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Curious about potential AI applications for retail banking? Our AI expert, Laurent Lioté has published the first of his series exploring just that, starting with Spending Insights. Inside this brief AI insight, Laurent gives an...
FinovateEurope, London, 12-14 February 2019. The latest insights from the world of fintech will be brought to the Tobacco Dock in 2019 as FinovateEurope returns to London. Mapa Research's involvement with the event gives us...
Download your comprehensive overview of the challengers to watch from around the...
During this year’s Digital Futures event, our Head of Research, Suraya Randawa, had a brief interview with Ovum’s Head of Industries, Kieran Hines, to discuss AI’s potential to improve the digital user experience. ...
RegTech Rising covers everything you need to know about regtech in just 3 days - 3-5 December, London - straight from the mouths of the people shaping the future of the industry. Using Mapa's VIP code, you can save...
Revolut lay claim to be “better than your bank account” – while I’m not sure it can quite match my bank account, it could be on the verge of supplanting my credit card, and here’s why… I’ve been an avid Revolut-when-travelling user...
This latest podcast deals with personal finance management (PFM) tools (including encouraging savings, spending categorization, budgeting tools, account aggregation, gamification, and peer behavior comparisons) that are currently trending in Europe...
Chad Watkins, Director of Market Intelligence at Informa Financial Intelligence, and Chris Ward, Lead Analyst at Mapa Research, part of Informa Financial Intelligence in the U.K and Europe, continue their discussion of
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Chad Watkins, Director of Market Intelligence at Informa Financial Intelligence, and Chris Ward, Lead Analyst at Mapa Research, part of Informa Financial Intelligence in the U.K and Europe, discuss European financial services digital features and...
Rental and home insurance provider Lemonade announced last week the upcoming launch of an open source insurance policy. Lemonade announced via press release this project is...
Four months into Open Banking and the challenge is on the industry to keep the momentum going with partnerships, innovation and better value propositions for customers. Join Elise Nunn, Head of Operations at Plum – the Facebook Messenger-based...
The fourth and last day of FinovateEurope 2018 was full of insight. Here are the highlights of the last day. Fireside with a Fintech Founder We kicked off the...
Latest Revolut news (March 2018): Revolut launches Disposable Virtual Cards to tackle online fraud. What has Revolut been doing? This post will keep you up to date on all the innovations, new functionality, interesting...
After two days packed with live demos, the third day of FinovateEurope focused less on products and more on discussing the direction of the industry. Below, we share the highlights...
Digital investment platforms are making a big marketing push in the run-up to the ISA deadline. Competition in digital investments has become more intense in recent years with new providers offering digital solutions, low fees and basic products,...
What's new from challenger bank Monzo? This article will keep you up to date on all the innovations, new functionality, partnerships and user experience enhancements from the brand formerly known as Mondo. Latest...
The second day of the European Finovate conference took place at the ExCeL in London on the 7th March. With many large leading names from the world of Fintech in attendance, this offered a platform where the most cutting-edge, unique movements and...
Mapa is back at FinovateEurope and the first day of the 2018 event was full of interesting demos. Here are some of the highlights from day one…
FinovateEurope will return to London with a new, expanded conference on 6-9 March. ...
At first glance, not much has changed in the world of digital banking in the month following the implementation of PSD2. However, on...
The volume of updates that UK incumbents made to their mobile apps outstrip desktop updates, however, with so many providers placing less focus on the development of desktop channels, there is an opportunity for brands to get ahead of the game and...
Selling on banking apps is an ongoing challenge for banks. Few providers use the pre-login and post-login space to sell financial products...
If you are working in financial services, particularly if you want to improve the digital experience of your customers, Mapa Research can offer evidence, support and access to competitor analysis and insight that you need. We produce regular ...
Open Banking and PSD2 will change the way we bank in Europe. This year saw new providers enter the market and existing players preparing for the new legislation to come into effect. Our Open Banking Webinar Series will closely...
Banks should not see PSD2 as a threat from disruptors. Rather, they should see third-party collaboration as integral to shaping their digital strategies. Banks have an opportunity to extend their own reach and value by integrating third-party...
Latest Starling news (December 2017): Starling receives regulatory approval to become a marketplace banking app. The full story Starling...
