Financial Industry
A recent article in the ABA Banking Journal by Chris Nelson, founder and CEO of Zoot Enterprises, highlights two major players, outside the traditional banking payments industry, taking another run at the payments business. Amazon and PayPal have been plotting their strategies on how to continue to build brand awareness and penetrate a greater percentage of payments. Paypal already has an amazing growth curve and its continuing.
Read MoreI know this is a few days late, but CrossCheck’s recent post titled, “Valentine’s Day Payment Processing Equals Sweet Business”, has got to be the cutest blog post I’ve ever read. Perhaps men can reflect on how we treated our “sweeties” on Valentine’s Day and compare it to the industry numbers… kind of like comparing to benchmark studies! For example, “60.3% of men will buy flowers, but only 36.9% of women even want them!” Ouch! Good thing I didn’t buy flowers this year!
Read MoreI just received my notification email from NEACH (New England ACH) to download the 2014 NACHA Operating Rules & Guidelines. I have to say, this is good reading! As you may now, “the 2014 NACHA Operating Rules and Guidelines is the definitive source for information about the exchange and settlement of transactions through the ACH Network. The NACHA Operating Rules provide the legal framework for the ACH Network in simple, clear and consistent language. The NACHA Operating Guidelines contain complete discussions of each ACH Network participant type and its role and obligations, as well as detailed overviews of Standard Entry Class Codes.
Read MoreSo if you haven’t heard by now, Target, the big red retailer, has a bit of a fraud problem. Somehow, their payment system was hacked and stole a mere 40M credit and debit account numbers with expiration dates and CSV codes…maybe even PIN numbers. Hmmm. How can this be? Per a Krebs article, “Little is known yet about how the data was compromised. “My best guess is [Target] got hit by hackers who got into their network, and were able to push malicious software out to the point of sale systems,” says Krebs, who spoke to American Banker in a recent exclusive interview. “We probably won’t know for certain for weeks or months.”
Read MoreI recently interviewed our Senior Integration Support Engineer, Boaz Ron, related to how he felt about going into a branch. His thoughts were the following: if I can get a deposit done through my phone, computer or ATM in under 20 seconds, why does a teller take longer? An ATM can dispense cash faster than tellers and there is always some old slow guy holding up the line.
Read MoreThere is a paradox in branch capacity planning right now. Retail wants more revenue, but branch transaction volumes have declined nearly 35%, according to a FMSI 2013 Teller Line Study, due to additional online products and RDC offerings; which mean less walk-in traffic. In response, technologists are trying to innovate the branch experience, while bringing a more personalized and sales-oriented encounter. In some respects, the branch is becoming less relevant, except when the customer “needs” to solve a problem and they want interaction.
Read MoreFinTECH’s annual top 100 companies in financial technology is comprised of a dynamic list of both public and private companies generating tremendous revenues in the financial industry, both in the US and globally. The interesting distribution of these companies illustrates the revenue power of the top companies.
Read MoreA recent article in Banking Strategies, The Strategic Implications of Tellers Selling, dissects the concept of traditional tellers evolving into sales people at the branch for walk-in clients. When presented in an orderly manner, the concept brings a fresh feel to the irony of the bank branch; leverage branch resources to drive revenue and increase transaction processing efficiency while branch volume declines. Tellers selling financial services can provide a great opportunity, but there is the possibility of “heartburn” for customer experience.
Read MoreCheck fraud losses in the US were last benchmarked and estimated at $893M for financial institutions from a 2011 ABA Deposit Account Fraud Survey Report. However, one of the main considerations in overall losses which was not incorporated were retailer losses. No one knows the exact number, but we have spoken to several consultants who estimate it at 10X the losses of banks. This event occurs when a fraudster purchases goods from a retail location with a fraudulent check and then departs with the product/goods. If the bank of first deposit, or paying bank, identify it as fraudulent, many times the retailer loses.
Read MoreA recent Gartner report highlighted “5 Cloud Trends in 2013 and Beyond”. Have you ever heard of how cloud computing aims to create “Webscale” systems, which are large configurations that have this ability to expand and contract as needed? They can be configured quickly, and yet go away quickly too. No longer are “large scale projects” a problem in a cloud hosted environment. A good example in healthcare payments would be a project to convert a large back-log of explanation of benefits forms. In this project, a large virtual cloud could be created with high capacity for a few days…then it goes away.
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