So here it is Merry Christmas

This will be my last blog post of 2011 (no cheering, please!) I took the November/December issue of FStech to press earlier this month and my last day in the office is this Friday. With the mag out of the way and Christmas fast approaching, this week is basically a stream of lunch meetings and Yuletide parties, including SourceWire's annual press do at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese in Fleet Street. It’s a tough job but…

I’ll sign off by wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. It's been an eventful year for yours truly. I started 2011 as Editor of sister title Retail Systems and end it at the helm of FStech. I've thoroughly enjoyed the first six months in charge and am looking forward to kickstarting 2012 with the FStech Awards (shortlist to be sorted, followed by the judging day in early February...lots to get through). Thanks to all who have supported and worked with the title this year, including Paul Rodgers for doing a great job of chairing our Payments Technology Conference in November; and those who have agreed to be on the judging panel for the aforementioned awards: that man again, Paul Rodgers; Wil Cunningham, Disaster Recovery Extension Program - Delivery Lead, Lloyds Banking Group; Ramzi Musallam, Information Security Consultant, Greatpark Consulting; Neira Jones, Head of Payment Security, Barclaycard; Kevin Brown, Head of Global Product Management, RBS Global Transaction Services; Tim Holman, President, ISSA-UK and CEO 2-sec; and Glenn Murphy, Head of IT, London & Capital.

Right, I’m off to gorge myself on mince pies and mulled wine. Happy Christmas and here’s to a prosperous 2012!

Is that all there is?

RBS: Inside The Bank That Ran Out Of Money, on BBC2 earlier this week, was an exceptionally well-made documentary. It didn't tell you anything new about the RBS story but it did skillfully weave together stock footage, archive interviews, talking heads and the occasional witty flourish (e.g. Peggy Lee singing Is that all there is? over the end credits) to produce an engrossing programme.

Plus there was the bonus of previously never-before-broadcast footage of Fred the Shred's final meeting with RBS shareholders. It's immensely satisfying to see him face up to an angry investor demanding an apology. The then chairman Sir Tom McKillop had already apologised but when an hour passed without a similar gesture from Fred, said investor grabbed the microphone and stated that people wanted to hear the word sorry pass his lips. "I wouldn't want there to be any doubt. I am extremely sorry," says a squirming Fred. Whether he meant it is left for you to decide - the programme has a slightly mocking tone when covering the record loss of £28 billion and Government bail-out and the fact that one of the central players walked away with a fat pension and knighthood intact. But ultimately the narration is coolly detached, rather than Michael Moore style lecture/rant. And all the better for it.

Watch it here.

Ask not what Facebook can do for you...

Anyone else watch Mark Zuckerberg: Inside Facebook on BBC2 at the weekend? A hit and miss affair, the programme was presented by Emily Maitlis who charted the rise of Facebook, from humble beginnings to its current position of online behemoth which has worked its way into the lives of 800 million people.

Maitlis had secured a rare interview with Zuckerberg. So far, so good. But there were a couple of snags. Whilst the programme made some interesting points about the cultural impact of Facebook, it was less successful when tackling the man who created it. Over the course of an hour, we were given about five minutes of Zuck being interviewed by Maitlis and saying 'cool' and 'awesome' alot and waffling on about making society more open - the rest of the time she devoted to an origins story, visiting old haunts and interviewing college professors and friends. The origins thing has already been done, with considerable skill and style by The Social Network. The makers acknowledged as much, throwing in a few clips from the movie and trying to pick holes in it, citing various inaccuracies without really backing them up.

Still, it was worth sitting through for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Maitlis finally landed a blow (around the 50 minute mark) when she quizzed Elliot Schrage, Facebook's VP public policy, on the site's 'Like' button. If you click 'Like' on a brand or product, you could be unwittingly promoting it to your friends in their sidebars. Is it right that a person is used to promote a company when they have not agreed to it, she asked. "Let's pause," said Schrage, with a 'why is the nice, attractive lady from the Beeb ambushing me' look on his face. "You're asking a profound question. What's advertising?" He then attempted to fob her off with talk of  'affirmative linking' and 'ranking mechanisms'. Before excusing himself and jumping out the window...OK, I made that last bit up but watch it and you'll see what I mean.

Secondly, is Facebook really a force for good as Zuck would have us believe? Is it, to quote COO, Sheryl Sandberg, "better if we're all more open and connected" when the facilitator is a multi-billion dollar company dogged by criticism of its privacy policy? For all the talk of a revolution in the way we communicate, is the site essentially just a means of escape for people when they're bored and lonely? And, as such, has it become a master of disguise, mercilessly exploiting its users as it morphs from social to commercial network? As one wag put it: "Ask not what Facebook can do for you, ask what you can do for Facebook."

Sadly, the programme left it too late to really get to grips with these questions, but it did at least provide some interesting food for thought. If you missed it, you can watch it here.

Embracing social media in customer communications

Guest blog post by Mark King, Senior VP, Europe and Africa, Aspect

In its 2011 report Social Banking: The Social Networking Imperative for Retail Banks, Accenture claims that while 90 per cent of financial institutions will dedicate funds for social media initiatives by 2012, the majority are still novices in the field. Forty two per cent of online adults are keen to engage with their financial providers using social media, according to a 2010 Forrester Research study.  However, Accenture suggests that few firms yet know how to generate significant business value from engaging with customers, partners and employees via this channel.

Aspect offers the following best practice tips for organisations looking to embrace social media in customer communications:

1. Engage with employees first: Before reaching out to customers, trial social media with your own staff. Find people that embrace the social scene and create ambassadors that can reach out internally and externally. Also engage social media-aware executives to influence more senior managers.

