Employer branding: Attracting and retaining talent in financial services

This study develops and investigates a framework for better understanding employer branding. More specifically, the overall purpose is to provide a deeper understanding on how employer branding is used to attract and retain talent. An extensive literature review leads to a proposed conceptual framework focusing on two key research questions: How can the relationship between corporate branding, internal branding and employer branding in service industries be described? And, How can the role of corporate values in delivering the brand promise be described? A qualitative, case study approach is used to collect data from a financial services company in Sweden. The data collected and analyzed reveals that the areas of employer, internal and corporate branding are not mutually exclusive, but instead an intertwined collection of branding issues that together form the corporation’s core values. All of this together is what allows the corporation to in turn deliver its brand(s) promise to several stakeholder groups.     

Consent to direct marketing in the financial services sector

The development of communications technology in recent years has led to an expansion in ‘cold calling’, particularly as a means of selling financial services. While encouraging new entrants into the market and thereby increasing consumer choice and competitive prices, this is often viewed as an infringement of personal privacy. This paper attempts to reconcile the complex legal framework that has been put in place to restrict the use of unsolicited direct marketing and to show how, through the use of a carefully drafted data protection notice, the direct marketing of financial services may be conducted lawfully.     

The effect of corporate social responsibility on the branding of financial services

In today's global world, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is increasing public demand for greater transparency from multinational companies. CSR is a new and growing financial risk factor. If it is mismanaged, a firm's corporate reputation can be badly damaged and a direct negative impact on its business and bottom-line may result. Instead of simply campaigning directly against industrial groups and lobbying governments and international organisations to issue new legislation, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are increasingly putting pressure on the financial services groups and insurance companies. This new global tactic may affect a bank's relationship with its clients and shareholders.There are market benefits and competitive advantages for those companies whose business policies integrate CSR. The growth in socially responsible investments and in CSR awareness among City people persuades some bankers that the most successful firms of the future will be those who proactively balance short-term financial goals with long-term sustainable franchise building. To respond to this challenge, corporations will have to convince citizens they can trust both their brands and the people behind them. In this context, one must recognise that finance brands have been clumsily managed. Nowadays, several big consumer brands are used as societal role models, but they are also the targets of anti-globalisation and anti-logo activists. In order to avoid such an outcome — not to mention corporate mortification — the key social marketing strategy must be to communicate proactively the business activity's raison d'être to opinion leaders and the general public. In general, industry does not yet care enough and many companies are reacting only when put under pressure by public opinion. It is time, however, to market the social raison d'être of a business and indeed to contest its current exclusion from ‘civil society’. Consumer and service sectors lead the field. In view of the downturn of the global economy, more than ever before, CSR branding is of paramount importance to the financial sector if bankers do not want to become the easy scapegoats. It is necessary to make it clear that financial services companies are global citizens too.     

The emerging importance of brand energy in the financial services sector

The long-term shift in the developed world from economies based on the trading of tangible goods to the trading of intangible services has precipitated two major shifts in business thinking that have become particularly apparent over the past 20 years. These have been a shift from a focus on generating profit to a focus on creating value and a shift in the notion of the brand from something that exists in the minds of consumers to something that exists in the experiences of different stakeholders. This is no less true of financial services than any other service sector. In the UK, the Operating and Financial Review proposes that all quoted companies introduce a new section in their annual report and accounts from 2005 (now delayed to 2006) to place a greater emphasis on the importance of ‘intangible, largely human assets’. This should not be interpreted by businesses as another imposition by government but as an opportunity to develop a much better understanding of the nature of the intangible assets of the business and how these work to create value. Accountancy is rooted in a tangible way of thinking but is ill-equipped to understand the nature of intangible equity which is where the real drivers of value creation lie. The author posits a new notion of brand energy as a starting point for rethinking how businesses really work to create value in the unceasingly intangible business world. The illustrations given are all from the UK, but the trends in thinking are essentially global and the points made could apply to any country.     

‘On-brand banking’: An examination of the factors contributing to effective branding and brand development through direct marketing in the consumer financial services sector

The services sector now accounts for more than two-thirds of GNP in the UK and yet much of the work on branding is based on fast-moving consumer goods. This paper presents key factors for effective brand and brand loyalty building in financial services direct marketing and examines why these success factors may be missing from most financial services direct mail. The issues are examined here from a direct marketing (DM) agency and DM brand experts' perspective. Key objectives for successful branding in financial services direct marketing emerge. Barriers believed to be preventing the consumer financial services sector from using the direct marketing medium to its full brand-building potential are reported and recommendations are made for overcoming some of these problems.     

Ex ante CEO severance pay and risk-taking in the financial services sector

We examine 533 CEO severance contracts for financial services firms from 1997 to 2007 and find that ex ante severance pay is positively associated with risk-taking after controlling for the incentive effects provided by equity-based compensation. We report a positive causal relation between the amount of severance pay and risk-taking using popular market-based risk measures as well as the distance-to-default and the Z-score. We also find that severance pay encourages excessive risk-taking using metrics such as tail risk and asset quality. Our results are consistent with the risk-shifting argument and provide support for recent reforms on severance pay in the financial sector.     