As the year is nearing its end, we look back at the most interesting developments in digital banking and discuss the highlights in mobile, desktop and SME banking. Mapa's Chris Ward, Katie Chalmers, and Rory Pennington talk through what has...
Since the Bank of England’s recent base rate rise, there has been a renewed focus on its implications for savers. Although the increase is just a quarter of a percent, might this start to re-energise the savings market? If so, are banks’ mobile...
Could payment functionality give an additional boost in adoption rates of wearable technology? Wearables technologies are gaining traction. The global market is ...
Desktop banking came first. It came before mobile banking and, in many countries, it’s still a frequently used banking channel. As the more established platform, desktop banking is already mature in terms of basic functionality. Most banks are...
SMEs and corporations arguably get a rough deal when it comes to digital banking services, as covered in our recent Insight Series...
Mobile banking is nothing without mobiles, and as Apple leads the way in innovation it provides opportunities for banks to do things differently too. So, with the launch of the iPhone X, what is next for mobile banking in a world that can’t get...
Open Banking, open APIs, PSD2… all these words imply that competition in the banking sector is about to intensify. As providers in our Account Aggregation Monitor are...
Is strict regulation to blame for the lack of cross-selling activity from banks, particularly on mobile channels? In our recent Insight Series Report, Effective Selling on Mobile (...
Mapa Research is once again delighted to be partnering with Money20/20, to give our readers a chance to save on tickets for this exciting payments and FS innovation event. Taking place at the Venetian in Las Vegas on October 22-25, this year's...
First Direct has said it will stop using ‘great customer service’ as its key selling point and start focussing on being a ‘modern bank’. But are the two really that different? Zoe Burns-Shore, the Head of Brand and Marketing at First...
Here at Mapa, we shout from the rooftops about the UK challenger banks, regularly telling you all about what Monzo and...
This week we've published our latest Mobile Banking Monitor, complete with comparison matrix and trends report. We cover more than 50 banking brands...
Didn’t someone predict the imminent ‘death of the bank’? Well, banks are still here and they seem to be working their way around the Fintech market. ‘Banking is necessary, banks are not.’ In the 90s, Bill Gates called out banks for...
Do you love your bank card? We’ve written many times about the bank branch – about how it can be repurposed, about the...
Barclays has just launched an interesting online banking feature for SMEs. Using APIs, the bank is allowing its SME customers to view their account information and everyday business data in a ...
I’m a marketing professional, so I know what my line is meant to be on QR codes – they are a bit laughable, anachronistic, and surely already dead. So finding out that these square barcodes are used by the likes of PayPal, Tesco PayQwiq...
We’ve been looking at digital wallets and the payments ecosystem lately, trying to determine what matters more to consumers: that paying friends and businesses...
Tandem announced yesterday that it has agreed to acquire 100% of Harrods Bank. The takeover will bring around £80m into the digital banking start-up, allowing it to significantly speed up its launch plans and introduce a savings account. After...
Digital adoption in the corporate banking space has so far lagged behind what we have seen across retail banking. At Mapa, we have been looking recently at opportunities for providers to enhance delivered client value, and to tackle and overcome the...
Why not join us? Finovate returns to NYC September 11-14 with an expanded FinovateFall, and Mapa Research is a media partner once again. The first two...
New figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) have revealed that more payments in the UK are now made with cards than with cash. The annual Payments Survey from the...
We hosted our first ever webinar here at Mapa Research, covering the topic of personal financial management, and the future of digital banking. Many digital banking experts and enthusiasts joined us at 3pm (UK time) on Thursday 13 July 2017 for...
Artificial intelligence is already changing the face of banking. In many cases, banks are literally using AI-powered chatbots to present a face to customers...
‘All it takes is one smart cookie and all of a sudden they’ve got access to all your accounts.’ This was the unprompted response of one banking customer, when asked what they thought of the idea of consolidating their bank accounts into an ...
Over the past year there has been a considerable increase in the number of card servicing features added to digital channels by credit card providers. Mapa Research tracks innovations and changes in this space, and we have found that certain...
Our latest Mobile Banking Dashboard has been published to clients, featuring all the changes made in the last quarter by 50+ banks across the world, as well as an overview of the functionality and user journeys offered by these top financial...
