The Best New Products at FinovateAsia (link)
A look at the four "Best of Show" winners

Author: Julie Schicktanz, Finovate Group Research Analyst
Editor: Jim Bruene, Finovate Group Founder

Published: 21 November 2012

Length: 32 pages; 7,000 words

Cost: No extra charge to OBR subscribers, US$125 for others
The printed version will be mailed to subscribers next week.

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Note:
1. See Best of Show methodology here.

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New Online Banking Report Published: Digital Overdraft Protection

By Jim Bruene Posted on October 30, 2012
Categories: Fee Income, Online Banking Report, Pricing

I’ve been wanting to write about overdraft protection for more than five years. It’s a $30 billion market (note 1) with a number of serious issues, but I wasn’t quite sure how it fit our mission of identifying opportunities in online and mobile banking. I finally realized the always-on digital connection to the customer fundamentally changes the overdraft equation.

In the pre-digital age, a “bad check” was a labor-intensive process. Manually handling the item with slow snail-mail and/or phone calls to the customer was a hassle and a significant cost. The $8 NSF/OD fee in place when I started in banking (late 1980s) barely covered the variable costs, and certainly wasn’t a major profit center.

Fast-forward 25 years. With sophisticated balance forecasting ala Simple (note 3), real-time debit authorizations, and virtually free instant customer communications, not to mention a hostile political environment, the days of $30+ penalty fees are numbered.

The transition will not be an easy one for banks. But there are ways to create customer-friendly overdraft-protection services, primarily delivered digitally, that win back a good portion of the lost revenue while making customers MUCH, MUCH more satisfied.

Our new 36-page report includes:

25 promising overdraft-protection enhancements for the digital age
Pricing overdrafts and overdraft-protection services
Gallery of overdraft-protection websites at banks and credit unions
Profile: Bank of Internet’s OD-free checking account
Size of the U.S. market for overdrafts

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About the report
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Digital Overdraft Protection (link)
Making it a customer benefit again

Author: Jim Bruene, Editor & Founder

Published: 29 October 2012

Length: 36 pages, 12 tables, 7,600 words

Cost: No extra charge to OBR subscribers, US$395 for others here

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Notes:
1. United States fee income to banks and credit unions
2. Graphic from Southwest Missouri Bank
3. For more on balance forecasting, see our recent PFM report (June 2012, subscription).

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New Online Banking Report Published: The Best of FinovateFall 2012

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on October 1, 2012
Categories: FinovateFall 2012, Online Banking Report

We wrapped up FinovateFall in New York City about a week ago. Over the course of two days, 64 companies gave 7-minute demos to an audience of around 1,100. We’ve summarized the information and presented it in our latest Finovate Report, Fall Edition.

Introducing:

The Best New Products at FinovateFall 2012

This post-show wrapup is designed to help those that weren’t there get a better understanding of the major themes. And for those who were in attendance, it’s a box score to compare with your own notes and impressions.

In the report, we looked at three big trends that emerged at FinovateFall:

Small businesses get the same financial tools as bigger businesses
Security moves past the PIN
Beyond plastic, the mobile wallet is here

And we profiled each of the seven companies voted Best of Show by the attendees at the event (note 1):

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About the report
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The Best New Products at FinovateFall (link)
Includes a look at all eight Best of Show winners

Author: Julie Schicktanz, Finovate Group Research Analyst
Editor: Jim Bruene, Finovate Group Founder

Published: 28 September 2012

Length: 59 pages, 12,000 words

Cost: No extra charge to OBR subscribers, US$195 for others

The printed version will be mailed to subscribers next week

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Note:
1. See Best of Show methodology here.

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New Online Banking Report Published: 2013 Guide to Remote Banking Products, Marketing & Strategy

By Jim Bruene Posted on August 29, 2012
Categories: Online Banking Report, Planning, Strategic Planning

Alright everyone, take a deep breath, summer is over and it’s time to get down to business. You are now officially behind on all the 2012 “stretch goals” that still seemed possible a few months ago.

And for many, September marks marks the beginning of the 2013 planning cycle. We are here to help. First, we moved FinovateFall up three weeks (to Sep 12/13) so you have more time to get those new ideas in to your plans.