Online customer relationships in the European financial services sector: A cross-country investigation

Reportedly, over the past 30 years there has been a general sense of willingness, on behalf of suppliers and customers alike, to develop increasingly close ‘emotional’ relationships based on trust. While buyers reward suppliers with brand loyalty, suppliers in turn develop strategies continually to energise this ‘connective’ relationship. As customers and suppliers increasingly become physically connected to one another via computer networks an important emergent issue is whether the nature of their relationship is changing as a result of transactions taking place across these networks. This paper discusses part of an exploratory research project designed to question the extent to which computer-based technologies that previously enabled the building of emotionally connective relationships through the analysis of customer data are instead facilitating anonymous transactional relationships. The project focuses on organisations in three European countriescolon; France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The broad aims are to explore whether consumer segments are emerging, that actually prefer the minimal personal interaction afforded by sophisticated new computer technology, and to examine the extent to which financial service organisations are responding to the demands of such segments. The paper includes an outline of the contextual background, followed by the research methodology and a discussion of the findings. Conclusions are drawn about the implications of these findings for both industry practitioners and academic researchers.     

Telecom microfinance banking versus commercial banking: a battle in the financial services sector

Journal of Financial Services Marketing - The purpose of the study is to compare the growth rate of commercial banks with microfinance banks, under the shadow of financial exclusion, and to provide...     

Measuring the value of strategic alliances in the wake of a financial implosion: Evidence from Japan’s financial services sector

This paper examines the wealth effects of financial-institution strategic alliances on the shareholders of the newly allied firms. Our paper is different from most previous studies, in that we focus on financial institutions, we employ Japanese data for the late 1990s, and we study whether different types of alliances result in differing magnitudes of stock market responses.We find that a strategic alliance, on average, increases the value of the partner firms. Second, the gains from the alliance are spread more widely among the partners than would be suggested by a random alternative. Third, smaller partners tend to experience larger percentage gains. Fourth, the market values inter-group alliance announcements more than intra-group alliance announcements. Fifth, we do not find a significant difference in the abnormal returns shown by domestic–foreign alliances and domestic–domestic alliances.     

中国企业进入南非电力市场的金融支持建议

中国和南非之间不平衡的供电布局为中国电力企业进入南非提供了市场商机,而且,中南之间日益密切的贸易和投资关系也为中国电力企业进入南非创造了良好的投资环境     

Country risk and financial integration—A case study of South Africa

This paper examines the importance of economic factors in a time-varying beta model of country risk before and after the occurrence of financial integration for South Africa's stock market. We examine how fundamental economic factors impact the variation of South Africa's country risk over the period 1993-2008. We find that exchange rates and gold prices are significant economic variables that induce significant volatility in South Africa's beta during the pre-financial integration period through June 1998. Post-financial integration, South Africa's beta rises and fundamental economic factors cease to be significant in determining its variation, a result consistent with an integrated financial market.     

E-business opportunities in financial services

Over many years, technological developments have enabled financial services products to be sold and administered via remote distribution channels. E-business is the latest channel whose potential is being explored by both traditional financial services players and new entrants alike. But, in their haste to ‘go online’, are organisations, new and old, falling into the ‘technology trap’ and ignoring the fundamentals underpinning financial services retailing and, perhaps, undermining some of their ‘segment-of-one’ strategies? This paper concludes that the key to successful e-financial services retailing is to take the nuances, attributes, techniques and skills that have accompanied financial services products in the physical world and reinvent them in an e-environment. Only by following this approach will e-business avoid being labelled as a solution looking for a problem. UK high street banks are continuing to extend the choice of channel through which customers can manage their money, eg e-banking. But it is suggested that channels such as e-banking potentially reduce the level of personal contact between bank and customer to the extent that a ‘virtual’ relationship develops. This paper concludes that, given the tendency towards ‘virtualisation’, it is inconceivable that bank–customer relationships will become any more intimate in the future. Indeed, a greater degree of personalisation in customer communication may be the very best that banks are able to offer.     

International investment in financial services

This paper analyzes and models the significant components of international trade in financial services, namely, foreign direct investment in banking for the US, the UK and Germany. It distinguishes between banks' activities abroad and FDI in banking by banks and non-banks. A model for FDI in banking is proposed which contains certain explanatory variables peculiar to FDI in banking as compared to FDI in manufacturing. The components of the model of FDI in banking is different from those models designed to explain banks activities abroad. The empirical results of this study of FDI in banking indicate that bilateral trade, banks' foreign assets, the cost of capital, relative economic growth, exchange rates and FDI in non-finance industries are the major determinants of foreign investment in banking.     

论中国金融租赁业的发展趋势

金融租赁和实物租赁是当代经济生活中两种基本的租赁形式.金融租赁又称为融资租赁或现代租赁,实物租赁又称为经营租赁或传统租赁.相应地,租赁业由金融租赁业和实物租赁业两个分行业构成.本文拟从整个国民经济的角度,在分析金融租赁业的作用、业务模式和中国金融租赁业的现状的基础上探讨中国金融租赁业的发展趋势.     

Earnout financing in the financial services industry

This paper explores the effects of earnout contracts used in US financial services M&A. We use propensity score matching (PSM) to address selection bias issues with regard to the endogeneity of the decision of financial institutions to use such contracts. We find that the use of earnout contracts leads to significantly higher acquirer abnormal returns (short- and long-run) compared to counterpart acquisitions (control deals) which do not use such contracts. The larger the size of the deferred (earnout) payment, as a fraction of the total transaction value, the higher the acquirers' gains in the short- and long-run. Both acquirer short- and long-run gains increase when the management team of the target institution is retained in the post-acquisition period.