Greg Haislip
Managing Director – Banking
Microsoft Corporation

We are in very competitive times where customers are very fickle and have many different options for selecting financial services providers so bankers should focus their priorities on retaining their best customers and extending those relationships through innovative products and services while delivering those capabilities through the most relevant channels of interaction. Excellence in service execution for this customer base should be a top priority as the cost of customer acquisition is far greater than retention. This will require bankers to have the ability to recognize interactions with varied customer segments and to have the ability to deliver a differentiated level of service to this high value, profitable customer base while migrating less profitable customers to self-service channels.

Turbulent financial markets and unprecedented levels of competition have made it very difficult for bankers to drive short-term profits. Competition for deposits and an inverted yield curve have put very heavy pressure on interest margins and in many cases, bankers in order to offset this and to grow, have been much more liberal with both sides of the balance sheet, impacting profitability. Profitability has also been impacted by liquidity levels in the financial markets and the subprime mortgage market which have negatively affected many banks’ trading operations. Due to the current real estate downturn, this will continue to be a challenge in the short term so those banks with robust balance sheets will fare best and may even be able to take advantage of market conditions to improve their market position over the long term.

Understanding your customers, delivering a differentiated service level and managing your business effectively requires banks to invest in technology that empowers their people to execute flawlessly at the moment of customer contact, creates brand differentiation in self-service channels and is also able to measure results and react to changing market conditions. Analytics technologies that enable customer segmentation and predictive treatments will drive high service levels and broader product penetration as well as provide business insight. Collaborative capabilities provide the ability for employees to more effectively respond to customer needs. Investing in rich self-service technologies such as rich Internet applications, Web 2.0 tools and mobility will also be very important in order to connect and service the younger generation of customers and to provide brand differentiation and broader distribution capabilities. And of course, insuring that corporate and customer assets are secure must always be a part of any technology investment as well.

Kevin H. Connelly
Senior Vice President & Managing Director
Financial Services Group
Trintech, Inc.

In today’s competitive financial services marketplace, financial institutions need to offer the most flexible, powerful banking solutions to the customers who drive the success of their business – all while keeping a close eye on the metrics that can impact the institution’s bottom line: operational costs, organizational efficiency, and exposure to risk. These metrics apply to both short-term and long-term goals, and represent the fundamentals of good banking practices.

In many respects, payment streams are an area that many institutions have failed to properly optimize. We like to use the term ‘Financial Object’ to describe a wide range of items such as checks, deposits, ATM transactions, loans, wire transfers, ACH payments, money orders and much more. Even the most robust core systems cannot track, analyze and report on these types of complex financial objects with different and evolving life cycles.

Using the .NET Framework, Trintech has developed an entirely new way for financial institutions to granularly manage their internal and business client’s multi-faceted payment streams: LifeCycle Management (LCM) Payments. LCM Payments is a fully-integrated, Web browser-based solution that can handle the majority of an institution’s internal operational and business client processes in regards to account reconciliation and positive pay. Now institutions can harness the power of true account reconciliation and lifecycle management functionality with the LCM Payments’ workflow and analysis tools for checks, wires, ACH transactions, and unclaimed property – including all DDA activity such as service charges, adjustments and NSF fees.

Without a doubt, fee income is a critical component in driving bank profits. One way to drive new fee income is for commercial banks to offer new, innovative, value-added cash and treasury management services that enhance their commercial customers’ ability to manage their payments, while simultaneously mitigating the associated risks. Every institution is looking to differentiate itself in the marketplace, now one can by offering more flexible, value-added, advanced information reporting capability combined with next generation account reconcilement and positive pay services to customers.

As payment methods converge from paper to image to electronic, now is the time for financial institutions to implement next-generation .NET-based platforms such as LCM Payments.

• Edward Woods, Senior Analyst – Banking, Celent, LLC
• John Macaluso, CTO, Senior Vice President, Strategy and Marketing, Fiserv CBS Worldwide
• Michael D. Nicastro, Senior Vice President – Marketing and Product Management, Open Solutions Inc.
• Brian C. Hurdis, President, Metavante Image Solutions
• Tom Berdan, Vice President, Product Management, Harland Financial Solutions
• Steve Buchberger, Senior Vice President – Payment Solutions, WAUSAU
• Kirk Herrington, President and Founder, GaleForce Solutions Inc.
  
• Greg Haislip, Managing Director – Banking, Microsoft Corporation
  
• Kevin H. Connelly, Senior Vice President & Managing Director, Financial Services Group, Trintech, Inc.
• Paul Citarella, Executive Vice President, Alogent Corporation
  
• David Hampton, Managing Director, Financial Business Solutions, Getronics