Charm offensive

Interesting to see Tesco on a charm offensive in the newspapers this morning. They've placed double page ads with 'What burgers have taught us' on one page and on the other a series of statements assuring customers that they've learned their lesson and are working hard to put things right. The ad signs off with: "We are changing"

Got me thinking, why don't the banks do more of this? Wouldn't it be just what the doctor ordered re. PPI mis-selling, for instance?

For the first ad from RBS, perhaps: What a pre-tax loss of £5.17 billion has taught us...We are changing, honest!

Cash under fire

According to the recent Visa Payment Attitudes Study, we lose on average $365 each year by using cash instead of cards. This consists of $80 worth of idle change just lying around the home, car or office, and $285 worth of unused foreign currency lost after trips abroad. You can read a Visa blog post on this here.

Regardless of whether you believe these figures are correct or not (they certainly don't bear any relation to my life), the fact remains that cash isn't going anywhere soon. As much as the likes of Visa would like to see it gone, it remains popular with a general public who find it convenient and secure and who, more importantly, remain indifferent to heavily hyped contactless cards.

Now, where's my wallet? I need to grab a fiver so I can buy a mid-afternoon snack.

Banning booth babes

Roy Walker with some booth babes at Infosec Europe last year

This week, Reed Exhibitions, organisers of the Infosecurity Europe event, have announced that they're outlawing the use of ‘booth babes’ (you know, the  ladies we often see on tech vendors' stands, all skimpy outfits, cleavage and smiles), one of the oldest tricks in the book when it comes to attracting foot traffic.

You can read more on this here.

"For years now, more and more information security vendors have used provocatively dressed models and agency staff on their booths at Infosecurity Europe – and other industry events – to entice delegates onto their stands," writes Eleanor Dallaway, Editor of Infosecurity magazine. "For the last few years, Reed Exhibitions have received an increasing number of complaints from its visitors about this out-dated and arguably unnecessary trend, and have taken the decision to adjust exhibitor terms and conditions to ensure that similar tactics will not be deployed in 2013. Interestingly, and perhaps surprisingly, the majority of complaints came from men, who argued that ‘selling sex’ was an insult on the delegate and the entire industry. Female complaints declared the behaviour demeaning and old-fashioned."

A fair few tech vendors still like to wheel out the booth babes, so it will be interesting to see the reaction to Reed Exhibitions' move. I guess the commercial thinking behind this is, Infosecurity Europe is such a massive show, companies will exhibit regardless of the terms and conditions. Either way, I think it's the right thing to do. Like Page 3, stand strumpets (sorry, couldn't resist) are archaic. Here's hoping other exhibitions follow suit.

The way Brits pay

The Payments Council not exactly sticking its neck out with the release of its latest report, The Way We Pay, which, amongst other things, charts the rise of cards at the expense of cash.

Further details here.

Note the quotes "Twenty years from now even cards may seem archaic" and "The wallet could become a historical curiosity.”

Well, on that basis Millwall may win the FA Cup (as a fan, I certainly hope so) and I could be the next winner of The X Factor, but it's highly unlikely, isn't it?

Service counts

Just been perusing the latest MoneySavingExpert.com current account service ratings. As usual First Direct tops the charts, but look at the ones propping up the rest. And we keep hearing how the retail banking establishment is getting its act together and putting the customer first blah blah blah. Depressing state of affairs.

Current account service rating, Feb 2013 (for past 6mths)
Rank	Provider	Great	OK	Poor
1	First Direct	91%	7%	2%
2	Co-op (incl Smile)	78%	18%	4%
3	Nationwide	66%	28%	6%
4	Santander 123	63%	28%	9%
5	Lloyds TSB	44%	42%	14%
6	HSBC	42%	44%	14%
7	Barclays	41%	45%	14%
8	Santander (all)	44%	37%	19%
9	NatWest/RBS Group	40%	44%	16%
10	Halifax	38%	43%	19%
11	Bank of Scotland	35%	43%	22%
Order calculated by 0 points for poor, 1 for OK and 2 for great. 9,504 votes in total - we've ignored banks with fewer than 100 votes.

Contactless cards: hype vs reality pt 2

Visa Europe and Streamline are to further roll-out contactless payments at Boots UK stores. The announcement follows an initial launch which has seen over 600 of the retailer's largest stores begin to offer contactless to customers including London outlets zone 1-4.

One of these is situated near where I work. The contactless experience in there is always poor and I don't bother with it after a couple of frustrating attempts (see previous blog post for more details). So I have to smile when Jonathan Vardon, IT director, Boots, UK comments: "Our aim is to offer customers a great shopping experience with quick, easy ways to pay and we believe that contactless payment is one way to deliver this as the technology has helped to reduce transaction and queuing times. We know that our customers want us to offer an unrivalled choice of services and products and we hope they will enjoy the benefits of using contactless technology in our store."

Hopefully with this further roll-out will come further staff education. We often hear that a barrier to widespread contactless adoption is low customer awareness. But financial services providers have been doing good work on building this up of late. The ball is now firmly in the retailers' court. IMHO a significant barrier is retailers not visibily promoting the offering and staff not knowing if they can accept contactless payments or having the relevant information to hand (payment limit etc).

Contactless cards: hype vs reality

Visa Europe contactless cards will be issued to two million plus RBS and NatWest UK customers over the next year By the end of 2013, there will be more than 70 million Visa contactless cards in use across Europe.

Mark Austin, vice president - contactless at Visa Europe, says: “Many major merchants like M&S, the Post Office and London’s buses are now accepting contactless payment as the service becomes a High Street reality."

Whilst progress is undoubtedly being made, I'd say the High Street reality is more in line with the following recent exchange between yours truly and a member of staff at my local Boots...

Me: Can I pay by contactless?

Staff member: Yeah.

Me: The terminal looks like it only accepts debit and credit cards.

Staff member (sighing, tapping away at till): There you go, you can use your card now.

Me: Erm, thanks.

Break open the champagne!

Some good news at long, long last.

Retail banks across the globe will see IT spending grow 3.4 per cent, reaching $118.6 billion in 2013. The increase will come as CIOs focus on customer satisfaction and revenue growth, according to Ovum’s latest Business Trends report.

Among the digital channels, mobile banking is the clear IT investment priority in 2013, as retail banks attempt to capitalise on the features unique to mobile, such as location-based services. Mobile services will grow four per cent in Europe in 2013, and rise at a compound annual growth rate of six per cent between 2013 and 2017.

It's good to see banks putting a stronger focus on customer centric technologies and not slashing budgets and laying off staff, which has been so commonplace in recent times. Regulatory compliance is fuelling a significant amount of the investment predicted in Ovum's forecasts, but at the same time there seems to be a definite appetite for investment in digital channels as banks step up their multi-channel strategies.