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Why new financial technology remains important

14 October 2008 1 comment

Retired member

As we are in the middle of the crisis, financial technology vendors see a dark future in banks' tech spending. Still there is some light as described in netbanker:

http://www.netbanker.com/2008/09/why_new_financial_technology_remains_important.html

I fully believe that when it comes to cost-cutting, banks have to control opening new branches (especially in the CEE region) and turn to cost-effective self-service channels like internet, mobile, phone.

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Comments: (2)

Elton Cane Digital product delivery at News Corp Australia

14 October 2008

Hi József, welcome to the community.

You make an interesting point. The self-service channel focused approach has certainly worked well for some banks, who have succeeded without needing big branch infrastructures.

That said, banks such as Deutsche Bank obviously see the value in extending a branch network as part of a retail business growth stategy. But clever and cost-effective use of technology to support the branch will be a key success factor here too.

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A Finextra member

14 October 2008

Indeed, the branches should not be closed down, but opening new ones are quite an expensive strategy.

Check Unicredit, a huge CEE bank group, that was in serious trouble 1 week ago. What they did is they "put new branch opening in Central and Eastern Europe on hold".

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/unicredit-cut-costs-restructure-after/story.aspx?guid=%7BA9331240-D537-4BC3-9C95-DEDACDD50E0D%7D&siteid=rss

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