Santander shake things up amongst the UK’s savings providers
21 November 2011 |
Recently, Mapa delivered the quarterly update of our savings dashboard, which included the recent excitement caused by Santander’s new fixed rate bond that pays interest upfront. Santander pays interest of £1,000 pound upfront for every £12,000 customers deposit into the account.
The report...keep reading
More UK banking platforms improved and enhanced
20 December 2011 |
Mapa has recently produced the Internet Banking Dashboard: an in depth look at all the major UK banks’ Internet Banking services.
Nationwide recently completely relaunched their Internet Banking platform as part of a wider IT transformation. The new platform has much of the same functionality...keep reading
Customers being advised that payments are getting quicker
20 June 2008 |
One change covered in the recent Internet Banking Dashboard was the change in wording Barclays use around payment times. As one day payments are being introduced across the UK Barclays have advised their customers that one day payments are possible, but the “some payments take longer”. Let’s...keep reading
Tools and advice highlighted in online savings market
19 August 2008 |
This quarter saw over 60 changes being recorded on the Savings Dashboard. In the previous two quarters many of the changes covered a reduction in interest rates by almost all providers. On the recent Savings Dashboard only Abbey and Alliance & Leicester reduced their interest rates, while Egg...keep reading
Changes to online Payment Protection Insurance sales
09 December 2008 |
November’s update of the Personal Loans Dashboard has uncovered over twenty changes, a number of which are around the sale of Payment Protection Insurance (PPI).
Barclays, Natwest, RBS, Lombard Direct and Nationwide are notable amongst those who have made changes around the sales process.
...keep readingAbbey’s site re-launch sees a number of functions removed from website
02 March 2009 |
Mapa’s first savings dashboard of 2009 has recorded over 50 changes, amongst the amendments uncovered by February’s research was what could be described as a much needed re-launch of the Abbey site. Abbey refreshed website
It’s interesting to see that with the Abbey re-launch, which not only...keep reading
40% of sites monitored on the Dashboard have recently stopped selling LPI online
13 March 2009 |
For some time now selling loan payment insurance has been profitable business for UK banks, however not without criticism from consumer bodies and regulators. For example in October last year FSA fined Alliance & Leicester £7 million for serious failings in its telephone sales of LPI.
In...keep reading
Barclays refreshes public site pages and banks continue to extend free periods
10 June 2009 |
This quarter’s update of Mapa’s UK Mobile Banking Dashboard shows Barclays improving the public site .mobi pages, both cosmetically and from a sales perspective. Prominent marketing messages now sit at the top of the landing page as well as a new link to ‘Great offers from Barclays’ (see...keep reading
Despite the appalling year for banks generally, 9 banks still make it into the Marketing Society’s top 50 Brands of British origin listing
25 June 2009 |
The multi sector brand parade covering all sectors, and featuring an A to Z spectrum of well known favourites, ascribes each individual brand a value, and it is this that determines the rankings.
Examination of the full list shows a clear divide of banks featured, between those tainted by the...keep reading
Barclay’s site relaunch confirms trend of increasing length of time between major refreshes
05 August 2009 |
Back in February 2008 the Mapa UK online banking landscape report, demonstrated through an analysis of data from 2003- 2007 that most internet bank sites were operating on a 3-4 year major refresh cycle. In 2007 this had been as short as 3 years; and by the end of 2008 had gone out to 5 years,...keep reading
In a quarter in which the majority of saving provider changes have been cosmetic
25 August 2009 |
The August update of Mapa’s Savings Dashboard has recorded almost 40 changes. It has been interesting to note that a large number of these changes have been as a result of websites being updated.
The Alliance and Leicester website has been refreshed to bring it in-line with the look of parent...keep reading
High-Street banks promote student accounts using microsites and Facebook
09 September 2009 |
With students being internet and social media savvy, it comes as no surprise that banks promote their student account offering using different channels. Mapa research discovered student microsites for Abbey, Barclays, HSBC and Lloyds TSB. Abbey uses their microsite to promote an account...keep reading
Service removals and extensions all evident as providers scramble for market advantage
24 February 2010 |
The February update of Mapa’s Mobile Banking and SMS Competitor Intelligence dashboards recorded several notable changes in the countries monitored.
Europe is catching up with the US banks following the introductions of iPhone applications from many major banks. In the American market, BB&T’s...keep reading
Barclays lead mobile innovation in the UK market with Augmented Reality
25 May 2010 |
The May update of Mapa’s UK Mobile Banking and SMS Competitor Intelligence dashboards recorded notable new services as well as removed services in the UK market.
Barclays have been the most active player in the mobile field the last months. Following the removal of SMS Banking highlighted in...keep reading
Many Banks add new features
02 September 2010 |
The August update of Mapa’s Mobile Banking and SMS Competitor Intelligence Dashboards recorded a flood of notable changes in the countries monitored.
In the UK, the most active player Barclays have made several enhancements to their existing mobile web service. A new touch screen friendly...keep reading
A kaleidoscope of improvements from banking providers enhance the customer experience
07 January 2010 |
The December 2009 update of Mapa’s Internet Banking Dashboard recorded a significant number of impressive updates to UK online and mobile banking.
The most notable of the functionality and usability changes came from Barclays, Nationwide and NatWest/ RBS.
Barclays have now optimised the...keep reading
RBS / NatWest introduce iPhone application as well as multiple SMS services and Abbey introduce new SMS security for Online Banking
25 November 2009 |
The November Mapa competitor intelligence update of the UK Mobile & SMS Banking Dashboard has revealed a number of interesting service introductions / extensions.
As the first banks in the UK, NatWest and RBS introduced a Mobile Banking iPhone application. The service contains the same...keep reading
P2P Payments Take Off Around the World
04 April 2012 |
In time we may look back at a number of the services featured in the March update of Mapa’s Mobile & SMS Banking Dashboard as being seminal services which triggered a fundamental change in digital retail banking.
For the time being, person-to-person payments is the area seeing most...keep reading
Retail Banks Taking Measured Approach To Social Media
11 April 2012 |
Mapa has recently produced the Internet Banking Dashboard: an in depth look at all the major UK banks’ Internet Banking services.
A key theme in this quarter has been social media activity. NatWest, RBS and Santander have all launched on Twitter while Barclays are now present on Facebook....keep reading
UK now a hotbed of activity
20 April 2012 |
Last week saw two mobile services launched on the same day in the UK. The first was HSBC’s new Fast Balance mobile banking offering. Secondly Barclays Pingit was re-launched to allow customers from all banks to use the service. Whilst these two are both retail banking apps, they serve to...keep reading
Mapa's recent study looks at 106 banks across 23 countries
16 May 2012 |
Mapa has recently carried out a mini study into how the world's top banks handle mobile detection. The research covered 106 banks in 23 countries and we used an iPhone and an Android phone to do the testing. As well as providing a summary below, we've put the results together in a 2 page...keep reading