Then there’s our annual reference, OBR’s 2013 Online/Mobile Banking Planning Guide. It’s a thorough resource for financial institution product/marketing managers prioritizing next year’s remote-banking efforts.

The latest version was posted online last night.

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About the report
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2013 Product, Pricing & Strategy Guide for Remote Banking (link)
Embracing new business models for a digital world

Author: Jim Bruene, Editor & Founder

Published: 29 Aug 2012

Length: 76 pages (36,000 words)

Cost: No extra charge to OBR subscribers, $595 for others here

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Table of Contents

The report contains a list of every idea that has appeared in Online Banking Report or this blog (sample page, below). There are more than 1,000 possible online/mobile tactics listed in the current report, divided into the following categories:

1. Product tactics
A. Checking & transaction cards
B. Deposits & savings
C. Loans & credit
D. Personal finance management
E. Insurance
F. Investing
G. Payments & transfers
H. Mobile services
I. Family (children, teens, tweens)

2. Sales & marketing tactics
A. Increase online sales
B. Selling behind the password
C. Enter new markets & segments
D. Attract new residents (movers)
E. Increase referrals and word-of-mouth
F. Social media and Web 2.0
G. PR: appeal to community

3. Service, security & retention tactics
A. Increase satisfaction levels
B. Enroll more online banking users
C. Encourage/reward self-service
D. Encourage paperless adoption
E. Address security concerns

4. Small business products and services

5. Pricing: Fees and subscriptions

6. Messages & alerts

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New Online Banking Report Published: Personal Financial Management 4.0

By Jim Bruene Posted on June 26, 2012
Categories: Online Banking Report, Personal Financial Management

While personal financial management (PFM) may be THE most important feature of online/mobile banking going forward, it’s time to stop thinking of it as "product."

PFM is part of every thing you do when communicating account info to customers. The paper statement is a PFM tool. The call center offers PFM. Even the branch helps certain customers with their financial management.

But those old-school tools have limitations. They are expensive, difficult to customize, and aren’t always timely or available.

So online banking has been a boon to personal financial management. Can you imagine going back to the world where you actually had to keep track of your balance in your check register?

But 17 years after Wells Fargo put the first customer statement online, most customers are still stuck looking at an online rendering of their circa-1960 paper statement. It’s an area ripe for disruption, and Mint.com, with 3% to 4% penetration of U.S. households, proved that users want better-looking, more functional online info.

However, unlike record stores, newspapers, and travel agents, incumbent banks and credit unions have a much better chance to stay relevant and hold on to their market share. Other than early-adopter types, few customers will entrust their money to Internet-based startups (Bank Simple may be poised to prove me wrong, we’ll see). And even if consumers have the desire, it’s often too much of a hassle to make the switch.

As long as financial institutions stay up-to-date in online/mobile delivery, keep prices in check, and provide decent service, there are no compelling reason for customers to ever leave.

For banks, a big part of staying current is helping customers stay apprised of their financial situation, and helping them improve it. We are lumping those things together and calling it PFM. One of the biggest changes coming, thanks in part to Bank Simple making it central to their UI, is the forward-looking "balance forecast" (or Safe-to-Spend balance in Simple-speak). See last Friday’s post for more on that.

But that’s just the tip of the PFM iceberg. There are dozens of needed new features to bring online banking up to 2012 "web standards."

In our new 54-page report we cover:

23 primary PFM functions
40 promising PFM features
Another 100 potential features
PFM forecast (U.S. household usage by PFM type)
The business case
Putting it all together in multiple service bundles, including fee-based premium options
PFM availability at the 30 largest U.S. banks and credit unions including our first look at Citibank’s Financial Tools
Mobile PFM
PFM for couples

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About the report
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Personal Financial Management 4.0 (link)
Moving forward with the most misunderstood financial
service of the online era

Author: Jim Bruene, Editor & Founder

Published: 25 June 2012

Length: 56 pages, 12 tables, 16,000 words

Cost: No extra charge to OBR subscribers, US$495 for others here

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Sample screenshot
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HelloWallet combines budget status (e.g., at "coffee shops") and a macro "left to spend" balance on its mobile view

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New Online Banking Report Published: The Best of FinovateSpring 2012

By Jim Bruene Posted on May 24, 2012
Categories: FinovateSpring 2012, Online Banking Report

Since we started the Finovate conference series we’ve spent considerable time before each show selecting the companies, walking through demos, and blogging/tweeting about each one. But we’ve never done a full wrap-up and analysis afterwards.

