Internet network to be tested in the next 5 years

From ITWire:

"A new study forecasts that demand for Internet bandwidth will grow by an order of magnitude in five years, straining current network architectures to the limit.

The study "World bandwidth growth over the next decade – is it viable? " was authored by David Payne of the Institute of Advanced Telecommunications, Swansea University in the UK and sponsored by CIP Technologies, a UK provider of photonics products, technical services and consultancy.

CIP's CTO, David Smith, said: "The Global Bandwidth Study demonstrates that current telecom networks will be unable to cope with the scaling demands for bandwidth. A step-change in technology is needed that can not only deliver this bandwidth demand at economic cost but also significantly reduce the amount of energy required to power and cool it."

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What does this mean - so as customer data continues to grow larger and more sophisticated in nature, as the interface with which customers manage their data becomes more personalised, again sophisticated and capable, as the marketing messages become either more targeted and/or immersive in nature, and as the competition for eyeballs increases between banks and even other industries, so too will grow the demand on the infrastructure that provides these experiences.

How will we combat this? How will we make our interactions simpler, smaller, less overbose, to enable clean, quick connections for our customers? Does web 2.0 in its current state mean smaller packets of data are transmitted, where dhtml, xml, rss and other code formats will replace html, flash, etc?

New MLC, St Geoge, AMP websites go live

The new MLC website is looking fresh - have a look and a browse. Calculators above are nice.

Also have a look at the new St George website, as well as AMPs new site. All happening!

NAB gets busy with SMS banking and Online Statements now live

NAB has launched its SMS banking service, where regsitered users can check account balances, request mini statements, and transfer funds between their accounts. This will add the the convenience SMS already brings to our lives... and looking forward to browser based banking on the mobile!

I've also noticed the arrival of online statements in internet banking - all you nab customers log in, click 'view statements' and have a look! Lots of activity at NAB (not quite as much as Westpac and StG obviously!). Read about all the new nab internet and mobile features here.

Banks fight for online supremacy

Good article from Fin Review on the banks improving their online presence, with CBA, ANZ, and NAB all focusing on better online customer experience.

Suncorp beats us all to mobile browser banking!

The way of the future is upon us, and its called Suncorp mobile banking! From The Australian:

"SUNCORP has launched a browser-based mobile banking service (demo), beating rival the Bank of Queensland (BOQ) to the punch.

Suncorp developed the technology in-house, according to a company spokesperson. It is the first time Australian banking customers will be able to conduct transactions using the browser on their phones - similar to how web banking works. BOQ recently announced the same functionality would be available to its customers in the coming months."

This is the new direction - and the most obvious, easiest to implement etc - that mobile and internet banking will take. The first bank to build and test an iPhone banking app will be sitting at the front of the queue in my opinion.

Crisis in the Call Centre

BAI/Talisma reports on current call centre issues:

When it comes to online chat, or even answering customer e-mail queries, banks still don’t get it, according to a recent survey. Of the top 50 U.S. banks, 96% do not offer live chat as a communication channel and one-third of all customer e-mails go unanswered, despite the fact that all banks in the survey provided e-mail support. And even when e-mail is answered, only half the banks gave accurate and complete information.

The survey by Talisma Corp., a software provider based in Bellevue, Wash., further found that 94% of banks lacked searchable knowledge bases for answering customer questions, with most banks offering a basic list of frequently-asked questions (FAQs) instead.

Online Banking Strategy Conference in Sydney, March 27

OnlineBankingReview have a terrific event lined up in Sydney on March 27:

Online Banking Strategy
Strengthening the online channel to acquire, retain and cross-sell
MGSM CBD Campus
Level 6, 51-57 Pitt St
Sydney

Speakers:
Petter Ingemarsson, Analyst - Financial Services, Datamonitor
James Gardner, Head of Innovation, Lloyds TSB and Bankervision blog
Jacqui Steiner, Sales & Marketing Manager, RaboPlus
Geoff Noble, Banking & Finance Specialist, RSA
Adir Shiffman, Director, Global Reviews
Dean Wood, Director, Clear Choice Usability
Paul Dowling, Principal Analyst, East & Partners
Hamish Carlisle, Managing Director, Quick Direct
Oliver Weidlich, Mobile Customer Experience Specialist, Ideal Interfaces

When did Fosik arrive?