We held a few focus groups here at Mapa recently, and covered the topic of person-to-person (P2P) payments. One topic made me think about the power of referral marketing. The question was: Would you sign up to a new digital service if it made it...
Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are beginning to change the retail world, with AR changing rooms in shops,...
FinTech companies are known for their exciting use of new technology and innovations to create products that give us a glimpse into the future of personal banking. One of the greatest assets for FinTechs is their agility and ability to create...
Peer-to-peer consumer lending is the largest component of the alternative online lending market in Continental Europe, making up ...
Apple has announced at its Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) that person-to-person payments are coming to Apple Pay. The feature will arrive with iOS 11, which was also announced onstage, and will be available later this year. As Tim Cook...
Last week Accenture published a report questioning whether someone had ‘cancelled the FinTech Revolution’. It argues that evidence...
Much has been made of the implications of PSD2 for the European payments market, but what about the US payments market...
BBVA has unveiled its open banking programme and is making eight of its APIs commercially available for the first time. The Spanish bank has spent over a year working with developers and businesses to refine how the service – the BBVA...
Currently, I have around £150 sitting in a savings account without having actively ‘saved’ a penny. It’s not going to buy me a yacht, true, but perhaps a nice meal out. That £150 is courtesy of microsavings chatbot, Plum....
As the popularity of ‘voice assistants’ grows, more and more financial services providers are helping customers perform banking tasks via this nascent technology. Last week, ...
At Mapa, we pride ourselves on being able to share ‘user journeys’ to help banks. We show them what their peers and competitors are doing online, both before and after customer login, to help them decide on tactics and strategy for their own...
Following conducting research on the implications for digital banking customers and providers of PSD2, Mapa has been...
WorldFirst has today unveiled World Account, a payments platform for SMEs and online sellers for ‘international business banking without the bank.’
As reported by our sister company ...
Following our excellent trip to Finovate Spring in San Jose, the next Mapa Media Partnership is with ...
A touch hungover, grasping a coffee and munching a seeded bagel like a boss, I came back after a brilliant Day One and once again enjoyed the...
I was delighted to represent Mapa (and the UK!) at Finovate Spring in San Jose, where the key themes of the two-day event were big data, machine learning and bringing investment to the masses, and there was quite a lot on the digital mortgage...
Simple was once the hero of challenger banks: it came to market well ahead of many other familiar neobanks and, for a long time, it was a truly world-beating bank. However, recently it has had some serious issues stemming from its ...
As more and more financial institutions start to adopt money management tools, does Personal Financial Management (PFM) hold the key to differentiation in the marketplace and can it successfully help banks compete against the incoming wave of...
This year has been a busy one for London-based fintech startup Revolut, and it recently announced both credit lines and premium accounts in advance of a funding round through Seedrs. This week, a partnership with Trussle has also been announced. For...
Phillip Hammond, the UK Chancellor, has highlighted the critical role played by FinTech in helping the UK to mitigate any negative economic impact that may result from Brexit. ...
Gallup suggests that just 13% of smartphone owners in the US have a digital wallet app (that’s things like PayPal,...
As financial services providers have progressed from focusing on adding functionality to their digital platforms to focusing on the customer experience of using the platforms, the way in which help and support is provided to customers has become...
While far from delivering a coherent, user-friendly end-to-end journey, digital alternatives are emerging to both complement and challenge branch-based processes around selecting and applying for mortgage products. Using our unique ...
PSDII. Five little digits that represent a world of opportunity – or a world of threat, depending on your perspective. Acclaimed as a piece of regulation that could revolutionise how consumers interact with financial services, one of the key...
Digital security can be defined as the protection of your digital identity: the tools you or an institution uses to protect your identity on the internet and prevent others from accessing your information. In a world where digital developments are...
As our infographic showed, and as we see frequently in the press, bank branches are closing at a steady rate in the UK, and elsewhere in the world. As...
Mapa recently completed a major study of bank and credit card onboarding journeys in key European markets, and through it we evidenced a well-known fact: KYC, AML and...
Mapa attended the Open Up Challenge and the Future of Small Business Banking panel discussion organised by Nesta last Wednesday. Chris Gorst, Challenge Prize Lead at Nesta, opens the...
