Archive for Retail Banking Review
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The human touch
Just one year after winning an award for Australia's best phone banking service, Suncorp Bank has ditched voice recognition BY ELTON CANE Suncorp Bank has removed the speech recognition call routing from its phone banking service, while retaining the touch-tone menu for common tasks such as ...
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When Opportunity knocks
Microfinancing is a capital idea, especially when it helps poverty stricken individuals become entrepreneurs, says Opportunity International's ambassador Andrew Tyndale BY CHARIS PALMER Opportunity International is one of a growing number of microfinance companies providing loans to entrepre...
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Reining in remitters
Regulatory reform in Australia's remittance sector is back on track in an effort to crack down on money laundering BY ELTON CANE Now that the Labor Government under Julia Gillard has secured the required level of support in parliament to form a minority government, the process of regulatory ...
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Are you being served?
New social media channels in business are inevitable, say Gartner's experts, so best to prepare now BY CHARIS PALMER Customer service strategists should worry less about which service channels to invest in and more about getting their organisation ready to cope with more channels, say exper...
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Yammer on
Real-time staff collaboration and being able to find an expert in-house is now a lot easier as large organisations adopt social tools BY CHARIS PALMER Australian banks are doing little to formally embrace enterprise social software, but that isn’t stopping such software from seeping its way...
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Exit stage left
As ASIC consults with the industry on how it should enforce tougher rules targeting mortgage exit fees under new unfair contract laws, how worried are the lenders? BY ELTON CANE The Australian Securities and Investments Commission released a paper on June 27 consulting the industry on how it ...
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Count on Abacus?
Abacus' new ad campaign that champions mutual institutions over banks is reliable, says CEO Louise Petschler BY CHARIS PALMER The mutual financial sector plans to push on with an advertising campaign designed to raise awareness of credit unions and building societies, despite coming under att...
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Wither the branch
The number of branches operated by Australian banks is slowly rising, but they have less and less to do BY ELTON CANE The number of branches run by Australian banks declined 32 per cent from 7,064 in 1993 to a low point of 47,898 in 2001. Since then, numbers have climbed 13 per cent back up t...
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Banking goes postal
Sure, Australia Post has more than 3,300 outlets, but that alone is not enough to attract and retain banking customers BY CHARIS PALMER Australia Post should focus on niche banking segments and direct channels if it is to offer a real banking alternative, say leading financial services consu...
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In pursuit of profit
If banks don't chase small business for loans it will leave a big dent in their profits BY CHARIS PALMER The need for increased competition, the reinstatement of a Commonwealth Development Bank to boost business lending, and the possibility of Australia Post entering the business lending mark...