Despite the impressive interface, and site, and seeing my own employer being severely undercut on rate (so it says), Fosik, a new peer-to-peer site have not come up on my radar of late. Liek most peer-to-peer, Fosik touts the benefits of using the site’s tools as a way to formalize lending arrangements among family members and friends. Plus, the site notes that investors—whether they know the people they’re lending to or not—can benefit from returns that reach 10 percent or higher.

Peer-to-peer is hitting everywhere now - and wait for it to go SEGMENTED - student to student is live (not sure how they afford it) - but imagine someone requires a tricky operation, and others sympathetic create a health vertical, or car enthusiasts help others buy their dream vintage car, or technology people get together to import crazy japanese gadgets. Old folks lend money to help others join them on the road in a 4x4 around the country (and clog our caravan parks!). Or even eBay syndicates pop up and borrow from others to buy from others ... if you know what I mean.

Its getting big.

Internet Banking goes 'mainstream'

From Finextra:

"Online banking is now a mainstream access method for retail customers on both sides of the Atlantic, but this has not led to a decline in the use of branch-based services and has actually resulted in higher take-up of other channels such as ATMs, according to a study by analyst house Gartner.

A survey of over 2000 adults found that 33% of US customers - the equivalent of 71 million people - regularly use Web banking services. The UK numbers are not as high, but the survey shows that 26% of customers - around 14 million adults - now bank online.

"The current usage levels in both countries show that adoption is now taking place within the mainstream of consumers, among people who use new channels and services if, and only if, they see intrinsic value from the new technology," says David Schehr, research director for Gartner's financial services research team. "Online banking has clearly made this transition in consumer minds."

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Online banking popular with Kiwis

From OneNews:

"Survey results show that over two thirds of Kiwis who use the internet use online banking.

The latest Nielsen Online Consumer Finance Monitor says 68% of internet users have accessed banking websites last month, while 57% used it at least once a week.

Eighty-four percent of people over 15 within New Zealand have access to the internet.

The most frequently used banking sites included ASB, Westpac and National Bank with all three sites having over half a million unique browsers per month."

...

""Once they use the Internet, people of all ages adopt online banking with enthusiasm. For younger people with internet access, online banking is the norm - 80% of those under 40 used online banking in the last month. For older people, online banking is becoming common practice - 62% of people over 55 visited an online banking site in the last month," says Sheppard."

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Firefox continues to eat into IE

From ITWire:

"The latest figures from French based Internet traffic analyst XiTiMonitor shows that the Mozilla's Firefox web browser has continued to take market share off Microsoft's Internet Explorer across the globe over the past year, with a significant spike in Firefox usage in December 2007.

Oceania, which includes Australia, New zealand and Papua New Guinea, is now the leading continent in Firefox use, with Firefox holding 31.1% marketshare, up from 29% in November. However, the far more populous Europe is not far behind with a signficant increase in Firefox share over the past 12 months. Firefox share across Europe averaged 28% in December 2007, significantly up from the 23.1% share the browser held in December 2006."

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Fast Company profiles Mint.com

From Fast Company:

"In the long run, for Mint to succeed in being useful, it may have to give up being fun. It's telling that the first additional feature Patzer's users asked for was a way to monitor their student-loan accounts, not exactly an enjoyable task for most people. Mint is selling its users a way to overcome a "pain point," that "dull, throbbing" feeling described by Sethi. But the less responsible among us may continue to choose the temporary bliss of denial. "You set this up in two minutes, and that's the only work you ever have to do," Patzer claimed in his Finovate presentation. He got laughs when he added, "It's so easy to use, people will actually use it." But Mint may take longer to catch on than using deodorant ever did."