2. Align social initiatives with business goals: Such as how to grow revenue, or retain profitable customers. Campaigns that engage large numbers of people can sometimes end up creating lots of contacts but little value.

3. Monitor and analyse: Don’t just monitor social networks for positive and negative mentions of your organisation. Also identify and monitor networks where customers, competitors and commentators gather. Find out what they’re discussing, what technologies they’re using and feed this into your social planning.

4. Set business rules that determine how and when you engage with customers: This, together with the subsequent workflows that ensure issues are resolved rapidly and effectively, can unlock significant business value. Integrate social media communications into your overall customer contact strategy as a distinct channel and compare social media performance in the context of your total engagement strategy.

5. Set up direct customer contact options:  Where appropriate, provide customer contact options on your company Facebook and Linked In pages – including self-service pages and helpful Q&As – enabling customers to contact you directly. When Bank of America adopted Twitter for customer service, users said it was easier and faster than traditional channels. 

6. Use customer segmentation techniques: To target specific customer groupings. Accenture reported that Chase created an online community of mass-affluent consumers, working with them to design the highly successful Chase Priority Club Rewards card. 

7. Choose your technology wisely: Identify and implement what’s right for your business – and make use of existing customer contact investments such as workforce optimisation capabilities, workflow rules and call centre performance analytics to maximise efficiency and performance.

8. Bring experts into customer conversations: Using Presence technology, service agents can see the location of specialists and know whether they’re in meetings or available to talk. Customer interactions that start with customers hitting click-to-call buttons and speaking to agents can now progress to screen sharing with at-home experts.

When Bankers Were Good

Very good programme on BBC2 last night, Ian Hislop's When Bankers Were Good. And it had twice the audience of Jamie Oliver's latest show in the same slot on Channel Four. Always refreshing to see audiences choose something of substance over yet another bloody cookery show fronted by one of the most annoying men in the universe.

Bankers' reputations “have fallen below that of estate agents or even journalists" quipped Hislop, who argued that they had much to learn from their Victorian predecessors. The Private Eye head honcho took a look at such philanthropic Victorians as the Gurneys, a banking family of Quakers, Angela Burdett-Coutts, who was a sucker for a good cause, including the British Goat Society and prison reformer Elizabeth Fry (aka the lady on the back of the fiver).

Thoughtful, witty stuff and Hislop made for an amiable host. If you missed it, you can catch it here.

F-commerce on the rise

PayPal has unveiled Send Money, an application on Facebook which lets users send e-cards and money to friends. It's a move which seems like a no brainer, given that the site has more than 750 million users and a large percentage of them have active PayPal accounts.

It'll be interesting to see how many more businesses will take advantage of f-commerce. It certainly looks like an idea whose time has come. Twelve per cent of social media users have made a purchase from a Facebook store after seeing something on the site, according to the latest eCustomerServiceIndex (eCSI) results from eDigitalResearch and IMRG.

The results show an 8.8 per cent growth in f-commerce over four months as more and more retailers import their website functionality into the social networking site. The study also found that 25 per cent of online consumers now log onto Facebook more than once a day. Meanwhile, 97 per cent plan to log onto the internet this Christmas to browse and buy gifts. Twenty seven per cent will access the internet from their smartphone to browse and buy, whilst another nine per cent will use their tablet devices to do the same.

We have a winner!

I blogged a few weeks ago about the 2011 Best Dressed Banker Award.

This was organised by Savile Row tailors, Cad and the Dandy, set up by ex-bankers James Sleater and Ian Meiers. The shortlist included Credit Suisse Analyst, David Roditi; Francesco Chioccola of Credit Societe Generale; Sir Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England; and. Kweku Adoboli, Senior Trader at UBS. Yes, really. That guy.

But there can only be one winner and that is, and I quote the press release, "pretty, petite Michelle Flynn of Sapient’s client service."

Pretty, petite? Who writes this stuff? And what decade are they living in? Anyhoo, that's Michelle on the left, not dressed like your typical banker, it must be said. A controversial winner or will all bankers dress like this in the not too distant future? Message me if you can be bothered.

Payments Technology Conference review

In the process of writing a review of the FStech/Retail Systems Payments Technology Conference, which took place in London last week. It was a really good day, a full house and lots of excellent speakers and panellists. Thanks to the sponsors, all those who attended and took part and Paul Rodgers of Vendorcom who did a great job of chairing.

My review of the conference will appear in the November/December edition of FStech, but for the time being here are a few of the standout comments from the day:

Rob Brown, Group EPoS Systems: "What should retailers do to drive contactless adoption? Advertise the hell out of it."

Jeremy King, European Director, PCI SSC: "It is not just protecting card data. If you have an e-commerce site, it is about protecting all your data. That is what PCI DSS can bring you."

Alan Moss, Marketing Director, VeriFone NW Europe, Middle East and Africa: "Retailers have taken so long to roll-out contactless as there hasn't been a convincing value proposition."

Paul Rodgers, Chairman, Vendorcom: "PCI never was and never will be an IT problem. The whole business needs to be involved."

Jeremy King, European Director, PCI SSC: "When we talk about contactless, there are four key words, United States of America. It hasn't adopted EMV or chip and pin but it is likely to go contactless. That will be a big driver."

Mark McMurtrie, Marketing Director, S1: "Banks still have a major role to play in this brave new world of payments."

Carl-Olav Scheible, UK MD, PayPal: "The pace of change is so great even PayPal is struggling to keep up."

Paul Rodgers, Chairman, Vendorcom: "We're in this together and that's a message that doesn't always sit comfortably with the wider industry."

Alex Kwiatkowski, Research Manager, EMEA Banking, IDC Financial Insights: "NFC may be hip but it's massively over-hyped."

