Do you remember when we had to earn our pocket money? I remember being able to go to the newsagents at the end of the road back in the North East of England and get ten packets of stickers for my football album for a quid (£1). I'm told now that the going rate for cleaning a car is a fiver ontop of standard pocket money.
However, the kids are always wanting to buy things online so therefore they need a debit/credit card so you are invariably hearing the words “DAD!” or “MUM!”. So the banks have come out with giftcards which have a credit balance on them and the children can then use this to buy their latest album on iTunes or book from Amazon.
However, what is most concerning (reported in both the Financial Times and The Times last week) is that children don't seem to have an understanding of how money works. They believe that credit cards and overdrafts are “free” money and do not need to be paid back. Perhaps this is indicative of our culture today with a huge rise in the number of voluntary arrangements to help those striken by debt.
How do we educate our children? These children are growing up quickly and within the next five to ten years banks will have a bigger problem if the culture of “debt” is not replaced with a culture (in part at least) of saving for a rainy day.
Miles
One of the greatest fears of any ecommerce department in financial services is fraud. I'm sure we've all seen emails coming from companies who we have no relationship saying log on and check your account – I've had several from Bank of America recently.
The usual process is that the “fake” site uses the targeted bank's actual domain e.g. www.bankofengland.com but the underlying href points to a dummy site e.g. www.iwanttostealyourmoney.com. Those people in the early days who were not that internet savvy fell victim to such attacks. Now thanks to good education and constant warning messages from the banks – these emails, whilst annoy and damaging to the brand, are not as much of a problem as before.
Until now,
The scammers have devised another way of extracting money from the unaware. Reported in The Times today (A&L is a target of a new phishing line). The fake website is asking you to deposit £500 when opening a new online account and as a result the bank will give you £200. Now at first glance that may seem a fantastic offer but, have you ever tried getting any money out of a bank? Refund of bank charges etc. So is it really likely that a bank – who do not make £200 of profit on a new bank account – will give that money to someone to open an account when it will take many months even years to recoup those figures..
What is your “Management Information Mix”?
Are you looking at your ebanking channel in its discreetness or are you taking into account the whole picture. Many financial institutions have an executive dashboard / flash showing performance against target (and in some cases this can be incredibly detailed down to the contribution to the bottom line).
However, are you also including transactional information, footfall in the branches (how many people walk into the branches and segmenting those that go to discuss accounts, buy products or just go to the counter.
The same is happening in web analytics. How many come to the site? How many are existing customers? What is the propensity of customers who visit your site – are they mostly browsers, buyers, servicers?
So look at the managment information mix and use in as many places as possible the same (to avoid any discrepancies in the data). Measure against target, against other channels and develop an understanding of the inter-relationship between the figures and the channels.
Most importantly – tailor the report for your audiences. Executives are interested in conversion rates, sales, cross-sales and contribution to profit!
Web Analytics and management information are supposed to report current state of play and reflect true performance. However, all to often that is not what happens. Figures are changes to highlight a positive element (e.g. an increase in conversion) and downplay any negative (drop in ebanking registrations).
Shane Atchison has just written a fantastic article for ClickZ on “Web Analytics – Do's and Don'ts“. I whole-heartedly agree with the definition of objectives tieing in with business goals / mission statements. This goes to prove a business' strategy is working / failing.
I'll be writing more about management information and web analytics key performance indicators very shortly. However, in the meantime have a look at the site Miles Bennett and view my articles page – Miles Bennett Articles.
I'm sure everyone has been charged by their bank/credit card company for something or other – late payments, unauthorised overdrafts and bounced direct debits. Some people contest the charges and I believe (and this has no research or back up) that the better relationship you have with the bank i.e. the increased number of cross holdings, the high balance savings accounts, insurance and payment protection policies and mortgages – all help to say “Hey there I'm a valuable customer – give me back my money or I'm off to another provider”.
This question has being raised in my head now and again and with every bank offering “switching” facilities. A product where they will switch over all your direct debits and make the transition to another brand as painless as possible – well that's the theory anyway.
You would have thought that with banks trying to poach customers from other brands they would be keen to keep you happy including refunding charges. However, how many people actually do switch their bank accounts even when they threaten to?
Anyway, whilst having a quick browse around the net for articles on bank charges I came across this article in the telegraph – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/02/03/cmbank03.xml. Have a look – makes for interesting reading…
Hope you all had a great weekend
Miles