I’m attending Finovate Spring in San Francisco (Finovate.com). We’ve seen a number of great demos, and others that haven’t gone so well.  If you think of a classic consultant’s 2×2, with one dimension being strength of the idea and the other the strength of the presenter, probably the most unfortunate quadrant is the one 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 [...]

Banorte and IBM announced today in a press release a “10-year strategic agreement that will allow the Mexican finance institution to create a new customer-centric banking model.” For years we’ve been discussing best practices in bank transformation; but few have actually been implemented in more than piecemeal fashion.  Three aspects of this US$1 billion alliance [...]

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 [...]

On January 15th, Green Dot, a US-based company best known for its prepaid cards, announced the launch of GoBank, a full FDIC-insured bank account designed for and available via mobile phone. Promoting itself as “a bank with tomorrow’s technology”, it does indeed come with a host of attractive features, such as a mobile-only account opening, checking the [...]

We’re coming to the end of the old year and the top of a new one, and that means it’s time for top trend reports from Celent. These are typically some of the most downloaded reports of the year. They represent the collective thinking of the entire Celent banking team. There will be four coming [...]

Frank Partnoy wrote a fascinating opinion piece in Financial Times last week about the coming world of smaller banks. The article has prompted no small amount of commentary. I felt obliged to add my own two cents here. In his article, Mr. Partnoy muses, “How many people does it take to operate a modern bank [...]

This week, USAA announced its partnership with The UPS Store to act as an in-person deposit gathering channel for the bank – something USAA has done without for years and has managed to enjoy a deposit growth rate of roughly three times the industry average recently. USAA expects the free check-deposit service, USAA Easy Deposit, [...]

Late last week the Huffington Post published an article called, Move Your Money: A New Year’s Resolution. It’s an interesting read, and is attracting a lot of attention in the online world. The folks involved went ahead and setup a web site, www.moveyourmoney.info. This site allows individuals to search for a community bank in their [...]

To help customers avoid fees and more easily manage their finances, BBVA Compass is joining a growing number of large US banks announcing policy changes. Specifically: Eliminate all overdraft fees when a customer’s account is overdrawn by $5 or less Provide new customers the choice to opt-in to overdraft protection at account opening Actively promote [...]