As if financial institutions don’t already have enough to do to keep up with developments in social media! They must clearly outline company policy to employees concerning what should and should not be posted, inform agents of the regulatory do’s and don’ts, and continually scan the internet to respond to comments about their brand. Now, [...]

Remember when banking was broadly embraced as an honorable profession? That idea seems to have been lost among most businesses and consumers these days. Hardly a day goes by without a news story about some sort of alleged bank impropriety. In sharp contrast, Celent seeks to celebrate financial institutions doing things well. Each year, we [...]

I’m still inundated with inquiries from financial institutions regarding social media. Everyone seems to be so concerned with getting on Facebook or Twitter. It’s as if that would solve all the woes of the banking industry. A very popular website, Mashable, put out an article yesterday titled, 5 Best Practices for Financial Institutions on Facebook. [...]

A few weeks ago, I was asked by David Bannister, editor of the Banking Technology magazine, to join a panel of industry experts to discuss the question – “Whatever happened to the listening bank?” The premise behind the question is that banks are at risk of getting disintermediated in payments by alternative providers. Are banks [...]

I’m at the Pyxis mobile conference learning about the latest and greatest. Pyxis is one of a number of Mobile Enterprise Application Platforms (MEAP). The goal is to write the software once so that it can be deployed anywhere: Android, iOS, Blackberry, wherever… There seem to be three major ways to implement the solution: Create [...]

I’ve been thinking about this for some time and wrote about it in a report I published this past June. It’s already starting to materialize. This week, Citi unveiled it’s new website, and it’s modeled after the mobile and tablet experience. To get a feel for the changes, have a look at the video Citi [...]

The conference season continues with gusto. After a hectic week in Sibos, I found myself last week on a Eurostar heading to Paris for a three-day Cards and Payments conference organised by EFMA, where I was invited to speak on Day 1. I don’t know if others have the same experience, but I view these [...]

I’ve been following the Durbin debit card discussions with interest for years. As many of you will know, I believed that if you’ve been following regulation in other markets, Europe and Australia in particular, this was inevitable. And, following the script I laid out, banks have decided to recoup fees by introducing a monthly fee [...]