Developing an innovation orientation in financial services organisations

Innovation is the new business mantra, and recent studies have suggested that there is a strong positive relationship between innovation, market positioning strategy and performance. Given the nature of the competitive landscape and the innovation disruption environment in the financial services industry, an innovation orientation can be effective in identifying and executing growth opportunities for organisations. This paper discusses the dynamics of innovation in the financial services industry and delineates the relationship between innovation and market-related strategy. It then introduces an innovation model that can be used as a platform by financial services organisations. The model identifies three areas of consideration — context, culture, and execution — that will help organisations in this industry to develop an innovation orientation.     

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.     

Beyond Sandler: Risk tolerance and the UK investment deficit

The Sandler report of 2002 found a £27bn shortfall in the UK nation's savings. The report highlights the industry changes necessary for citizens to increase investment for their future and thus reduce this deficit. The mass of this investment activity will take place through high street financial services organisations. Sandler suggests changes in industry-wide structure and practice which will lead to macro changes in generic consumer behaviour. This paper suggests that the marketing departments in financial services organisations can go beyond this and harness ‘risk tolerance’ as a segmentation variable to alter behaviour on a more targeted, micro level. It is suggested that this practice could have an even more profound effect than that envisaged by Sandler. In support of this postulate, this paper presents the results of a research programme into segmentation by risk tolerance within a UK retail financial services organisation.     

Mobile banking: A powerful new marketing and CRM tool for financial services companies all over Europe

In the last decade mobile handsets have become ubiquitous. There are three times as many mobile phone users as online PCs and they are becoming very sophisticated and demanding users. Increasingly they will expect real-time information and access 24 hours a day, seven days a week, wherever they are in the world — and they want very high levels of service. This paper looks at how and why financial organisations across Europe are beginning to take advantage of mobile services and in particular mobile banking as a powerful new marketing tool to build long-lasting and mutually rewarding relationships with new and existing customers. Examples show how European financial organisations are using mobile banking to improve their customer service and relationships, to reinforce their brand by literally placing it in their customer's pocket and to reduce their costs.     

Financial service call centres: Problems encountered by the grey market

Technological advances have resulted in financial service companies being able to make use of alternative channels such as call centres and the Internet to deliver their services to their customers. At the same time, there has been a major growth throughout Europe in the grey market consisting of people who grew up in an age of face-to-face contact with service suppliers. This paper reports on a programme of qualitative research looking at the grey market's perceptions of the call centre delivery channel. It discusses the difficulties encountered by this market and the negative views that are held. It also highlights the need for further research into this area if financial service organisations are going to address the issues raised and effectively satisfy the needs of this growing market segment.     

Speaking my language?

The competitive nature of the financial services sector means that financial organisations have to work harder than many other sectors to communicate with customers, to retain their business and to cross-sell additional products or services. This paper addresses the current state of Customer Relationship Management in the sector and the public perception of how well it targets its customer communications. It suggests that an improvement in targeted marketing standards could lift the sector out of its worsening record on customer retention.     

A survey of key success factors in financial services marketing and brand management

What challenges and opportunities do financial services marketers face as they strive to improve marketing and brand performance, relevance, value and accountability within their organisations? To help answer this question, MCorp., a strategic brand and marketing consultancy, surveyed marketing executives from 67 financial services institutions across the USA in the autumn of 2004. The survey grouped responses into several categories, ranging from an understanding of how marketing and brand performance is tracked, to respondents' views on specific challenges to improve marketing and branding effectiveness. Across all categories, data drove two ‘big-picture’ conclusions which reveal key strategic issues facing financial services marketers today. First, there is a stated lack of brand and marketing performance information, and an absence of the systems and programmes to track it. Secondly, there is a perceived lack of top-down organisational understanding of the importance, value and meaning of brand within respondent organisations. Within the overall context of these conclusions, analysis led to a series of key findings, and drove specific recommendations for addressing the issues raised. While the illustrations given are based on data gathered from institutions in the USA, the author's experience suggests that the conclusions and attendant recommendations can serve as a basis for process and performance improvement in any financial services institution.     

