In the 2012 Top 10 Technology Initiatives in Retail Banking, two business drivers were listed that show no signs of receding – customer mistrust and satisfaction and the financially stressed customer base. The most recent results of CEB TowerGroup’s Consumer Financial Monitor have been published and it’s clear that these business drivers are becoming entrenched. Only 13% of consumers globally have confidence in financial institutions.  Even fewer (10%) believe that financial institutions share their values, while  only 11% believe that FSIs offer products with clear policies and fees. Perhaps not surprisingly given the recent economic turmoil, Europe is the region with the least confidence in financial institutions but perhaps surprisingly, North America has the most confidence in its FSIs. Read More »

Business process management (BPM) tools model, analyze, automate, and coordinate business processes across functions or the enterprise. We recently identified business process management technology as a key component of a three-phase approach to driving automation in client onboarding in order to boost potential referrals to new clients. Read More »

The direct mail acquisition channel hit the mass market in 1958 when BankAmericard, Bank of America’s Visa predecessor, tested a 60,000-piece credit card drop to residents of Fresno, California when it sent unsolicited, live credit cards, to unexpecting consumers.  This accelerated card deployment for the new financial services product that relied on traditional “take-one” credit card applications found in retail bank branches to a direct mail strategy that enabled Bank America, Capital One, Citi, Chase and Wells Fargo to grow national card portfolios.  Read More »

In 2012, technology maturity has accelerated and most of the easy cost savings in IT have been captured by insurance carriers. Institutions that are able to leverage the power of technology to solve business problems and increase sales will establish competitive advantage. Lines of business heads are raising the demand bar and it is challenging for IT executives to prioritize spending.  More than ever, understanding industry spending trends is critical in terms of positioning an insurance organization for market success and leadership. Read More »

Without regard to the efficacy of the consent decree, there is a much larger issue: the traditional payment card business model is broken.  Card issuers struggle to balance pricing that reflects the business risk of lending money to mass consumer markets after losing the ability to dynamically price according to risk under the CARD Act of 2009.  To exacerbate the issue, card companies still face discontented merchants on the basis interchange costs, which recently cost the industry $7.3 billion in court ordered settlements.  This latest enforcement action comes at a time where the US card business is attempting to stumble its way out of the global recession. Read More »

Even as financial institutions evaluate improvements in their core banking and processing systems, Trade services are seen as an expensive, “nice to have” addition to core functionality.  But failing to integrate meaningful trade solutions into customer offers not only cedes valuable ground to non-bank competitors; it leaves revenue on the table, and ignores an opportunity to generate credit revenue when credit demand is otherwise scarce.  FIs have always been front and center in providing traditional solutions in trade finance, primarily through Letters of Credit, receivables finance and syndicated loans. In the past 5 years the use of open account solutions has become the dominant vehicle for trade finance. Read More »

Actuarial systems are mission-critical to life insurers. They support life & annuity insurers in managing and modeling risk for specific products and across their entire investment portfolio. Many external factors are driving the expected increase in actuarial systems spending.  Insurers investment earnings continue to be depressed by a low Federal Reserve rate, targeted at 0 to ¼ percent, and by high asset volatility, above the 20.6 average of the VIX volatility index.  Read More »

More than 60% of Financial Service Institutions that are planning to adopt or replace Portfolio Management technologies will do so in 2012; while a little more than a half (58%) will adopt Client Reporting technologies in the same year. The majority of Financial Services affirm that Core Banking Systems technologies and Online Banking Solutions are both of high value (considering factors such as functionality, process improvement, competitive advantage, and maintainability benefits) and high risk (looking at factors such as integration, complexity, risk of catastrophic failure, and dependence of resources) to their companies. Read More »

Key drivers behind this trend include: student population demographics; the rapidly rising cost of school tuition, room and board; and (until recently) strong growth in the less regulated private, for profit student loan segment. Read More »

 Key portfolio performance metrics are improving, encouraging expansion of both private label and general purpose credit cards.  The business challenge for both card segments is to stimulate sales while also increasing outstanding balances.  Read More »