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Trends in Financial Services

A community to discuss the future of financial services and any other interesting trends, strategies, ideas, views.

Elton Cane

Elton Cane Digital product delivery at News Corp Australia

Payments-mobile comms convergence - the real-estate model

Last week, as Visa USA president and CEO John Coghlan called for closer collaboration between the payment card and mobile industries (see Finextra article here), how this collaboration might work in practice was being discussed at the Digital Money Forum event in London. O2 is one of the network operators currently investigating near-field communic...

/payments /retail

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Wells Fargo: Adventures in the blogosphere

Wells Fargo launched its first blog Guided by History a year ago today. Initially intended as a short-term experiment, the US bank has been so impressed by the experience that it has since launched three other blogs and created a social media unit to manage its activities in the space. In the studentloanddown, a blog created to plug Wells Fargo ...

/retail

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Skype dials up PayPal

The latest upgrade to the Skype internet telephony system is now available for download in beta format. Significant new features include the ability to incorporate a video snapshot and to send and receive money across the network using PayPal. If you’re adventurous and an experienced Skype user you can download the Skype 3.2 Beta for Windows versio...

/payments /retail

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Mintel need to do a better job

Chicago-based Mintel, a global supplier of consumer, product and media intelligence, report a new study that suggests younger consumers are shunning online banking. Conveniently later in the press release, they point out that contactless credit cards will come to the rescue and save the day. My view: companies such as Mintel, particularly those...

/security

Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Mobile gold rush

After unsuccessfully dabbling with the mobile channel at the turn of the decade, US banks now appear ready to make a serious play for real-estate space on the consumer cell phone. Bank of America, which announced its return to the mobile arena earlier this year, will soon be followed by BancorpSouth, SunTrust, Regions and Wachovia, who have signe...

/payments /retail

Elton Cane

Elton Cane Digital product delivery at News Corp Australia

Bank branch technology and the leapfrog effect

I was talking today to Andreas Andreades, CEO of core banking system vendor Temenos, about the company's tie-up in the US with Metavante (more on that in my next post). Something he said as an aside particularly caught my attention: "Bank customers in Thailand get a better in-branch experience than bank customers in the UK." The context ...

/retail

Retired Member

Retired Member 

More on recovering bank charges

I too have been trying to recover unnecessary charges; from my bank of choice, The Abbey. About two weeks ago I sent in my £10 cheque (It took me a while to remember where my cheque book was and blow all the dust of it) and my request for my last six years of statements. To my amazement they replied yesterday with FOURTEEN envelopes! Each envelop...

/retail

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Recovering Bank Charges - 2

I rang the Alliance & Leicester this morning and spoke to the Call Centre and explained that I had read a lot about the recovery of charges and wanted to know what I had to do to query and possibly recover mine. The very nice lady explained that they would send me a form and I had to complete it and return it with 10 pounds and that the bank th...

/payments /retail

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Zopa continues preparation for expansion outside UK

Zopa beefs up the management strucuture with a seasoned expert in the unsecured field appointed as Global CEO. With $34 million raised now, and the appointment of this position, this may be signalling that they are getting closer to US opening.

Retired Member

Retired Member 

Recovering Bank Charges - 1

Finextra, in common with much of the financial press has covered the issue of bank charges in depth and because of the press coverage I conducted my own investigation this weekend and was surprised to discover that my bank, the Alliance & Leicester, has charged me over 1,500 pounds in the last 2 years for overdraft, bounced payments and intere...

/payments /retail

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