Charities may appear rather traditional in their fundraising efforts – with a large focus on cash and donating ‘small change’, it’s still common to see ‘chuggers’ in bright clothes in the street, asking passers-by to contribute to their...
It got its banking licence last summer, but UK digital-only challenger Starling Bank has now released the beta version of its mobile banking app to people on the waiting list. A small group of testers close to the brand enjoyed...
HSBC and YouGov presented at Marketing Week Live (#MWL17) today, on a new approach to customer segmentation that looks at attitudes rather than age or stage. Claire Verdirame,...
Insights from Mapa Research indicate that improvements to NatWest’s Android app have helped it win over app users, who have rated it above other major financial services providers’ apps in the UK market. NatWest ...
Fresh from a very interesting two days at Finovate Europe in London, Mapa Research is putting on its 'media partner' hat once again for...
We know that amongst certain age groups, Facebook is a more trusted brand than a bank. Facebook also...
The ascendancy of Trump, the alt right movement and women’s marches around the world are making it a very interesting time for feminism and gender equality. Despite global challenges, the position of women in society is improving overall – the...
Two of us from Mapa Research attended a debate at Imperial College last week, around the Future of Money as part of their...
We have recently published the first of our new digital banking Dashboards focused on the customer's digital experience of core financial products. An...
Mapa Research is delighted to be partnering with Money20/20 Europe, taking place this June in Copenhagen. A world-class experience for European innovators, Money20/20 Europe is more than just an...
Mapa Research was media partners to Finovate Europe 2017, so we took loads of notes and created these ...
Last week was a big week for digital finance, and you didn’t have to go to Finovate Europe (although some of us
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As media partners to Finovate Europe 2017, we were invited along last week to see what the key trends, latest innovations and newest tools and products in FinTech...
As a marketing professional, I do feel slightly bored with the buzzword ‘millennial’, and find myself asking what purpose the categorisation really serves – since millennials are all the people born between 1980 and 1996. Has this mammoth...
Consumer trust underpins all good brands. Since the 2008 recession, it is what banks have been working hard to mend. It’s what new FinTechs are aspiring to gain. It’s what established giants, like Facebook, are working hard to preserve. In...
On 25 May 2018, the European Commission’s General Data Protection Regulation will come into force and standardise data protection regimes across the EU. Every bank operating within the Union (and indeed any business or organisation) must comply,...
Money transfer and currency exchange app Revolut has launched a unique (and free) new feature which lets customers automatically split the cost of any payment with their phone contacts. The Split Bill feature has been added to the menu under Send...
Customer demand for biometric security options is growing. Not only is the technology viewed as a more convenient way to log in to a bank account or to verify a transaction than a username and password, but it also minimises the risk of forgetting...
One of the predictions we made in our recent report, 10 Things Digital Banking Teams Should Be Doing in 2017, was that ‘IoT’ (or, the...
Mapa has been closely following digital banking developments in the US market for several years. Simple, Moven and Ally are three key driving forces in the evolution of banking. While having similar outlooks on customer-centricity, they come from...
On 7 and 8 February, over 70 carefully selected financial brands and technology companies will take the stage at Finovate Europe 2017 in London to show off their exciting financial and...
As other industries test drones as a delivery and surveillance mechanism, what value are banking providers likely to get from this controversial new technology? Outside of financial services, drones are being used by journalists to capture...
It’s clear that the festive season encourages a ton of online shopping... but what lessons can banks and card providers take from the Black Friday digital commerce trends? We look at abandonment rates in particular. According to data from ...
Barclaycard has introduced a new way to pay for, and pour your own, contactless beer – a tap-and-go pump installed in a Central London pub. Pay@Pump, still only at the testing stage, has been designed to reduce queuing times, especially in busy...
In the context of the Bank of England base rate cut in August of this year, our analysis of public site promotions as part of Mapa’s quarterly mortgages review has...
With regulators increasingly expressing alarm regarding the risks to banks of the growing household debt in both Sweden and the UK, Mapa has probed into the drivers of this demand and looked at how banks should evolve their marketing strategies to...
Earlier this week we wrote about the increasingly crowding UK banking space. One of the latest brands to announce that it is joining the market is peer-to-peer...
Cash isn't going anywhere... but now more banks are letting us withdraw it using smartphones rather than cards. Despite all the excitement around a cashless future, thanks to the uptake of contactless payment technology, there...