Simon Austin, Commercial Director, Bank Machine: "In 2010, there were only 1.7 million contactless transactions processed in the UK. Pathetic!"

Phil Edwards, Head of Business Development, O2 Money: "We're not looking to take on the banks. Our strength lies in mobile."

Further information on the conference here.

Payments Technology Conference

Quick reminder that it's our Payments Technology Conference on Thursday (held in association with sister title, Retail Systems).

It's taking place at The IoD Hub and entry is free to financial institutions and retailers. Great line up of speakers and panellists, including Best Buy Europe, PayPal, Citibank, HSBC, Barclaycard, Bank Machine, Lloyds Banking Group and Clinton Cards.

There are still a few places left so, if you would like to come along, click here.

Android on the up

Interesting to see that, during the period July - September, Samsung overtook Apple to become the world's biggest seller of smartphones.

This obviously doesn't account for the launch of the iPhone 4S, but it's still tempting to paint this not as a blip but rather as Android taking control of what has become an increasingly bloody battle. 

I say this in relation to the recently released Steve Jobs biography, which contains the revelation that the Apple boss was furious at what he saw as Google pilfering features from the Apple iOS software. Jobs reportedly vowed to do everything within his means to destroy Android after last year seeing features in HTC’s Android 2.1 phones.

All in a good cause

Quick plug for Bank Machine, which is inviting Britain’s charities to sign up for a scheme enabling charitable donations at ATMs.

Charities can register an interest before the end of November. The donations option on the LINK ATM network is planned to go live during April 2012. Bank Machine’s managing director, Ron Delnevo, says: "We fully support this superb initiative. We believe many millions of pounds can be raised for good causes and we want to give as many charities as possible the opportunity to apply to participate at Bank Machine ATMs. We will select from those charities that apply directly to us.”

"Times are hard, and all of us in the UK need to pull together to ensure that the least fortunate are not forgotten. Almost everyone in the UK uses ATMs, so what could be easier and more fulfilling than, when we are getting some cash out for ourselves, at the same time sending a donation to support charities which work with the most needy in our country and overseas,” he adds.

Further info here.

Best dressed banker

File under 'I'm not sure what to make of this story, so will stick it on the FStech blog. Yep, that seems like a good idea'.

Apparently, there's a competition to find the best dressed banker of the year, organised by Cad & the Dandy and judged by the likes of former pugilist Chris Eubank. No, I'm not making this up, it's a real competition.

The current top three entries are: Duncan MacInnes, CEO Xenfin Capital; Sir Mervyn King, Govnernor Bank Of England; Kweku Adoboli, UBS. I'm sure that the latter will be particularly thrilled at making the cut - some good news after a, erm, difficult year.

Further info here.

Pointless poll of the day

Sexting has been voted the most annoying example of tech talk or geek speak. It topped an online poll of 2,054 people conducted by YouGov for Computeractive to find the single "most annoying or horrible" new technology-related word added to dictionaries over the last year or so.

The next most irritating words, felt those polled (who, you know, might want to get out more often), were respectively: Intexticated; Defriend; and Twittersphere.

Yawn. Am I the only one who doesn't actually find these examples of tech talk/geek speak all that annoying? I mean, OK, they're not words that I use on a regular basis but as polls go this one is pretty lame. Easy targets and all.

Pet PR peeves

I was recently asked to speak at an industry association event on the relationship between Editors and PRs and, specifically, provide advice to PRs and their tech vendor clients looking to engage with the trade press. All of which got me thinking about my pet PR peeves. In no particular order:

PRs who send a press release, then call five minutes later to ask, did you receive it and is it of interest? Sample answer: I haven't read it yet - amazing as this may sound I don’t sit around all day waiting for your latest press release. A recent response to that: Erm, OK, are you going to use it then?

Companies who clearly have not read FStech or even taken time to look at the website, but still feel it’s OK to send over badly written, irrelevant pitches and press releases. Then chase you up about them.

PRs who, because you met them once, think you’re their best mate and so contact you with random requests, such as: 'could you do me a solid and meet with my new client? They expect instant results and it will make me look good.'

Aggressive PRs who bombard you with calls and emails, telling you that their client’s latest press release is ideally suited to your mag and you really should run the story. Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?

Phew, rant over! I should stress that there are some good PRs out there, guys (and gals) who take the time to research your mag and tailor their pitches and communications accordingly. When it comes to these individuals, I am always happy to take their calls and respond to their emails. But there are a lot of time wasters in the technology vendor PR business who do their industry and clients more harm than good. And who get short shrift from your’s truly.

What Julian Assange did next

This week I will mostly be reading Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Biography, published amid much controversy last month.

FStech has been following the Visa/MasterCard/WikiLeaks row with great interest so I was keen to get hold of a review copy of this "bile-flecked" book (Private Eye's words, not mine). It begins with a note from the publisher, Canongate, explaining how Assange signed a contract with them in December 2010, then in June 2011 said that he wanted to cancel it. Having read the first draft, he declared: 'All memoir is prostitution.'

But Canongate, having reportedly forked out around £350,000 to woo Assange, decided to publish and be damned. The result is a work that is glaringly incomplete but nonetheless immensely readable and intriguing in the way it casts the WikiLeaks founder not as some revolutionary figure, but rather an unremarkable nerd.

Further info here.

Oracle fires shot at Autonomy CEO

 Oh, this is good. Oracle issues statement, accuses Autonomy CEO, Mike Lynch of 'whopper'. The business software giant is somewhat miffed at Lynch's claim that he did not try to 'shop' them the firm before selling to HP.

Full story here. 

Spreading the word

During my obligatory mid-morning Facebook log in (I can't possibly wait until lunch, I need to know what my friends have been up to), I came across a Visa sponsored link which took me here.