金融支持新型城镇化建设问题研究——以广西梧州为视角

积极稳妥推进新型城镇化建设,既是我国转变经济发展方式、实现社会主义现代化的重大战略任务,也是当前稳经济增长、扩大有效需求的现实选择.金融与新型城镇化建设密切相关,城市基础设施、企业发展和转型的各项服务、城市运行的配套功能等目标的实现,都需要借助金融的力量.因此,应畅通融资渠道,提升金融服务水平,优化区域金融生态环境,使金融与新型城镇化发展的要求相适应,探索出金融支持新型城镇化的最佳路径.     

Trust in UK financial services: A longitudinal analysis

The role and importance of trust for the development and maintenance of relationships in the financial services sector cannot be disputed. In a business to consumer context, this article presents a model for measuring trust for financial services organisations and positions trustworthiness as its key antecedent. The work also presents five important determinants of trustworthiness and ultimately trust. Our work is based on 5 years’ data before and during the ‘credit crunch’, and across the seven main types of product provider in the United Kingdom. The findings show that the overall trust rating for financial services has remained remarkably stable throughout the period of the study. The research also reveals that trust ratings are highest in relation to consumers who are older and that consumers are typically more trusting of brokers than any other type of product provider.     

金融发展的减贫效应研究——基于省级面板数据的分析

本文利用1997～2012年我国30个省市的面板数据,对金融发展与贫困减缓之间的关系进行了实证研究.实证结果表明,金融发展除了可以通过经济增长和收入分配渠道对贫困减缓产生间接的作用,其本身可以通过金融服务等渠道产生直接的减贫效应.但由于初始资本和金融成本等的限制,金融发展与贫困减缓之间存在显著的倒U型关系,即存在先恶化后改善的效应.     

论票据融资的竞争效应

理论分析与实证检验都表明,票据融资的竞争效应带来了整体金融功能与效率的增强与提升.主要体现在:企业的融资渠道增加、融资成本降低;在票据融资的竞争下,商业银行增加了对中小企业的信贷规模,转换了经营管理理念,通过不断创新的、优质便利的金融商品与服务拓展生存空间,从而提升了金融发展层次,提高了整个社会融资的满足度及社会对金融商品、金融服务需求的满足度.     

Trust in financial services: Retrospect and prospect

Fostering and maintaining high levels of trust in the financial services sector is seen as crucial because of the characteristics of many financial service and in order to promote consumer engagement in the sector. In this article, we report evidence from a body of work and other commentary to provide an insight into trends in consumer trust in the sector as a whole, in comparison with other organisations and how different types of financial services provider have performed relative to each other. We show that the financial services sector as a whole is trusted more than some comparator institutions, and that aggregate levels of trust in the sector have fluctuated a relatively small amount subsequent to the financial crisis. However, important differences between provider types are apparent and these differences have become more profound in the recent past. We provide suggestions as to how trust in the sector may be improved and provider an analysis of current initiatives to improve trust levels in the sector in general and in banking in particular.     

Online relationship marketing and affective customer commitment – The mediating role of trust

The pervasive use of information technology has implications for consumer relationship management among financial services organisations. There is a need for increased understanding of how digital channels might influence the development and maintenance of firm–customer relationships and in particular the role of the Internet upon commitment and trust outcomes. Thus, this research aims to determine the relationship between online relationship marketing practices and affective customer commitment, and how this relationship is mediated by online channel trust. Data were collected from 200 online retail bank customers and Structural Equation Modelling was used to test the impact of five key online relationship marketing practices on affective commitment, and how trust mediates these relationships. We found that advocacy and collaboration have a direct relationship with affective commitment, while trust mediates the influence of engagement and personalisation on affective commitment. The article highlights the significance of trust in technology when using online channels to build customer relationships.     