Another challenger bank has arrived on the UK market. Launched last week, Masthaven wants to move away from a ‘one-size fits all’ model, to offer a digital banking proposition with a...
We’ve noted plenty of fragmentation in digital banking, payments and FinTech, but there are also moves being made towards convergence. Now in public beta testing, Bud is the banking app that isn’t a bank – and doesn’t need...
US consumers can expect to see a new person-to-person (P2P) payments solution on their mobile banking apps early next year. Zelle is the new name for the ClearXchange network, which is run on Early Warning’s payment solution and has the...
Segmentation is common practice among banks both in the UK and abroad. But is it just about marketing new products? Or do different types of customer require a different type of banking experience to keep them engaged? The desire to group...
As part of Mapa’s analysis of the digital banking landscape, we often come across videos that have been launched for promotional or educational purposes, and deployed across sites and social channels. It’s predicted that ...
Interest rates on UK savings accounts have been waning for a long time. This has spurred conversations on whether savings accounts are actually...
The chief executive of the British Bankers’ Association has claimed that Britain’s biggest banks are making plans to pull out of the UK early next year, as a result of Brexit. BBA chief Anthony Browne ...
Here we take a look at what the newest 'banks' in the UK have been up to, and what we can expect to see next from these digital-focused challengers. While some are focussing on testing products and using invitation-only strategies for customer...
The Federal Reserve has created a dedicated task force, made up of nearly 500 members, in a big push to make US payments systems more efficient and secure. In its quest to encourage innovation in payments, the task force is currently reviewing 19...
Despite new payment technologies, the rise of digital banking and the closure of bank branches, cheques are still popular. While we are getting excited about ...
It’s not just the advent of blockchain technology that has the planet wondering what will happen to money (and to the entire concept...
It only arrived in May, but already thirteen UK banks have jumped on the Android Pay bandwagon, allowing customers with Android phones to place secure payments up to £30 using...
Card management continues to be the focus for banks in our Mobile Banking Dashboard. The main feature? Allowing customers to block cards within their mobile banking...
Two French banks, Société Générale and ...
Simple will soon be launching a new product. With the aim to help partnerships better understand where money is spent and saved, the online banking provider announced yesterday it is beta testing a joint digital account. Not only for...
It’s a neat idea. Instead of going by what you know (a username or password – easily forgotten) or what you have (a card reader – easily lost, broken, or forgotten), authenticating yourself should be done in a way that cannot...
Blockchain made its claim to fame through Bitcoin – it is the distributed, unchangeable public ledger that allows Bitcoin to operate without any intermediaries. While the cryptocurrency’s ...
Traditionally, winning awards has been a sure-fire way for any good marketing team to reinforce their bank's strategies, and promote their key USPs in a positive light. Somewhat unsurprisingly, when a bank wants you to see it as innovative, it will...
Facing increasing competition from market challengers and FinTech providers, incumbent banks have three choices if they are to stay on top of innovation: build in-house solutions to match those of new market entrants, acquire competitors, or partner...
The Apple iPhone 7 launch on Wednesday wasn’t perhaps as thrilling as past events, but it still managed to deliver news that could be relevant for digital banking. At Mapa, we are less interested in the ...
Biometric technology has made our lives easier. It’s a quicker form of identity verification, which doesn’t rely on memory, and it’s non-transferrable. It is a function that is currently applied to authenticating users but, in the future, it...
Over the past year we have seen new players join the savings market. More recently, these market challengers caught our eye in our latest Savings Dashboard. Their main feature: automated...
Challenger bank Mondo has received a banking licence from the Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority, and has rebranded as Monzo. This follows a legal challenge to the business in June. UK regulators have granted the...
In the past couple of years, there has been a significant increase in contactless payments around the world....
One of the timeless questions in banking is how to achieve the right balance between security and ease of access for customers. Many of our clients (such as ...
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has today published its findings from the retail banking market investigation that was started in 2014. The final report states that established banks don’t have to compete hard enough for customers, and...
In the days immediately following the referendum, we published a blog post discussing what the implications of Brexit for digital banking might be....
The evolution of digital banking has made it easier for customers to self-serve. In turn, brands are forced to rethink how they encourage customer loyalty. American Express, who have made their support and customer service into a competitive...