Pretty cool page, I must say - lots of useful info such as a map showing the contactless retailers closest to you. I blogged last week about an FStech contactless and mobile payments roundtable. One of the key messages to come out of the roundtable was that the industry as a whole needs to look at how it deals with messaging at various levels because at the moment it is all over the place. So it's good to see Visa attempting to connect with millions of Facebook users in a clear and concise way.

I still think that in many ways contactless is a solution looking for a problem, a problem that many people just don't have. Ultimately, cash works very well for them. But I will leave that 'rant' for another day.

Upwardly mobile

Just going through my notes from last night's FStech roundtable (sponsored by Elavon) which covered contactless and mobile payments.

Thanks to Wil Cunningham of Lloyds Banking Group for chairing and to the attendees who contributed to what was an interesting, lively debate. I'll run an indepth review of the roundtable in the next issue of FStech, but for now here are some of the stand out comments:

When it comes to contactless, it's like someone has built a Ferrari but the roads are full of potholes.

There are real positives. Look at McDonald's - they rolled out contactless in a matter of weeks. They have a compelling contactless proposition.

The industry needs to look at how it deals with messaging at different levels. The idea that cash is dead is utter nonsense. The cards and payments industry does itself no favours by claiming otherwise. Cash will be with us for many years to come.

With the rise of Facebook, Google and Apple and NFC-enabled phones, are we approaching the stage where we say, why do we even need a bank account? We can make the switch from bank to cell phone provider.

This discussion brings up an interesting scenario. With the exception of the two ladies at the end of the table (NB: Sonia and Emma, FStech sales ladies), we are a bunch of boring old farts. We're talking about email but it is so last century. Young people are not even having this debate, they are on Facebook and so on and they are communicating and looking out for one another on a whole different level to us.

Banking rebooted

For me one of the highlights of Sibos 2011 has been the official launch of Movenbank.

Brett King, the author of BANK 2.0 and advisor to some of the world’s biggest financial services organisations, outlined his vision for the first bank to be launched globally that abolishes paper, plastic and hidden fees. Movenbank has been operating in stealth mode this year and is set to go live in October with a formal launch pencilled in for Q2 2012. The holding page promises a "third generation banking experience...built from the ground up for mobile and online."

The old guard have been out in force at Sibos 2011, but it's great to see new, innovative ventures competing for attention. An in-depth look at Movenbank will appear in the next issue of FStech.

Google Wallet ready to go

Word is the Google Wallet will launch this week in the US. The app allows customers to make purchases by tapping an NFC-equipped phone against a pay terminal.

And the first customer is none other than Seinfeld's George Constanza. Google has added an amusing teaser video on its YouTube channel. Watch it here. 

All together now: "My receipts! The chair! My tiger poster!!!"

To ring-fence or not to ring-fence?

So here's a question...The Vickers report has somewhat unsurprisingly attracted a flurry of media interest this week. Writing about the key points for the mainstream media, various hacks have gone with ring-fencing. Whilst others have opted for ring fencing and ringfencing. But which one is correct?

 

My money's on ring-fencing. Any advances on that?

Twitter ye not

Regular readers of this blog and FStech magazine will know that I took over as Editor earlier this year, joining from sister mag, Retail Systems.

 

Whilst at the helm of that publication, I established a thriving social media presence including a Twitter account which, as I write this, has 2,224 followers. After a sluggish start, retailers and retail tech vendors have really taken to Twitter and, even though I've left the sector, there are various people I continue to follow as their Tweets are insightful/amusing/informative/downright cynical (delete where applicable). Sadly, I can't say the same for FStech at this moment in time. That's not to say there aren't some excellent Tweeters out there, including @Chris_Skinner and @brettking.

 

But the same spirit of retweeting, of encouraging debate and comment, of creating a community feel, rather than remorselessly plugging one's company and services, doesn't appear to exist. Or maybe I'm just out of the loop here?

 

For the record, @FStechnology is closing in on the 1,000 followers landmark. Not to be sneezed at but someway behind our social media savvy friends over at Retail Systems.

2012 FStech Awards

The website for our 2012 awards is now live. You can find it here.

Three new categories this year: Best use of Technology in Customer Service;  Best use of Mobile; and Green IT Initiative of the Year.

This is my first FStech awards so really looking forward to receiving the entries, working with the judging panel to determine the winners and, of course, to the night itself.

Make a note in your diary: 28 March 2012 at the Lancaster London Hotel, Bayswater. Hope to see you there!

From ‘cashless’ to ‘less-cash’ society

Visa Europe has released its first Contactless Barometer to benchmark consumer take-up of new payment methods. The research, of 2,000 UK consumers, showed positive feedback about contactless technology and a hunger for wider availability in mainstream retail outlets. No great surprise there…

Mark Austin, head of contactless at Visa Europe, comments: “We are now taking the first steps on the road to becoming a ‘less-cash’ society. The Barometer offers a snapshot of changing attitudes towards payment technology and consumer experiences of using it on the high street. The two key takeaways for me are the need for retailers to keep pace with consumer demand and also for our industry to take steps to ensure consumers are reassured about the security measures present in all contactless cards.”

The key takeaway for me is that ‘cashless’ society has been replaced by the not so grandiose ‘less-cash’ society . A long overdue recognition by the contactless brigade that, however much they might want it, cash ain’t going away any time soon.

Further info on the Visa Europe research here.

Plan to end cheques under fire

It's not often that I find myself agreeing with our elected officials. Politics is just show business for ugly people, as someone once quipped. But today I make an exception. A Treasury Select Committee has warned banks not to attempt to abandon cheques or deter customers from using them. It has also taken a swipe at the Payments Council and suggested that it be brought under regulatory control.

Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the committee, comments: "The Payments Council is a industry-dominated body with no effective public accountability. It should not have unfettered power to take decisions on matters such as the future of cheques, that are of vital importance to millions of people. Banks have given customers the impression the abolition of cheques was a foregone conclusion. This type of behaviour is unacceptable."

Hear hear!

Follow us on Twitter

Quick shout out for the FStech Twitter page which is updated on a daily basis (news updates, retweets, amusing anecdotes etc etc). A veritable fountain of useful information (if I say so myself!)

You can follow us here.

Stupid, crazy and annoying

Yet more evidence of the power of social media. Disgruntled HSBC customers have been pouring onto Twitter to vent spleen about new handheld devices called 'secure keys' - these have been sent to its four million online bank customers.

HSBC says that the devices provide static and changing security information, ultimately making banking online a lot more secure. But customers have complained about the hassle of setting one up, the inconvenience of carrying it around with them and also that logging into their accounts now takes longer. On Twitter the device has been called ‘stupid’, ‘crazy’ and ‘annoying’, with some claiming they are now switching to other banks.

Twitter has spoken. IMHO, the extra layer of security should be welcomed but is this really the best way to go about it? The calculator does seem like a rather clunky device, out of place in the fast moving world of online banking.

Cash vs cards

A new Barclays/Barclaycard survey says that people prefer plastic. Do we? Their research finds that one in eight shoppers no longer carry cash and half believe coins and notes will become obsolete in the future. So seven in eight still carry cash then?

The findings of that survey are in contrast to research commissioned by retail and banking technology company, Wincor Nixdorf. Their results, published last week, showed that over two thirds of shoppers in the UK believe cash is still king. Of the consumers questioned on behalf of Wincor Nixdorf, 58 per cent save cards purely for large transactions and almost a third felt more in control of their finances when paying by cash.

Nearer the mark, I would say.

Let's go crowdsourcing now...

Well done to first direct for coming up with what must be the banking sector's best yet attempt at crowdsourcing.

first direct Lab will be updated every month with product designs, service innovations and website concepts. Users will have the chance to critique the content with feedback going to the product or service teams before release. At launch, the content will include concepts for a website re-design, a consultation on the use of QR codes and an early version of a mortgage comparison smartphone app. 

You can find the site here. Excellent job!

Payments conference update

Shameless plug time...The website has been launched for the FStech/Retail Systems Payments Conference, which will take place on Thursday, 10 November at The IoD Hub, London.

Speakers/panellists will include: Carl-Olav Scheible, UK MD, PayPal; Jeremy King, European Director, PCI-SSC; and Philip Hellyer, Enterprise Architecture Group, BestBuy Europe and Carphone Warehouse Group. The conference will be chaired by Vendorcom’s Paul Rodgers and will examine the latest cards and payments developments which are demanding a huge amount of attention in the retailer and financial sector communities. Paul will also take a look at the future of cards and payments. I know he has some really interesting views on that so miss it at your peril! There will also be discussion panels covering NFC/mobile payments and cash vs cards.

Further info here.

Common sense prevails as cheques given reprieve

Fantastic to hear that the Payments Council has scrapped plans to phase out cheques by 2018. The plans had met with a backlash from the likes of charities and politicians, leading the Treasury Select Committee to reopen its probe.

Richard North, chairman of the Payments Council, has said: "It's in the DNA of the Payments Council to consult and listen to all those people who actually make payments and use cheques."

Hmmm, well better late than never, I guess. Of course, there has been a marked decline in cheque usage as chip and PIN has soared, but many people still rely on them and the 2018 deadline always smacked of the banks (aggrieved at how much it costs to process cheques) forcing something through with little or no regard for their customers, most notably those in the charity sector and small businesses. To quote Simon Morrison, director of marketing and communications at the Institute of Fundraising: "We are delighted that the Payment Council has disposed with the proposed end date for cheques. This will make a world of difference to a lot of our members, especially as some charities currently receive up to 80 per cent of their funding by cheques. For a large cohort of donors cheques are a preferred method of donation."

You’ve been Twitterhacked

PayPal UK's Twitter account was yesterday taken over by a disgruntled customer who fired off a series of angry tweets complaining about the service. The unidentified person railed against PayPal freezing their account and also linked to paypalsucks.com, the "anti paypal site exposing the nightmare of doing business 'the paypal way.'

Last night, the Ebay-owned outfit suspended the account and stressed that this incident only affected Twitter and none of its credit card or other sensitive data had been breached. The account was quickly back up and running and the company tweeted: 'This account was hacked earlier. We have it in our control now. Your personal data is still 100% safe, hack occurred on Twitter not PayPal' and 'We apologise for the bad language and childish nature of tweets that came from this account at the time.'

I’m a big fan of Twitter. It is proving to be a really useful way for FStech to communicate with readers, distribute news and catch stories that might otherwise have passed us by. However, the relative ease with which one can access someone else’s account is a concern. The simple password system needs to be looked at and perhaps replaced by a two-way authentication system, at least on certain accounts.

The swinging sixties

 It's been a week of birthdays. First the humble ATM machine clocked up its 44th year of existence (see previous blog post for more on that). And then Barclaycard announced that 45 years ago it introduced the UK's first credit cards.

My Dad is forever going on about the swinging sixties, greatest decade in the history of mankind (to quote the mighty Withnail and I). And so on...Looking at some of the facts and figures, I'm inclined to believe him. In the year that the credit card arrived, England won the World Cup, The Beatles and The Stones were riding high, the average price of a house was £3,840, petrol cost just 7p a litre and you could go to cinema for 10p - 10p! You need a bank loan to buy a ticket and popcorn these days, all for the privilege of seeing Shia Labeouf and a bunch of robots causing mayhem.

