The future of the global financial services industry

There are three fundamental technological shifts that are defining the competitive landscape of the early 21st century in financial service provision. First and foremost is distributed service provision: both deposit taking and credit provision are becoming more and more dispersed geographically, with less and less need for service providers and service users to meet face to face. The principal enabling technology is in advanced telecommunications, which allows for operation of widely dispersed automatic teller machines, videoconferencing, and internet operations. The second huge technological change that is underway concerns internal management information systems. Financial institutions are now able to put relevant data from affiliates and activities around the world into real-time globally accessible form. The third technological change is financial engineering, which involves creation of new financial products, often derived from existing credit or deposit-type instruments. This article explores the implications of these dramatic changes in the competitive landscape of financial service provision and suggests strategies for survival into the 21st century.     

Direct marketing in the financial services industry

This article presents empirical research findings on the use of direct marketing by a representative sample of UK financial services institutions. A number of similarities and differences between banks, building societies and insurance companies are identified in relation to direct marketing programmes and the use of particular direct marketing techniques. While acknowledging some exceptions the research concludes that there is scope for a greater appreciation of the strategic value and workings of direct marketing. Institutions could usefully focus attention on achieving fuller integration of direct marketing with other marketing and communication activities and securing improvements in testing, database quality and timing.     

Customer equity: a creative tool for SMEs in the services industry

The creative use of “Customer Equity” (CE) can be of interest to SMEs in the services industry.CE concerns:

• “Customer Acquisition”: Which customer or prospect should be acquired for present profit and future retention?
• “Customer Retention”: How can customers be made customers for life?
• “Add-on Selling”: Why selling more to existing customers is more profitable than the quest for new business.

The SME can furthermore apply two boosters to its CE policy:

• “Strategic Alliances”: When interdependence is smarter than independence.
• “External Economy of Scale”: Competition: if you cannot beat them, join them.

     

The UK supermarket industry: an analysis of corporate social and financial performance

In a previous paper (Moore, 2001), the headline findings from a study of social and financial performance over three years of eight firms in the UK supermarket industry were reported. These were based on the derivation of a 16‐measure social performance index and a 4‐measure financial performance index. This paper discusses the formulationof the indices and then reports on: discussions with two supermarket firms concerning the overall results; inter‐relationships between individual financial performance measures; inter‐relationships between individual social performance measures; stakeholder group analysis; and inter‐relationships between turnover, age and gearing with social performance measures. The paper discusses these inter‐relationships, incorporating comments from the interviews with the two supermarket firms, and reports on both factor and cluster analysis. The interviews lend support for Preston and O’Bannon’s (1997) Available Funding Hypothesis in both its positive and negative form. The findings show that there are individual or combinations of related measures that could be used as surrogate measures for social and financial performance, instead of deriving a full index. However, the recommendation is that a full index continues to be used until there is further corroboration of these results. The findings also provide statistically significant support for the Negative Synergy Hypothesis (Preston and O’Bannon, 1997), show a statistically significant association between pre‐tax profits (both lagged and contemporaneous) with community contributions, and show that all statistically significant associations between individual social performance measures are positive – suggesting that they are mutually reinforcing. The association of size with social performance, noted in the previous paper, is also reinforced. Findings in relation to the proportion of women managers and the number of women on the Board and positive associations with other social and environmental performance measures raise interesting gender issues for business ethics. Factor analysis leads to no clear conclusions but cluster does show two or three clear clusters of firms, where size would seem to be the main but not sole factor. Further areas of research are noted.     

黑龙江省金融服务业现状研究

随着黑龙江省经济市场化和金融化的进一步发展,市场需求对经济增长的约束程度越来越强,金融业在经济运行中所起的作用日益增强。因此,大力发展金融业对于促进黑龙江省经济快速增长,提高综合经济实力,建设和谐稳定、繁荣富强的社会具有十分重要的意义。为此,要促进金融服务业的均衡发展,提升金融服务业水平,构筑和谐人才发展环境,建立完善的内部监管体系,强化政府政策导向,重塑良好金融环境。     

Determinants of brand equity in cultural organizations: the case of an art exhibition

The purpose of this research is two-fold. First, to explore the factors that help to create brand equity in cultural organizations from the visitor viewpoint and second, to examine the impact of cultural brand equity on visitor satisfaction as well as on future intentions. A model of the relationships is developed and empirically tested using data collected from visitors attending The Ages of Mankind cultural exhibition in Castilla and León, Spain. In the present study, evidence is found to support the propositions that brand equity is closely linked to the particular image it conveys, to the event's recognition, the quality of the exhibitions and the cultural values it transmits. Brand equity also impacts visitor perception of the most recent exhibition, as well as future intentions to attend or even pay an admission fee.     

