This week American Express made the news by announcing its digital wallet platform Serve will merge with its prepaid cards, which were originally aimed at customers who don’t qualify for credit cards. Indeed, Amex has been busy the last few months. In January it announced it’s pushing into the market in China with Serve. Meanwhile, not a single bank cracked the top 10 in Fast Company’s annual list of the most innovative finance companies. Square was number one, followed by retailer Starbucks, who was praised for revitalizing its business by implementing its own payment system. Snarketing 2.0 this week takes on the reputation credit unions are trying to cultivate as better than banks when it comes to customer service, and, Bank Innovation talks about how banking can be ‘fun’ with iPads.
Amex to Merge Prepaid Cards with Digital Wallet
‘American Express launched its Serve stored-value account last year as a way to attract customers that normally would not qualify for its credit cards. Serve is meant to function as a digital wallet, though it can be used at the point of sale with an attached debit card. Separately, Amex launched a prepaid card that has almost no fees. When Serve is updated, all Amex prepaid card users will use the Serve platform.’
Starbucks Outsmarts Banks in Fast Company Innovation Awards
‘Fast Company’s annual list of the most innovative companies in finance puts coffee chain Starbucks at number two and omits any traditional financial services firms, bar American Express, from the top ten. While banks pour billions of pounds annually into their technology operations, the judges at Fast Company sought inspiration elsewhere, turning to hip start-ups such as Square and Dwolla in the payments space and new funding platforms such as Kickstarter, Y Combinator and SecondMarket.’
Big Banks Have Better Service Than Credit Unions?
Snarketing 2.0, ala Ron Shevlin of Aite group discusses an article on the site MainStreet called, Study: In Customer Service Battle, Big Banks Win, that reports on a study conducted by RateWatch and IntelliShop, which found that: “Credit unions, for all their benefits, just aren’t as good as big banks at closing the deal with prospective customers.” ’The title of the MainStreet article is a gross misrepresentation of the study’s results. What the study captured was the sales performance of the different types of FIs, not the customer service performance. And in that context, the study’s findings aren’t surprising at all.’
In Tablet Banking, Fun Matters
‘Tablet banking customers just wanna have fun? Intuit Financial Services thinks so. That’s why the fintech vendor designed an iPad banking app that aims to liven up the user experience. “People buy iPads because they are fun,” Deepto Sahi, senior product management at Intuit, tells Bank Innovation. “We wanted to make the app fun.” The new app was widely released to FIs yesterday.’
Till next week – have fun online banking!
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