Within a year of the credit card launch, Barclaycard had attracted a million customers. Today the figure is 11.2 million of a total of 31.2 million (UK Cards Association, 2010) credit cardholders in the UK. Last year, two billion transactions were made to the tune of £136 billion. But the credit card's big day was somewhat undermined by figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC), suggesting that cautious customers are increasingly turning to cash and debit cards. The proportion of transactions using credit cards fell by 12.9 per cent in a year while those involving debit cards rose by 15.8 per cent. Cash was used for a greater proportion of overall retail spending as the average amount spent in each cash transaction increased by 13 per cent to £12.93.

It seems that pesky old cash won't go away, despite the best efforts of those with power and influence to burn.

Happy birthday to the ATM

Forty four years ago this week, the world's first ATM was installed at a branch of Barclays in Enfield, north London. Reg Varney, from the bafflingly popular ITV sitcom On the Buses (74 episodes and three spin off films! I mean, what were the British public thinking?), was the first to withdraw cash. 

On the subject of ATMs, Ron Delnevo, managing director at Bank Machine, will be one of the speakers at our forthcoming payments conference. Ron will be discussing one of the hot topics of the day - 'cash vs contactless'. The conference will take place in London during November and we're holding it in conjunction with our sister title, Retail Systems. Paul Rodgers of Vendorcom will chair and there will also be speakers from the likes of Barclaycard, Best Buy UK and S1 Corporation.

We're currently putting the finishing touches to the website, but in the meantime if you would like further information on the agenda, speaker opportunities, time, place etc, feel free to drop me a line at: scott.thompson@fstech.co.uk

Lulz Security calls it a day

So. Farewell

Then

Lulz Security...

Just days after declaring war on the banking sector, hackers Lulz Security have announced they are to disband. The collective issued a statement over the weekend, in which it referred to its crew of six and said its 50 day adventure was done. More on that at our website.

I've recently introduced a Talking Point section in FStech magazine, which sets out a burning issue of the day and asks leading industry figures for their views. In the next issue, the question is: Lulz Security - freedom fighters or cyber terrorists? If you'd like to give your take, email me at: scott.thompson@fstech.co.uk

Happy birthday, dear IBM, happy birthday to you...

Happy birthday to International Business Machines, 100 years young today. It's certainly been a rollercoaster ride to this point, with the company rising from humble beginnings to biggest technology company in the world. Employees winning Nobel Prizes, a pioneering role in both the American New Deal on social security and in civil rights, yet also running into controversy when being accused of providing equipment to Nazi Germany.

From a dominant position, the firm lurched close to disaster in the 1980s when it failed to keep up with others' innovations. But it reinvented itself and once again became a world-leading firm.

What will the next 100 years bring? The company said recently that cloud services, analytics, its Smarter Planet initiative and growth markets will be the four key areas of focus for the near future. 

Things certainly won't be dull. As I write this, speculation is rife about who will succeed CEO, Sam Palmisano, when he turns 60 next month (the typical age of retirement of an IBM CEO). Palmisano has said he's going nowhere but that, of course, won't stop us from speculating. 

How happy are consumers with call centre service?

Guest blog post by Mark King, senior VP, Europe and Africa, Aspect 

Think back to your last conversation or email exchange with a contact centre agent. Did it resolve your query, leaving you feeling positive? Or did it fail to help, leaving you feeling frustrated? The Aspect Customer Service Trends 2011 survey set out to explore what European consumers really think about contact centres and its findings may surprise readers.

Of the survey’s 1,345 European participants, 70 per cent were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the service they received - a figure that rose to 76 per cent among the 278 UK respondents. These figures compare favourably with those recorded in the 2007 Aspect Customer Satisfaction Index survey when, asked the same question, just 53 per cent of European consumers and 55 per cent of UK consumers stated that they were 'satisfied' or 'very satisfied'.

65 per cent of European consumers said their inquiries were typically resolved on the first or second contact - and the ability to resolve queries rapidly was found to be a major influence on satisfaction, according to respondents to the 2011 survey. 70 per cent of those who were “very satisfied” or “satisfied” said their problems were usually resolved on first or second contact; and 40 per cent of those who were “dissatisfied” or “very dissatisfied” stated that their queries were not.

Communication preferences are changing rapidly according to the survey. 35 per cent of respondents used email for their last service inquiry, while 36 per cent phoned. A further eight per cent posted their last query, seven per cent used web self-service, and five per cent turned to social networks. Overall, 56 per cent of respondents used 'new media' channels (i.e. email, SMS, web self-service, social networks, smartphone apps, web chat, blogs and forums) for their last service query compared to 44 per cent who used 'traditional' channels (i.e. post and telephone).

When asked to state their 'requirements for good customer service', 73 per cent of respondents pointed to the 'secure handling of personal data', 69 per cent to a 'prompt response', 65 per cent to 'the friendliness of the service representative' and 35 per cent to 'being able to make customer service enquiries via smartphone apps, Twitter, web chat etc.'. However, there were some notable exceptions. In Germany, for example, the percentage of people stating that a 'prompt response' was a requirement rose to 91 per cent, while the availability of 'smartphone, Twitter, web chat etc. options' was a requirement for a significant 41 per cent of UK consumers.

For a free copy of the Aspect Customer Service Trends 2011 Executive Summary, visit: http://www.customerservicetrends.com/UKPR

Forthcoming FStech roundtables

Quick plug for three roundtables we’ve got coming up. Further info here.

If you're interested in coming along and contributing to the discussions, feel free to drop Tim Skinner in our events department a line at: timothy.skinner@fstech.co.uk. The roundtables are taking place during June/July at The Gherkin and Tower 42 - discussion lasts for around 90 minutes and is followed by a three course meal and a chance to network.