Until now. Introducing our latest report:

The Best New Products at
FinovateSpring 2012

This post-show wrap-up is designed to help those that weren’t there get a better understanding of the major themes. And for those that were in attendance, it’s a box score to compare with your own notes and impressions.

In the report, we looked at the three big trends that emerged at FinovateSpring:

Mobile 2.0: The feature set expands
Ad-supported banking gets real
Alt-banking: The rise of the “near bank” catering to the underserved

And we profiled each of the seven companies voted Best of Show by the attendees at the event (note 1):

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About the report
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The Best New Products at FinovateSpring (link)
Includes a look at all seven Best of Show winners

Author: Jim Bruene, Editor & Founder

Published: 22 May 2012

Length: 48 pages, 12,000 words

Cost: No extra charge to OBR subscribers, US$195 for others here

The printed version will be mailed to subscribers next week

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Note:
1. See Best of Show methodology here.

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New Online Banking Report Published: Delivering that Secure Feeling

By Jim Bruene Posted on April 5, 2012
Categories: Fee Income, Online Banking Report, Pricing, Security, Security & Privacy

OK, let’s think this through. Consumers have been concerned about the security of online banking for more than a decade. Technology tools are available to ease their anxiety. So, why aren’t these tools readily available?

The answer is that most security enhancements don’t pay their own way in terms of reduced fraud. Therefore, these “nice to have” features languish in the priority queue with little hope of getting implemented.

So do we just let customers continue to needlessly fret about the security of their financial accounts?

No, that just irritates already fed-up customers and invites more independent competitors to the table to provide the missing benefits (e.g., BillGuard, Credit Karma, Mint).

Instead, why not move to the win-win solution: Charge an optional subscription fee for extra “peace of mind,” but only to customers who want it. Or offer the value-adds free of charge for customers who help you lower costs by using self-service channels and foregoing printed statements.

But wait. Aren’t fees dead after the BofA debacle a few months ago?

While that was a very real customer backlash, optional fees are still possible. Just keep these rules in mind:

Fees for extra security should NEVER be mandatory; instead, offer a “security bundle” that goes above and beyond the normal state of the art
Do not charge a fee for any security feature you already offer free of charge (the big problem with the ill-fated debit card monthly fee)
Do not charge for a security feature that is typically delivered free of charge by others in the industry
It’s better to bundle a group of extra security features into a relative low-priced subscription bundle

In our new 48-page report we cover:

12 design elements to make your website feel more secure
7 potential positive elements for your business case
5 talking points for staff education before implementing a subscription fee
37 potential security enhancements to bundle into an “extra security” subscription offering
72 additional security features to consider
5 customer segments to target with a fee-based package account
Overview of three promising security services:
— Anti-virus for transactions from BillGuard
— Self-service suspicious activity reporting from Bank of America
— Virtual safe deposit from Northwest FCU, powered by DigitalMailer

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About the report
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Delivering that Secure Feeling (link)
Help consumers reduce perceived risks (for a price)

Author: Jim Bruene, Editor & Founder

Published: 4 April 2012

Length: 48 pages, 8 tables, 12,000 words

Cost: No extra charge to OBR subscribers, US$395 for others here

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Sample screenshot

: Barclays (UK) offers online banking customers free anti-virus software from Kaspersky

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New Online Banking Report Published: Banking on Facebook

By Jim Bruene Posted on February 29, 2012
Categories: Facebook, Online Banking Report, Social Media, Social Networks

We just published our latest report, Banking on Facebook, which looks at why you should establish a presence on the social network. And more importantly, what you can do to make the effort pay off.

To some extent, this report was overdue. Facebook has been a major social force for four or five years. However, it wasn’t until recently that brands have taken the platform seriously.