Within the the same week, the BBA has reported a significant rise in mobile banking app adoption, while ...
Money20/20 is now less than 90 days away, and Mapa Research - which now has a presence in the US - is celebrating by announcing our partnership with this fantastic and massive...
Mapa Research is once again partnering with FinovateFall, the digital banking and FinTech event taking place in New York this September. On the 8th and 9th September 2016, over 70 hand-picked companies will take the stage at ...
After the 2008 recession, players in financial services have been forced to rethink their sales techniques. The sales culture of the past has now moved towards looking to fill the customer’s “unmet needs”. Our ...
Although we are seeing a reduction in the number of physical banking branches, there is a concurrent trend for re-purposing the premises for other uses, and even evolving the banking services on offer. It was ...
Mapa Founder Mark Pavan discusses the importance of sustaining digital conversations with customers. In this time of ever-increasing change, retail banks face a pressing loyalty challenge: turning customers from passive to actively loyal...
As the dust settles after the UK’s rather unexpected decision to leave the European Union, at Mapa we are looking carefully what Brexit means for us and for our clients. There is unsurprisingly a great deal of uncertainty in the financial...
Innovation and regulation have traditionally been positioned within the financial services market as opposing concepts. Indeed, regulation has been seen as being one of the main barriers to new entrants in the market and, when asked what looking for...
At Mapa we have been following the evolution of Personal Finance Management (PFM) tools since 2011 in our PFM Insight Series Reports. When done well, PFM tools support financial decisions and the financial health of customers. They encourage...
Last week we saw Santander launch the first virtual assistant technology for an iOS mobile banking app in the UK. “Technology is rapidly changing how customers bank and pay on the move. We want banking to be simple, personal and fair and we...
With the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) pushing for change and SMEs revealing they are underwhelmed by current business banking propositions, UK banks may find their dominant market positions coming under threat. However, according to...
Mapa Analysts recently attended the Fidor Partnership Day, where the German digital bank explained the structure of their bank and intentions in the market. The plans discussed at the event, outlined below, show how ...
Today sees the announcement of TransferWise for Business, a new service from the peer-to-peer currency transfer network. Aimed...
We have previously written about the slowing rate of innovation in the core functionality of mobile banking apps, and some banks’ shift in focus towards ...
As banking becomes increasingly commoditised, ‘Big Data’ offers banks an opportunity to differentiate themselves from the competition. Using advanced data science techniques to collect, process and analyse Big Data could help to deliver...
The digital disruption of incumbent financial services in Australia has, up to this point, been less extreme than in the UK and US markets. This is partly because ...
The FCA has opened applications to its Regulatory Sandbox, a “safe space” where both incumbent firms and FinTech start-ups can test innovative products without the risk of regulatory reprisals. This kind of platform is a world first. Indeed,...
Just a couple of years ago, everyone thought that Personal Financial Management (PFM) tools would change the world of retail banking. However, today PFM is being described as unnecessary, unwanted and, by some, ...
Barclays has launched the first 100% mortgage from the high street in 8 years, in what the FT calls a ‘sign of a return to riskier lending’. The...
It’s been done with little fanfare, but Tesco Bank’s ‘Total Community Platform’, Your Community, was actually launched in the middle of last year, as we noted in our ...
If you subscribe to our quarterly dashboards and reports, you’ll see that one of our areas of interest is the process of applying for new banking products online,...
Ofcom has released its latest research, Adults’ Media Use and Attitudes 2016, and there...
At the end of 2015 BBVA launched a new initiative called “La Revolución de las Pequeñas Cosas” – “the revolution of small things” in Spanish – to...
As Barclaycard data showed at the end of last year, using contactless to pay in pubs is increasingly popular. In fact, contactless...
As we touched on in our recent article about social customer service, the possibilities to provide support over private channels...
When Apple Pay arrived in the UK last year nearly all of the biggest high street banking brands announced that they would be partnering with the tech giant to bring the contactless mobile payment solution to their customers. Barclays was, however,...
Since the recent financial crisis, banks and lenders have been forced to make significant changes to their processes and codes of conduct. As well as ensuring responsible lending practices, banks have an implied responsibility to educate their...
