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The ink’s barely dry on the news that ING Group will divest its U.S. bank, ING Direct, within the next 48 months (note 1), when someone else has already launched a direct bank with a distinctive orange theme (note 2): The new brand: Incredible Bank from River Valley Bank, an 18-branch, $900 million (assets) bank Read more…
Checking account profits are being attacked on several fronts. Near-zero short-term interest rates have destroyed the profitability of the balances. Regulators and activists are putting pressure on penalty fees. And consumers are loath to pay monthly charges for what’s been positioned as a free service for so long. So how is it that Fifth Third Read more…
Day two of the Mobile Commerce Summit ran just for the morning (see Day 1 highlights), but anyone who overslept missed the highlight of the conference: the much-too-short panel discussion on revenue opportunities that started at 8:15 AM and ended at 9:00 (note 1). Panel: Mobile revenue opportunities Drew Sievers, founder & CEO, mFoundry Joe Read more…
About 100+ folks gathered in the brand new M Resort near Las Vegas for the third annual Mobile Commerce Summit by SourceMedia. Jeff Dennes from USAA and Jim Simpson from City Bank of Texas, both provided an extraordinary amount of metrics on their mobile rollouts (details below). The biggest innovation of the day was iPhone-enabled Read more…
I’ve gradually come around to Twitter as both a communications and research tool. A year ago it could have been dismissed as a niche platform for a few hundred thousand hyper-social geeks. But now that adoption has tipped, with 14 million users last month (see chart), the power of the network is opening up new Read more…
In a completely unscientific poll of 123 LinkedIn users I conducted about two hours ago, I found they overwhelmingly prefer the online channel over all others when accessing bank transaction data (see notes 1, 2, 3). I was expecting mobile to be higher. But unless you have a new-generation smartphone and your financial institution supports Read more…
Last May, Trusteer launched an optional added security measure for customers of ING Direct in the United States (note 1, see previous post). Although, it’s not perfect, users of the Rapport service are less vulnerable to viruses and malware running on the their PCs. We gave the new service an OBR Best of the Web Read more…
MoBank, the U.K.-based mobile banking and payments said to be launching this month, is creating some buzz on the other side of the Atlantic (stories here, here, and here). Given the pedigree of its two founders, Steve Townsend and Dominic Keen, who blazed many online banking trails at Egg and First Direct, it should provide Read more…
On Friday, I received a marketing message from U.S. Bank attempting to convince me to turn off my paper statements and adopt online statements. In 2007 (here), I wrote about its similar effort at login. The graphic design and layout are wonderful with splashes of green throughout and a peaceful, sunny forest scene. It’s a Read more…
With all the bad financial news circling the globe, you may not have been thinking about innovations in financial technology. While that’s understandable, this is not the time to ignore the fundamental changes occurring in the consumer marketplace (see below). Yes, we are biased towards new technology, but with registrations to our upcoming Finovate Conference Read more…
Even though I have credit cards from Citibank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, American Express and Chase, I have never been offered the opportunity to add contactless payment capability to my card, so I still have no firsthand experience of that particular wave of the future. And it hasn’t been too high on my list of Read more…
Kiwibank has one of the most eye-catching homepage designs in the world. Who can resist a lime green Smart Car with four monstrous speakers strapped to the roof? As I was obsessing about iPhone apps this week (see note 1), I ran across Kiwibank’s landing page for iPhone banking (see second screenshot below). Now that Read more…