Next Results for articles with tag 'money' (9 total)
12/01/2024 07:16:58 AM 
While there have been a few promising innovators in the field of financial services, like Mint and some peer to peer lenders, nothing has really shaken the industry out of its lethargy and done something to meet the real needs of consumers.
BankSimple could be about to change that. Instead of trying to work outside the system and bring something new to the table, BankSimple is using existing financial players to provide the basic banking services, but is using its skills to provide a radically new customer service experience on top.
The company clearly believes and understands that consumers are looking for something new.
"BankSimple will be a worry-free alternative to traditional personal banking. No surprise fees and the customer service you deserve. And that's just the beginning."
The company seems to determined to provide consumers with a simple way to manage and understand their finances- with interesting tools to help people know how much money they have to spend, set saving goals, etc.
They also intend to explore new ideas, like couples sharing accounts and friends joining together for transactions.
Hopefully, BankSimple will also be able to use its rich dataset to encourage its FDIC approved partners to provide more innovative financial services products.
If they can succeed by combining excellent customer service through the innovative application of tools and user interface with new products, the banking establishment could well have something to worry about.
The company plans to launch in 2011.
One group of consumers who might find BankSimple highly attractive are "the first time defaulters" that Deloitte identified in a recent study.
This group, which represents 11% of the banking population are people who've been hit by a negative credit situation, in the last two years, for the first time in their lives.
This group has a very bad impression of banks.
- 41% of the 5,000-odd survey respondents rated their interaction with their lenders "poor"
- 43% doubted the banks' "willingness to listen to my concerns."
- Two-thirds said they are unlikely to borrow again from the same institution in the future.
If BankSimple can find these people, it would be a nice base to build from, but it's going to have to find not just deliver excellence through UI, but actively "listen" to these customers concerns and provide solutions.
Posted by Ed Cotton
07/18/2010 03:51:50 PM
Stefan told us a story about his attempt to make a film about happiness and the journey he's been on to discover it and its secrets. This journey has taken him to remote parts of Indonesia and even happiness industry conferences. His basic conclusion is that there's nothing really that's going to make us happier than anything else; weather and wealth included. The secret lies in human's ability and willingness to adapt to circumstances.
However, despite his conclusion, Stefan has managed to carve out a unique space for himself, one that most creatives would envy. He tends to avoid corporate working choosing only to do the most interesting, creative, worthy and potentially happiness inducing projects there are out there.
His work has tended to focus primarily on the worlds of music, art, non-profits and public works. One great project was an assignment from an artist's widow to make her deceased husband famous, his solution started with a uniquely designed book of the artist's work, which caught everyone's attention and led to a documentary special about the artist on German television.
One of his most intriguing projects was an art assignment in Amsterdam, where he used the grid of a public square and 250,000 coins to make a statement about obsession.
Posted by Ed Cotton
05/22/2009 12:51:08 AM
Gillian studied Social Anthropology at Cambridge and then went into journalism with the Financial Times. Most books on finance are pretty dull affairs, but her book Fool's Gold, which tells the story of the derrivatives team at J.P. Morgan reads like a thriller.
You can get a sampling of her intellect and storytelling abilities by listening to a lecture she gave recently at the London School of Economics.
Posted by Ed Cotton
01/21/2009 11:07:26 AM (1)
(1) Via Paul Kedrosky
Posted by Ed Cotton
12/22/2008 09:20:58 AM (1)
(1) A look inside hedge funds from Marketplace on Vimeo.
Posted by Ed Cotton
10/09/2024 05:15:23 PM
"As I sat there on that horrible Monday, watching the whole financial world on the brink of collapse, I thought back to all the midnight oil I’d burnt writing these columns, all the crappy hotels I’d stayed in while making various television shows. And how all of that revenue would be lost for a raft of reasons I simply didn’t understand.
Of course I made strenuous efforts to get my money out of AIG as soon as the scale of its problems became apparent. But it wasn’t possible. It had shut the fund in which I’d invested and it would remain closed for three months while it tried to sell the assets. “We need to do this in an orderly fashion,” said the man on the phone, calmly.
Inwardly I was screaming. I don’t give a shit about an orderly fashion, any more than a man in the trenches wants to look smart while running for his life. It’s my money. I gave it to you. You’ve squandered it on a Mexican’s house in San Diego and a stupid football team and that’s your problem. Not mine.
It turned out, however, that I was wrong. It was my problem, so I decided to try to understand banking. And what I’ve gleaned from a two-week crash course is that it is completely unfathomable. There isn’t a single person in the entire world who has the first idea how the system works."
Posted by Ed Cotton
Next
Articles for tag money (9 total).