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"Online Banking Focuses on Selling First, Usability Second" says Vox

From FoxBusiness:

"Vox, Inc., a customer experience consulting firm, today released its Fourth Quarter 2007 Banking Mind Model. The study evaluates the home pages and usability of 10 top banking industry websites and five regional banking websites to examine customer expectations and discover where companies succeed or fail in attracting and retaining customers.

Citibank, Bank of America and Wells Fargo had the highest usability grades, but overall banks have phased-out institutional images and other minor elements to focus more on selling products, especially credit cards. Few banks scored consistently well in usability, evidence that there is substantial room for banks to create enjoyable customer experiences."

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Banking on the Relationship

From CIO - a massive profile on online banking in Aus, particularly CBA:

"The most rapid growth is occurring in online, or Internet, banking. Australia is right up there with the US when it comes to online banking adoption rates, but behind North European countries like Finland.

At the Commonwealth Bank Group, retail banking is out from behind marble counters and glass teller cages, and into a customer-driven future of made-to-order financial products and swifter Internet-based services.

Take away their sophisticated IT systems and the banking industry as we know it would cease to exist. In the financial world, global market activities continue around the clock, opportunities are fleeting and survival is of the swiftest. Just as technology has shaped the modern world of banking, so technology is the only way for banks to survive.

The most rapid growth is occurring in online, or Internet, banking. Australia is right up there with the US when it comes to online banking adoption rates, but behind North European countries like Finland."

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Have a great Christmas - see you on Jan 2.

Internet Banking - Scene of last decade and some learnings

Great stuff from Shripad at Finextra - a reflection on internet banking from past and future:

"In the present regime of 2007 and beyond, the banks are concentrating on targeting the incremental service-level in online banking value-chain e.g. developing creative ways of countering security threats, targeting comprehensive supply chain management for entire life cycle of a transaction utilizing straight through processing (STP) , customizing the social network in wbe2.0 including offering more control to the user , aligning internet banking with multiple channels to offer the best-in-breed technological upgrades to the customer including Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) / bulk transfers using RTGS, mobile banking services, incorporating GIS, imaging, workflow etc.

...

Banks are targeting Internet banking as a medium to generate new business and attracting either offline or fresh customer through effective ways of cross-selling, establishing cross border services for various corporate as well as consumer segment. Internet Banking is also been used as a channel to create profile driven marketing campaign for various banking products."

Extract from bank findings

• Internet is one of most cost effective channel of conducting banking operations. It is estimated that Internet banking offers up to minimum of 60% (and much more at higher volumes) cost saving over normal offline banking. But this numbers keep changing esp in of SOA, Multi-channel integration, web 2.0 environments.
• Bankers across the world have realized that customer using online banking have lesser attrition in comparison to other channel of banking and offer a relatively loyal customer to the bank. But can they take this for granted, as new online financial service community (esp non-banks) is posing strong threats?
• Per product usage per customer for Internet Banking channel is growing exponentially comparing offline banking. But can this become a norm? Can they improve on this numbers as a lot needs to be done yet? Is profile driven campaigning used to it's best? Banks have to yet mature to provide with complete life cycle offerings in true sense.
• As per Gartner, on an average, companies save about 45 cents every time they send an account statement electronically instead of by paper mail. A bank that sends monthly account statements by paper mail to 5 million customers would spend $27 million more than if it sent electronic statements. (So much less wood saved for countering global warming.)
• Many banks have started waiving or reducing transaction fees on Internet banking accounts and have been for long, offering higher deposit rates to attract this cost-effective channel of banking transaction.
• Branch managers (esp of traditional / old banks) across the globe have realized that Internet Banking offers is not a hindrance or competition to their business growth, but it complements the operations as it actually reduces the excessive burden of servicing customers.
• Banks are offering customized reporting aligning with tools e.g. "Quicken 2007 or Microsoft money" etc for customers to analyze their income, expenditure items in various heads and this helps individual families to study / budget their spending from e-banking statements. But bankers need to watch as to how many percent actually use this flashy customized gadgets or are they spending money at wrong places.

