Technology in Banking and Finance

What do you and me as individuals do when the going gets tough economically? Double check our telephone bills? See if we used them more than we should have; check if there is a better plan out there with better rates which was not so important before? Weigh whether to use your car or public transport now depending on the need to use. Make sure that you bought groceries and vegetables at the best rates that were never so important since you loved the place you shopped more than the value. Double check all the rebate coupons that you never cared to check on before. There are two keys things that I am talking about, one is controlling the overhead costs or expenditures and the second is plugging the leakages that existed before but you cared less. I believe similar to this, banks in today's environment will have to closely consider performance metrics like costs, profitability of product and revenue leakages. Measurement of costs and product profitability are in practice today, but i...

To continue on product innovations, to reach newer segments of the banking market i was thinking about telecom. Why there is such an explosive growth(in terms of reach to common man) in telecom industry versus a hindu rate of growth when it comes to traditional banking. I am not talking about the 20% growth in revenues the banks are making by doling out home loans and credit cards to the consuming public at various interest rates. I am talking about parallel's to pre paid cards, small recharge tickets available at the beedi shops, life time free incoming facilities, bundled products like land line + internet + IPTV, etc that is making telecom companies add 3-4 million subscribers month on month. Is it that the need for a common man to have banking facility is minimal when compared to his need to communicate? I think the answer to this is the way we understand customer segmentation. Unlike the uniformity in need to communicate, the need to have banking services varies widely across ...