As we discussed at the end of last year, some banks are making use of the more private social channels to communicate with customers and offer help and support. Our...
In his 2016 budget, George Osborne announced an increase in the annual ISA limit, from £15,240 to £20,000, in addition to the introduction of a new flexible lifetime ISA. Both are designed to encourage the UK population to adopt a lifetime savings...
We know that shoppers in the UK are moving away from cash, but it might not be long until they go contactless as well as cashless. And it’s not...
As the number of digital payment solutions available to consumers continues to increase, customers across the globe are increasingly choosing to forego cash. Indeed, data would suggest that the UK is following trends in Scandinavian countries, as it...
The recent changes to the Interchange Fee Regulation (IFR) have reduced the interchange rate that merchants pay on card transactions, but...
Gaby Mancero test drives offerings from two challenger banks to assess how successful they are at removing pain points, focusing on customer experience, and offering valuable new services. With an upsurge in the number of new entrants to the UK...
Some within digital banking fear stagnation in this fast-moving battleground. Here Mapa explains why we disagree. In developed markets, the app space within digital banking is undergoing an exciting period. Having ...
Our latest Insight report, Ten Things Digital Teams Should be Doing in 2016, reviews the digital trends that banks should currently...
Our most recent update of the Digital Banking Dashboard found that ABN AMRO (NL) and BBVA (ES) are the first European banks to enable the use of WhatsApp as one of their communication channels. BBVA customers now have the opportunity to speak to...
Unless you have been living under a rock for the past year, you will have noticed that there is an incredible amount of buzz around cryptocurrencies, and in particular Bitcoin. A growing number of banks are experimenting with open ledger technology,...
The first Engagement Banking report in Mapa’s Insight Series explores some of the strategies and concepts being developed by banks, which aim to foster greater and more meaningful customer engagement across their digital channels. This is an...
Mapa’s latest Credit Card (UK) dashboard has uncovered a new trend: some UK providers are updating their website and mobile app interfaces with a simpler aesthetic, revealing an...
The first Wearables report of the Mapa Insight Series documents the rise of the smartwatch and its potential to create a more rewarding and personalised banking experience for consumers. In the short time that smartwatches have been available,...
Last week we participated in a very topical panel discussion at the BAI Retail Delivery event in Las Vegas. Joined by Jim Marous of the ...
From Monday June 29th to Monday August 31st 2015, HSBC offered new customers willing to switch to a HSBC Advance current account a larger...
The recent update of our Swedish internet & mobile banking dashboards uncovered a good selection of changes. Below are some of the most interesting introductions that were captured in the past quarter.
Activity in the tablet channel is now starting to pick up momentum after a quieter start to the year. Our research into ten leading tablet offerings in the Tablet Banking Dashboard...
HSBC are hosting a competition on their public site: customers who make an international payment before the 1st of October 2015 will be entered into a prize draw to...
Our seventh report of the 2015 Mapa Insight Series takes a look at the digitisation of the branch. Over the past few years we have seen more and more banking activities migrate over to digital channels and away from bricks and mortar branches. We...
The ever growing prominence of mobile sales journeys has begun to pick up steam among UK financial providers, with some overcoming their hesitations to explore the mobile channel for selling their borrowing products. In line with Barclays and...
As more and more consumers opt to use smartphone devices to browse and purchase new products and services, we believe they will increasingly come to expect a seamless user experience when browsing banks’ mobile web pages and apps, as they have...
The latest update of the Credit Card Dashboard (UK) has captured a number of developments in the contactless payment space. Most notably was the launch of ...
Personal Financial Management is a well-established concept within digital banking, with the majority of financial services providers recognising the need to provide tools to help customers better understand and manage their finances. PFM tools...
Earlier this summer Mapa attended the Customer Experience Transformation: Financial Services Nordics in Stockholm. Over this two-day conference, we had the opportunity to listen to and...
Yesterday marked the launch of Apple Pay in the UK, the second market to adopt the cardless payment service. From a set-up and usability point of view, it was difficult to find a fault in the...
NatWest joined Clydesdale Bank as the first few banks to offer a welcomed alternative to the UK payments space. This service, introduced by Clydesdale...
Lloyds Bank has become the first UK bank to revamp their online presentation of their internet banking terms and conditions by communicating key...
