I spoke recently during the mobile track at the annual NetFinance conference in Arizona.  My slot at the end of the first day meant that by the time my turn rolled around, I was faced with good news and bad news.  It was good that there was so much agreement among all the participants, and [...]

There is a reason that user adoption of PFM is so low. Well several reasons in fact, and you can read about it in this report. Thankfully, steps are being taken to more tightly couple PFM and online banking – one of the MANY key elements required to improve adoption.  Intuit announced last week that [...]

For years, I’ve been able to schedule an appointment with my healthcare provider, barber, pastor and friends, but never my banker. What’s up with that? That’s because banks have historically relied on a 100% walk-in model for in-branch sales and service. Things are finally beginning to change. They need to. With branch traffic declining at most [...]

I recently stayed at a Sheraton in London. On arrival I was intrigued by a card that offered me 500 points for not having my room cleaned.  This was a different approach than the old, and not particularly effective, exhortation to hang my towel if I wanted to save water – in that scenario, there [...]

This morning, ACI announced that it is going to acquire Online Resources. It’s a bold move on the part of ACI, especially after their recent acquisition of S1. ACI is clearly working on growing market share, and adding to it’s vast treasure trove of fintech assets. My initial feelings regarding the acquisition are mixed. What [...]

The small business online banking space is fraught with confusion. Banks are still struggling to understand if their customers should be placed onto consumer online solutions, dedicated small business solutions, or even corporate cash management offerings. Today, the majority of small business online banking users are running on consumer solutions. By definition, this means that [...]

A rash of denial of service attacks hit major US banks this week. These are scary incidents that wreak havoc for banks and their customers. For now at least, these attacks appear to be limited to online sites, and are therefore interrupting the online banking activities of the US public. Online banking is a mainstream [...]

I spent part of last week at Finovate Fall in New York (Celent is a proud Finovate partner). I always love the Finovate events – they provide me with a front row seat to examine the latest and greatest in banking technology. I’m primarily interested in companies showcasing emerging technology, and understanding how these technologies [...]

Should banks have a Facebook presence? What should they actually offer to customers via Facebook? Should it be informational or dare I say it, transactional? A couple of interesting announcements and feelers have surfaced lately: FNB (South Africa) launches banking via Facebook Citigroup Asks Facebook Users If They’d Like Social Banking Commonwealth Bank (Australia) to [...]

Google has announced that it’s going to deep six iGoogle, its dashboard portal to the web. Google is shutting it down because it claims that iGoogle, “had become less relevant in the age of the mobile Internet.” There are likely numerous reasons for this shutdown – Google’s “spring cleaning effort,” politics, centralization of web apps [...]