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 stages of financial services product elimination

This paper examines product elimination in the UK's financial services industry. The literature review establishes that physical goods elimination theory has only limited application to the financial services sector. Specifically, it fails to take account of constraints that prevent the removal of a product to a state of nonexistence. To overcome this, the sector uses two forms of removal — full and partial elimination. A three-stage methodology is used to find out how products are eliminated in retail banks, building societies and insurance organisations. A model is developed which explains that companies within the sector proceed through four stages during the elimination process — identification, decision, implementation and post elimination evaluation. At the end of this process, a product will have been either partially or fully eliminated. The preference of the industry is to use partial elimination. It can be concluded that the customer relationship is a key determinate factor in the choice of elimination process.     

手机银行差异化发展策略浅议

手机银行越来越成为改变金融业竞争格局的新型服务渠道。同时也是现代商业银行应对竞争的一种必然选择。随着我国金融业开放程度进一步扩大,中外银行在新业务领域的竞争将更加激烈。因此,银行业大力发展手机银行,应该迎接个性化、多元化、国际化等各个方面的挑战,走差异化路线。本文结合实际,提出了手机银行差异化发展的五个可行方向,试图提高手机银行业务对客户的吸引力。     

Commentary: On the Desirability of Common Financial Reporting Standards for Business and Government

An important financial reporting issue relates to the extent, if any, to which financial reporting standards should differ for businesses and governments. At a high level of abstraction little dispute exists that common financial reporting concepts for both types of organisations are appropriate (for example, financial reporting should provide useful information). As one focuses on more specific financial reporting objectives, however, the issue becomes more contentious. This paper addresses this issue by considering differences in financial reporting objectives between the types of organisations and evaluating whether such differences are of sufficient import to warrant substantially different financial reporting standards.     

PROFILING: A STRATEGY FOR SUCCESSFUL VOLUNTEER RECRUITMENT IN CREDIT UNIONS

Credit unions are non‐profit financial organisations that provide financial services to their members. They are located in 97 countries across the world. All credit unions are governed by a volunteer board and many are reliant on volunteers for all their labour requirements. However, recruiting volunteers is a problem. The literature on recruitment issues in volunteering in general, suggests that the not‐for‐profit sector looks to the private sector for guidance on recruitment policies and approaches. One such approach which is considered in this paper is ‘market segmentation’ wherein the potential volunteer body is profiled to determine if an individual is likely to volunteer and if they are, to identify the type of role they are most likely to be attracted to. Prior literature on volunteering in non‐profit organisations suggests that certain types of individual (dominant individuals) are more likely to volunteer. This paper investigates whether this dominant status profile is evident amongst volunteers in credit unions in Northern Ireland (NI). The study finds that people with dominant characteristics are more likely to be attracted to volunteering to the board of directors and individuals who have less dominant traits overall should be offered more social/participative type roles. This information can be used by credit union governing boards for volunteer recruitment, retention and management purposes.     

UK investors’ perceptions of auditor independence

The auditor’s role in society is that of validating the truth and fairness of financial statements. If owners of organisations doubt the auditor’s independence, financial statements will lack credibility. This questionnaire-based study investigated how investors perceive three potentially independence-impairing auditor–client relationships: the joint provision of audit and non-audit services, an audit firm’s economic dependence upon a client and long-term relationships between auditor and client. The objective was to determine whether, after a series of high-profile corporate collapses, owners retain faith in the integrity of the auditor. The results suggest that economic dependence and the provision of non-audit services are perceived as greater threats to auditor independence than long-term relationships between the auditor and client.     

Financial Disclosure Management by Charitable Organisations: A Conceptual and Operational Framework

We present a conceptual and operational framework for analysing financial disclosure management by charitable organisations. We paint an overall picture of the issue and apply various theories to explain this management practice. The framework lists the many motivations and contextual factors that impel managers of charitable organisations to manage financial information and explains how they weight and prioritise items in light of considerations such as incentive bonuses, social performance, resource dependence and monitoring mechanisms. The framework also sums up the strategies and techniques that undergird financial disclosure management and describes the monitoring mechanisms that mitigate this opportunistic practice and its consequences. The paper concludes by presenting several research avenues.