The latest Current Account (UK) dashboard details information about the new digital rewards wallet, Barclays Blue Rewards,...
The second update of the 2015 Mobile Banking (Sweden) Dashboard saw some interesting updates for mobile banking apps. Below are the key areas summarised:
Late last year, Tesco Bank undertook a phased redesign of its public site. The personal loans section on the website was also updated, apart from the loans...
With the speed at which mobile technologies have grown and picked up pace, mobile has without doubt become a key channel for financial institutions to engage with customers, create brand awareness and to monetise its offerings. In our recent ...
Our fourth report of the Mapa Insight Series is the first dedicated report looking at disruptors within the financial services space. A recent report not only found that global investment in fintech has tripled in 5 years to $3 billion, but that 35%...
Following the launch of Apple Pay last year and banks' continuing adoption of Touch ID, we are used to seeing Apple influence the way we bank. At the time of each launch, these innovations were not new to market, yet we saw mass market adoption for...
The long anticipated Apple Watch was finally released at the end of April. There has been a lot...
Barclay’s Pingit now allows customers to make payments to individuals and small businesses via Twitter, making them the first UK bank to offer the...
UK credit card providers are enabling more of their products and services to be accessed via mobile banking applications for the convenience of customers. According to the findings of the latest update of the ...
The first Mobile Banking Dashboard update of 2015 saw a raft of updates relating to login methods, sales and enhanced communication tactics. The implementation of Touch ID, which...
Mapa Research was very pleased to attend the FinTech Innovation Awards 2015 in preparation for our ‘Under Attack: Assessing the Disruptive Threat in Retail Banking’ report, as part of our...
February 2015 saw the launch of our latest latest addition to the Mapa Dashboards which audits SME banking offerings in the UK. After the first 'state of the market'...
The first update for 2015 of the Swedish internet and mobile banking Dashboard saw several new introductions by banks, below we highlight some of the key areas: Responsive sites A prominent trend during 2014 was the...
At Mapa Research we find innovation often happens in a cluster. One bank does something, and then its peers rush to do the same. Like last quarter, Barclays had added a ‘base rate information...
In the age of proliferating touchpoints, many banks are intrigued by the benefits of responsive web design. Banks like Barclays UK and Swedish High-Street bank SEB have already gone live with responsive public sites, but the technology is less...
As seen in Mapa’s recent Australian Mobile Banking Dashboard, biometric technology is an area of increased focus, development and differentiation among banks in Australia and...
Finovate has become renowned in the FinTech world as a platform where the most innovative companies can showcase their latest developments and products, all aimed at financial firms and servicing the financial...
We kick off the 2015 Mapa Research Insight Series by exploring five standout tablet banking initiatives. Tablet sales continue to grow and more and more consumers are...
We recently released our quarterly Personal Loans Dashboard update. Our latest research edition recorded Barclays' move to expand its
The most recent Mapa Research report on digital banking security looked at the viability of biometric solutions in mobile banking and examined some of the first movers in the industry. The report highlighted an appetite for fingerprint ID in...
Transferwise, the international payments provider viewed as a disruptor to high street banks, which offers payments to a range of markets with no hidden fees, initially drew me in as a customer with its competitive rates and ease of use. However,...
The latest update of the savings dashboard was released this month, noting some interesting developments. This quarter the mobile space for savings was buzzing with excitement with the...
Late last month we delivered our personal loans dashboard, showing a fair amount of activity among providers. As customers increasingly use the mobile channel as an active medium...
Since the crash in 2008, the UK banking market has seen a lot of comment and press around the supposed break-up of the market, and the threat from new challengers. Slowly this momentum has grown, as new entities have joined the fray, and new names...
The latest update to the Mapa Mortgages Dashboard service is now available to subscribers to view. Here are a few highlights.
This quarter, multiple providers were found
...
The personal loans dashboard for the second quarter of 2014 was released recently, with plenty of activity among loan providers. According to the latest insights in relation to...
At the end of last year, we published an article regarding the Nordic digital savings specialist Nordnet and its collaboration with Shareville. The purpose behind this partnership was to implement an...
The two-day Finovate conference came to an end with a loud presentation from two actors in Daft Punk helmets presenting Soon, a mobile-first current account from French Axa Banque who declared themselves...