And while soft drinks and social games may dominate Facebook brand pages now, every major brand will be there eventually, financial services included. The opening to our report lays out the opportunity:

If there was a neighborhood that 90% of your customers visited frequently, many every day, how much would you pay to have a presence there? If you were small, maybe $10,000; if you were Chase, maybe hundreds of millions.

But what if it cost almost nothing to set up shop there? Basically, that’s Facebook: a place most of your customers frequent and where brands can establish a page for exactly zero dollars.

In the 56-page report we cover:

12 main reasons you should invest in a Facebook brand page
12 primary components of a Facebook brand page (see screenshot below)
42 advanced tactics for your Facebook page
47 financial institutions worldwide with more than 100,000 Facebook fans/likes
Consumer interest in viewing bank account info, spending info, and credit info within their Facebook page
The importance of Facebook’s new "Action" buttons for banks (inset)
23 Facebook terms you need to understand (e.g. social plugins)

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About the report
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Banking on Facebook (link)
It’s time to set up shop in the dominant social network

Author: Jim Bruene, Editor & Founder

Published: 28 Feb 2012

Length: 56 pages, 10 tables, 12,000 words

Cost: No extra charge to OBR subscribers, US$495 for others here

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Sample screenshot: We use Lending Club to illustrate the basic components of a Facebook brand page

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New Online Banking Report Published: Online & Mobile Forecast Through 2021

By Jim Bruene Posted on January 9, 2012
Categories: Market Research & Metrics, Online Banking Report

The latest research is now available: Online Banking Report: 2012 to 2021 Online & Mobile Banking Forecast. The report includes our latest 10-year online banking, mobile banking and bill-pay forecast for the U.S. market. Online banking remains relatively flat, growing less than 5%, while mobile expanded by more than 40% last year (see note 1).

We still believe mobile is on a path to surpass online banking in the United Sates by the end of the decade (note 2). Although by then, the two will be very similar, if not identical.

The report also includes a revised 10-year forecast for U.S. peer-to-peer lending. After growing five-fold in two years (2011 vs. 2009), we expect continued strong growth of nearly 40% compounded annually through 2021.

Finally, we took one last look at 2011 and documented the top ten innovations or trends of the year (see below). We also updated our top-10 project priorities for 2012.

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Top innovations & trends of 2011
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The report includes a summary of the top ten innovations or trends during the past year (in alphabetic order):

Ad-supported banking gains a foothold
BillGuard launches transaction-monitoring tool (screenshot below)
Capital One acquires ING Direct USA
Mobile banking goes Android
P2P lending doubles
PFM turns its attention to debt management
Square re-engineers off-line POS
Social media-fueled banking backlash
Truly virtual banks arrive
Youth banking gets a powerful new entrant

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New entrants to the OBR Hall of Fame
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Each year we rank the top online/mobile innovations of all time (North America). There are a total of 46 achievements listed from 45 unique companies:

15 banks
5 credit unions
10 non-bank financial services companies
15 technology companies

The class of 2011 included three new entrants:

BillGuard for creating a PFM application (transaction scanning) that provides tangible value to the mass market
Doxo launches first full-featured virtual billing file cabinet
Mint for putting all the pieces together to create a compelling online personal financial management system (note 3)
Personal Capital, for doing for wealth management what Mint.com did for retail customers

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About the report
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Online & Mobile Banking Forecast (link)
The next 10 years: 2012 through 2021

Author: Jim Bruene, Editor & Founder

Published: 6 Jan 2012

Length: 40 pages, 27 tables, 14,000 words

Cost: No extra charge to OBR subscribers, US$495 for others here

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BillGuard is one of four new companies added to the OBR Hall of Fame in 2011 (9 Jan 2012)
Note: Powerful homepage message: Protect Your Money

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Notes:
1. The penetration of online banking into U.S. households is relatively flat going forward. However, because each household accesses a larger number of financial accounts, growth at individual financial institutions is still growing on average.
2. Forecast is for the United States. Mobile has already surpassed all types of banking in some developing countries.
3. Mint.com is being added four years past its 2007 launch. Since it didn’t pioneer any specific new features, we hadn’t put it on the list. But, we’ve decided its legacy of improving the user interface for online banking is worthy of making it into the OBR hall of fame.

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