Dimensions of customer orientation: An empirical investigation of the UK financial services sector

The UK financial services industry has experienced a number of sharp discontinuities in its marketing environment in recent years. These have ranged from changing demand patterns to wholesale deregulation and market liberalization. International competition and new entrants exploiting technological innovations have also added to the turbulence in what has been a traditionally parochial and stable sector. Under these conditions, it is to be expected that companies would develop a much sharper customer focus and, if they are to survive and prosper, that they would adopt the core principles of the marketing concept. In this paper, the findings of research which tests this assumption amongst merchant banks, retail banks, insurance companies and building societies are presented. Conclusions are drawn which indicate that there is a growing awareness of the need for a marketing orientation and that some sectors appear to be more customer‐orientated than others at this point in time. Despite this, there is also evidence that in some sectors marketing myopia may be masquerading as marketing orientation and that much work needs to be done to more fully realize the ideals of the marketing concept.     

Assessing corporate demand for sponsorship: marketing costs in the financial services industry

Despite increased interest in nontraditional marketing activities such as sponsorship, the ability of brand marketers to quantify the return on investment from such approaches is a continued challenge. Given their proprietary nature, investigations of sponsorship costs are particularly sparse. Therefore, this study utilizes a dataset of more than 700 sponsorships undertaken by competitors in the financial services industry to investigate the influence of a variety of factors on costs. Results indicate that costs are not simply reflective of firm size, and costs of title and naming rights sponsorships are significantly higher. Evidence of agency conflicts are found in increased costs for sponsorships of events, organizations, and venues residing within the marketers’ home market. Sponsorships of sport organizations are significantly more costly than those of arts, entertainment, and nonprofit organizations, presenting a challenge for marketers seeking to engage today’s consumer via sport sponsorships in an increasingly competitive environment.     

Strategies to offset performance failures: The role of brand equity

In this research, we examine the role of brand equity as a strategy to offset the negative effects of a performance failure. Two independent studies, spanning four industries and involving 669 respondents are employed to investigate this issue. Results suggest that high brand equity leads to more favorable satisfaction evaluations and behavioral intentions than low brand equity. The brand equity effect is identified as a prevailing advantage that spans the entire failure and recovery sequence. This is an important finding because it implies that the advantages of high brand equity theoretically can apply to all failures, not just those for which recovery is attempted. Further inspection, however, reveals that despite the prevailing advantage, high-equity brand failures lead to a more drastic decline in customer evaluations immediately after the failure episode. Managerial implications and future research are addressed.     

关于我国金融服务贸易开放性测度的分析

本文主要围绕我国金融服务贸易的开放性问题进行重点讨论,通过贸易依存度和对外直接投资开放度两个指标来实证分析,发现金融服务业尽管在一定程度上实现了市场开放的突破,但整体上仍呈现审慎的态势,并没有十分激进的表现,开放性还是处在较低的水平.     

Brand crises: The roles of brand familiarity and crisis relevance in determining the impact on brand evaluations

Brand crises, defined as well-publicized claims of unsubstantiated or false brand propositions can do severe damage to brands. Yet, the damaging effects of brand crises may not always be uniform. In other words, the effects of crises may be subject to moderators such as the relevance of the crisis to the brand and brand familiarity. We propose a framework that helps us understand the effects of brand crises on consumers' brand evaluations. We test the hypotheses that crisis relevance interacts with familiarity in its effect on brand evaluations, and that this effect is mediated by perceptions of the seriousness of the crisis. Results from two experiments support these predictions.     

An empirical investigation into the alternative strategies to implement the elimination of financial services

This paper examines the strategies that financial institutions use in order to implement the elimination of financial services. Through 20 in-depth interviews with managers of British banks, insurance companies and building societies, a set of ten alternative elimination strategies was identified. A mail survey (with a stratified random sample of 112 British financial institutions) indicated that the predominant strategy is to eliminate a financial service from new customers, while leaving its existing users unconditionally unaffected. However, the results revealed that the applicability of alternative elimination strategies is situation-specific, since it varies in relation to the degree of market orientation of a financial institution, to the intensity of market competition, to the austerity of the legislative environment and to the rhythm of technological change.     