Hope to see you there!

Faster Payments anniversary update

Guest blog post by Marc Terry, director of transaction services, VocaLink

Last Friday was the third anniversary of the launch of the UK’s Faster Payments Service. Last week also saw the one billionth transaction being processed. So, what better time to look at how far the service has come and what lies ahead?

When VocaLink set up and launched the service on its real-time infrastructure in May 2008 on behalf of CHAPS Co., it’s fair to say that it was considered a regulatory headache. However, transaction volumes have increased year on year on year. 80 million Faster Payments transactions were made in the first year, nearly 300 million in 2009 and over 400 million in 2010. This year we expect to see half a billion.

The service has caught on quickly with consumers too. Half of regular standing orders have already migrated and individuals using the system are making ten million more one-off payments every month than they did before the system was set up. That’s why 13 banks and building societies have now signed up to the service.

Looking to the future, banks should view the Faster Payments Service as a critical component to their payments strategy. It provides a significant opportunity to differentiate and deliver high levels of customer service. As well as continuing to encourage customers to take advantage of the service, banks should think laterally and use the channel to support payments innovation.

Through our pioneering work to develop the real-time payments infrastructure for faster payments, we are developing the technology for our mobile payments proposition.  The unique element of our proposition is to link bank accounts to mobile phone numbers so that payment can be made instantly, without the need for the payee to reveal bank account details. So, with consumers increasingly expecting anything done over mobile to be instantaneous, VocaLink’s real-time payments infrastructure can play a key role in the success of this initiative. In research we carried out last year, consumers and sole traders even said they’d be willing to pay for this service.

Looking beyond our borders, the roll-out of the Faster Payments Service has positioned the UK at the forefront of the industry’s most significant payment innovation in decades. Other countries across the world have been following developments closely and in the coming months we expect banks across Europe and beyond to look to reap the benefits of real-time payments.

Engaging with social media – the acid test for Asset Managers

Guest blog post by Ian Hallam, CEO, 3i Infotech
 

The technological environment for the Asset Manager is shifting at a rapid pace. It all hinges around data - and our hunger for it. People are consuming data at a startling rate following widespread technological and infrastructure improvements, such as the installation of the fibre optic network in 2000, and the resulting access to broadband internet services in most homes. Combined with more recent developments in smart phones and online forums, themselves original products of the tech programming and gaming sectors, consumption of data is now increasingly driven by social networking technologies. These technologies, once the mainstay of teenagers, are starting to proliferate into professional and business services.  

With this comes an increasing acceptance of online interaction, such that we now have business-oriented services like LinkedIn, combined with message platforms, such as Twitter. As such, the devices that we use day in and day out are converging to meet our requirements - helping us have access where we want and when we want. This means we’re always on the go, multi-tasking, bombarded by data - all fuelling our increasing desire for an instant response.

With this ever evolving environment in mind, the Asset Management community is faced with the needs of an increasingly technically savvy and data hungry investor. Technology providers can already provide the end investor with the ability to access their portfolio on their chosen mobile device at any given time. The differentiator will be in how the information is filtered and presented. The most competitive applications will enable a tailored portal to portfolio information, configured to operate to an individual’s settings and provide the ability to filter out unwanted information. The balance of discretionary and advisory service could potentially change as a result of applications providing access to the end investor for evaluations, investment model analysis, running ‘what-if’ scenarios and so on.  

So how will this assist the Asset Manager of the future? Those Asset Management firms that will take the lead will not necessarily just adopt the technology, but rather embrace it and look for ways to demonstrate even greater value. With the converged devices of the future it should be a very real scenario that clients can access a tailored dashboard via a mobile device, anywhere in the world, and be able to be advised on updates and portfolio operations in real time by their Asset Manager. 

Jack Squares up to payments industry

I started tracking Jack Dorsey’s Square venture during my stint as Retail Systems Editor and, since taking over at FStech, have stepped up my interest (for obvious reasons!)

The Twitter co-founder’s company is upping its bid to ‘revolutionise’ the payments sector with Square Register and Card Case. The Square Register app for iPad replaces cash registers with “a beautiful, full featured, touch-enabled PoS and checkout solution.” It enables businesses to easily manage the items they sell, check daily transactions, update pricing, automate checkout, generate digital receipts, and maintain virtual storefronts so customers can discover and explore new offerings when they’re in the neighborhood. Card Case allows iPhone and Android users to explore local businesses, view menus, track and store digital receipts and open digital tabs to make instant purchases on their phones. Further info here.

Dorsey has certainly got the payments ‘establishment’ rattled. VeriFone CEO Doug Bergeron recently wrote an open letter, warning of a serious security threat with Square’s card reader and calling on the company to recall its devices. “In less than an hour, any reasonably skilled programmer can write an application that will “skim” - or steal - a consumer’s financial and personal information right off the card utilising an easily obtained Square card reader. How do we know? We did it. Tested on sample Square card readers with our own personal credit cards, we wrote an application in less than an hour that did exactly this,” Bergeron stated.

“The issue is that Square’s hardware is poorly constructed and lacks all ability to encrypt consumers’ data, creating a window for criminals to turn the device into a skimming machine in a matter of minutes,” he added.

Security issues aside, Dorsey’s company has undeniable momentum right now. As Brett King, author of  BANK 2.0 and founder of Movenbank, recently tweeted: “What does it say about bank innovation when @Square launches Cardcase with 50 partners, and @Visa launches e-Wallet with 14 partners?”

Square is aiming to revolutionise the behemouth that is the payments industry, an industry that, let’s be honest, has had things its own way for too long. Will it succeed? Unlikely. It will be hard to make much of a mark, but Dorsey has set the ball rolling and that’s what really counts.