Go and have a read

Is internet banking safe?

Long article from The Age:

"Each year online banking customers are being defrauded of more than $25 million. Can we keep the cyber crims from scamming us? Katie Cincotta reports.

THERE's no doubt that Australians have taken to online banking. The figures are astonishing. About 8.5 million Australians have adopted online banking - a figure that has doubled in four years, according to finance analyst Market Intelligence Strategy Centre.

And it's easy to see why. Virtual banking is easy to use, efficient and available around the clock, putting fund transfers and bill paying at our fingertips.

The centre, which tracks financial activity on behalf of bank clients, says internet banking is at a record high with 31% of all banking customers shuffling money on the web in June.

But just how safe is our money from fraudsters who lure people into divulging their personal details using increasingly sophisticated scams and software? And how wise are consumers to the strategies of these professional cyber crims?"

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Read and rate BofA Internet Banking reviews

You can rate and comment on your IB experience with BofA, and read others comments and feedback - the Amazon model of banking! A brave move, but nothing really suprising in the end - so far over 456 pages of reviews have been received, so BofA aren't afraid to take the comments on - I think we all need to do it.

The Next Generation of Online Banking

Again from BST:

Generation Y members and 22 million small business customers represent two huge untapped markets that banks can reach through online banking, according to a panel of experts and some bank customers during BAI’s Retail Delivery Show in Las Vegas on Nov. 15.

Catherine Graeber, VP and principal analyst for Forrester Research, says that Gen Y consumers show a preference for podcasts, Apple computers, mobile phones, social computing and networking. “Why should banks care?” Graeber rhetorically asked the audience.

Because Gen Y currently makes up 15 percent of online households and is the only generation that is growing in size. By 2011, the generation will comprise 29 percent of all online households, she says.

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Banking Sold Online, Serviced Offline

Good report from eMarketer:

Overall, males in all age groups were more accepting of the Internet for financial products or services and investment advice. And the older the respondent, the less enthusiastic.

Young males are by far the most likely demographic group to use online financial products or accept investment advice over the Internet, at 28% of 18- to 24-year-olds and 26% of 25- to 34-year-olds.

Females in these age groups were less accepting, especially 18- to 24-year-olds, with just 13% of those respondents, and 17% of the 25- to 34-year-old group.

..

Of course, “financial services” covers a wide range of products and services, from credit cards and personal banking accounts to insurance, stocks and mutual funds. The more complicated the financial product, the less likely consumers are to buy it or use it online.

But financial marketers who use the Internet for building brand or product awareness are still getting results.

Word-of-mouth from friends and family trumped the Internet as the main source of information on banking, insurance and brokerage products, according to a Lumin Collaborative survey conducted earlier this year. Credit cards – a relatively low-investment financial product – were the exception.

Read the article here... lots of good graphs and info

Internet banking at record levels

From The Australian:

INTERNET banking usage rose to a new record of 31 per cent of all bank customers in the June quarter, according to data compiled by MISC Australia on behalf of its client banks.

The 1.4 per cent increase, which is equivalent to 90,000 extra users, reversed the 1.3 per cent decline in the March quarter.

The latest result was helped by a general surge in internet banking, with customers expanding their deposit balances and opening new accounts, including superannuation accounts, as a result of the one-off opportunity to pour a maximum of $1 million into super before lower caps were introduced on July 1.

MISC Australia said that record usage of internet banking, available now for seven years, showed there was a growing acceptance of virtual banking in the community.

Despite this, all the major banks are reversing the industry-wide policy of branch closures in the 1990s.

The branch networks are now being extended and modernised as the banks try to increase cross-selling between their banking and wealth management operations.

The online banking channel, according to MISC Australia, was used for personal super restructuring, and it fed through to a 6 per cent increase in the number of accounts to a record 25.7 million.

Transfer activity from one account to another also reached an all-time high. It rose 2.2 per cent as customers undertook 1.5 million additional transfers.

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