Profiling under conditions of ambiguity—An application in the financial services industry

Profiles inform decision making and impact both on the individual being profiled and the organisation acting on the information. When there is no universal empirical support for the profile, decisions are made under conditions of ambiguity. This paper analyses the decision-making process for reporting money laundering suspicions using a framework that highlights the role of technical, formal and informal sub-system elements. We conclude that, in the absence of certainty regarding technical, economic and legal parameters, informal factors play a key role in determining whether systems are adopted and how much is spent.     

行业视角下我国金融风险溢出效应实证研究

在金融市场快速发展和金融行业加速融合的背景下,我国金融行业之间存在着强烈且不稳定的相关关系,使得金融行业之间的风险溢出效应表现明显,某个金融行业的风险极易扩散至其他行业甚至整个金融体系,导致潜在的金融风险进一步恶化为全局性的金融危机。为探究我国各金融行业之间的风险溢出效应,本文在对我国金融风险传导渠道进行理论分析的基础上,利用申万二级银行指数、证券指数、保险指数和中证金融指数的股票收益率数据,通过构建DCC-GARCH-CoVaR模型,测算我国各金融行业之间及其与金融市场之间的动态条件相关系数和边际风险溢出贡献度。结果表明:DCC-GARCH-CoVaR模型能够有效刻画各金融行业之间及其与金融市场之间的动态相关性和风险溢出效应。从动态相关性来看,金融市场与银行业的动态相关性较强,具体到行业与行业之间,保险业与其他金融行业的动态条件相关系数较高;从风险溢出效应来看,证券业对金融市场和其他金融行业的风险溢出贡献度最大,其次是保险业,银行业最低。     

The effect of advertising on brand awareness and perceived quality: An empirical investigation using panel data

We use a panel data set that combines annual brand-level advertising expenditures for over three hundred brands with measures of brand awareness and perceived quality from a large-scale consumer survey to study the effect of advertising. Advertising is modeled as a dynamic investment in a brand’s stocks of awareness and perceived quality and we ask how such an investment changes brand awareness and quality perceptions. Our panel data allow us to control for unobserved heterogeneity across brands and to identify the effect of advertising from the time-series variation within brands. They also allow us to account for the endogeneity of advertising through recently developed dynamic panel data estimation techniques. We find that advertising has consistently a significant positive effect on brand awareness but no significant effect on perceived quality.

Retaining customers in UK financial services: The retailers' tale

Retaining customers offers major benefits to retailers of financial services, such as improved customer profitability and lowered acquisition costs. In spite of the importance to the sector in minimising customer ‘churn’, there has been limited investigation into the practices of customer retention. This paper reports empirical research into the retention of customers in traditional retailers of financial services in the UK to study the practices involved in retention. Following a pluralistic research design, data were generated by means of interviews with senior bank staff and by surveying staff involved either directly or indirectly with retaining customers. The study discovers key elements in the practice of retaining customers and also points to a number of potential difficulties as these organisations balance the activities of customer acquisition and retention.     

财务分析在财务管理中的作用

作为预测的前提,财务分析同样也是过去经营活动的总结.把财务分析作为财务管理的重要手段,用其能了解企业的财务状况及经营成果,可为领导提供决策依据.对企业财务分析的研究有着重要的现实意义,拟就目前我国企业财务分析中存在问题进行探讨,并提出相应对策.     

财务分析在财务管理中的作用

作为预测的前提,财务分析同样也是过去经营活动的总结.把财务分析作为财务管理的重要手段,用其能了解企业的财务状况及经营成果,可为领导提供决策依据.对企业财务分析的研究有着重要的现实意义,拟就目前我国企业财务分析中存在问题进行探讨,并提出相应对策.     

财务分析在财务管理中的作用

作为预测的前提,财务分析同样也是过去经营活动的总结.把财务分析作为财务管理的重要手段,用其能了解企业的财务状况及经营成果,可为领导提供决策依据.对企业财务分析的研究有着重要的现实意义,拟就目前我国企业财务分析中存在问题进行探讨,并提出相应对策.     

江苏省农业财政支出对农民收入影响的实证分析

作者根据<江苏省统计年鉴>,对江苏省农业财政支出与农民人均纯收入水平的关系进行实证分析,通过回归分析发现农业财政支出与农民人均纯收入水平呈显著的正相关关系,农业财政支出每增加一亿元,农民人均纯收入增加17.271元.因此努力增加农业财政支出是当前增加农民收入的有效途径.