App-solute rubbish

Good Lord, did you see the second episode of The Apprentice last week, the one where the contestants (Britain’s entreprenurial elite, or something) had to build a mobile app? After consulting with those in the know and doing ‘extensive’ market research (consisting of wandering up to random people in the street and annoying them), they came up with an app that made a limited number of annoying noises and another that spat out phrases like ‘if you can’t drive it, park it’ in cockney, scouse etc dialect.

The Apprentice has long since given up any pretence towards being a serious business show, having strayed into freak show territory during series two, but even by its low standards the apps were awful. On the plus side, it was good to see an appearance by the folks at Grapple, who have created apps for the likes of BT, Xbox and T-Mobile. Pity the contestants paid no attention to the sound advice they were given.

If you’ve got the stomach for it, you can watch The Apprentice here.

Apple - It's everyone you want to be?

Guest blog post by Michael Koploy, ERP market analyst at Software Advice

Every year since 2007, Apple has rolled out a new model of its popular iPhone. But the next iteration may change not just the cell phone arena forever, but both the technology and financial landscapes.

What about this next iPhone would be so different? It's not the likely improved camera, faster processor, or higher-resolution screen. It's the ability to act as your Visa or Mastercard. Apple can do this by including near field communication (NFC) technology in its latest smartphone, a technology powered by radio frequency identification (RFID) chips. Many Android and BlackBerry phones are getting the technology this year, and Apple's iPhone is rumored to be next.

So how would an NFC iPhone be different? Apple would be able to integrate shopping applications and other financial apps with the NFC service to make a new shopping experience any other hardware or software company couldn't provide. By doing so, Apple could set up its own merchant services account and receive a portion of every iPhone-based credit transaction.

Could it then become an all-new credit card brand, like Visa or Mastercard? Apple certainly has the capital to invest in such a network, if they choose - to the tune of $60 billion in cash. What direction will they take NFC functionality?

For further discussion on this vision, check out: Why Apple is Poised to Become the King of Payments

Hello, good evening and welcome

There's a new FStech Editor in town. Allow me to introduce myself. The name's Scott Thompson and I have over 13 years of experience in business and technology journalism including four years in the editorial hotseat at FStech's sister title, Retail Systems - the leading business/tech title for IT decision makers in multi-channel retail. Further info on my career to date here. And I can be contacted at: scott.thompson@fstech.co.uk

Thanks to outgoing Editor, Sophie Baker, for her sterling work during the past year, which has included steering the publication through a major redesign and name change from FST - Financial Sector Technology - to FStech and also launching a new look blog. I'm looking forward to carrying on this work and to driving the brand forward (both in print and online) in 2011 and beyond. First up, I'll be taking our May/June issue to press (look out for a number of new sections in the mag - due out in early June), then I'll be working on boosting the title's online and social media presence. BTW, you can follow us on Twitter @FStechnology. And also on Linkedin.

That's all from me for now, but please check back here on a regular basis as I plan to make the blog a major part of the FStech portfolio with frequent updates from myself and guest bloggers. Thompson out! 

Guest Blog: SEPA for corporates – a three-step migration strategy

By Steve Hawkes, Product Manager, Experian Payments

The European Central Bank’s Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell recently reiterated her desire for European lawmakers to mandate migration to SEPA Credit Transfers by the end of 2012 and to SEPA Direct Debits by the end of 2013. The adoption of SEPA to date has been slower than anticipated and Tumpel-Gugerell cites three main reasons for this lethargy: “market uncertainty, a difficult economic environment, and resistance to migrate to the new system as long as there is no binding and definitive end point.”

Meanwhile, the European Payments Council (EPC) has warned the European Commission not to abuse its executive powers and take on a standards-setting role in the push to create SEPA, arguing that banks must retain their primacy in the development of payment systems. In its Annual Activity Report 2010, the EPC delivers a clear message: "Self-regulation by banks provides the most efficient means to create innovative, effective, secure and stress-resistant payment systems."

While industry bodies fight out the detail, what does SEPA mean for the corporate community? What do corporates need to do to make the migration process as painless as possible and how should banks be supporting their corporate customers through this process?

In our view, there are three main aspects that corporates need to consider in their SEPA strategy.

1.       Corporates need to assess their existing operations against the new regulatory requirements to create the scope of their SEPA planning. So, they need to consider questions such as: In which countries do operate? Which countries do I make payments into and within? It’s also important to be fully aware of when each domestic euro clearing system will migrate to IBAN and BIC and the requirements for compliance. By understanding local migration plans, corporates can determine how and when SEPA will impact their payments processes and address this in their plans.

2. Having embarked on the migration process, it is important to complete it as quickly as possible to avoid maintaining two separate sets of data in parallel. Usually, payment details originate from a number of systems, so the location and quality of bank account information needs to be examined and the relationship between data held in separate systems established. This will define the number of records that need to be converted, and how many of these are likely to need correction or enhancement to avoid errors.

3. Corporates need to convert and validate IBAN information and identify errors in their existing data. Some banks help their customers by fixing problems with domestic transactions without their knowledge. This means that the actual data error rate may be higher than the percentage of rejected transactions experienced.

What’s more, while many banks are happy to provide BIC and IBAN details for their own customer accounts, some are reluctant to contact other banks in various countries to obtain and generate the details.

The good news is that the most proactive European banks are already helping their corporate customers by familiarising them with the upcoming changes. They are supporting them throughout the migration process, in order to minimise correction and rejection charges of failed payments. Hopefully, such a collaborative approach will help both banks and their corporate customers make the most out of the long-anticipated Single Euro Payments Area.