Well I’ve been here (the good ol’ US of A) for over two weeks now, my how the
time has flown! And what are the major differences on this side of the pond vs
UK? Is what I intend to write about here and when I can I’ll update on some of
the work that I’m doing with the team out here.
First off I guess, everything is just bigger! I know it’s an old cliché, but
it’s true, and to be honest I love it! Bigger is better and with that I noticed
that the car I’m currently driving (a Chevy Suburban) you could almost fit two
of my previous cars into this one…
Another big difference is finance – cash is still a big
player over here, as is credit – but debit, what we have been so used to in the
UK still seems to be growing and starting to catch on. There has been a few
times when I’ve tried to use my US Debit card only to find that their IT systems
are not yet configured for “real time” transactions! Hmmm this got me thinking
more about the state of the finance systems over here and noticed that checks
(or cheques – remember them!) are also still very popular here – when I opened
my bank account I received a box with 6 books of checks inside – compared to UK
where I think I had the same cheque book for over 3 years and still didn’t get
half way through!
All of this of course, in part is due to the ridiculous charges that are set
by the card companies here, and I’m a big promoter of Merchants Payments
Coalition, that is trying to fight the big card companies (Visa, MasterCard,
Amex etc..) who levy these high charges to merchants and ultimately consumers.
This is called “credit card interchange fees” and and with every $2 out of $100
going directly to the credit card companies this amounts to $48 Billion in
2008!! So you can understand why cash is king here!
Next is how functional their online banking is over here – now I know we have
done a great deal of work across the world with banks and financial services –
but the recent push in the US, especially with Bank of America, to show
“internet banking” seems to be somewhat lacking in any good total customer
experience. The services are hard to find, when you do find them seems
incredibly hard to set up direct payments electronically to either businesses or
personal. I’ve been used to having an account number and sorting code – set this
up on either a Standing Order or Direct Debit – and each month on my desired
date money will leave my account and be electronically transferred into
another's account – pure and simple. Now I know that the UK is not perfect, why
on earth do some of these transfers take 4 days to clear?? Apart from making
additional interest on the money while in transit… but we already know that this
is instant – look at the way ATMs work where it connects to bank to either allow
or deny funds to be withdrawn – that immediately is shown on your account – but
if they can levy an ATM fee – then this micro-Charge makes up for that instant
demand for cash.
So my thoughts on why the US banking system is not as internet / electronic
as perhaps UK and some other European countries? Well I think you have to look
at the sheer size and geography of the US. Sure here on the East Coast we have
Wall Street etc.. and a hive of electronic transfers, internet connectivity and
all that interconnected goodness – but else where in the US – it is still very
rural and with that people are either not connected to the web, don’t want to
connect to the web – or much prefer the face to face contact of a bank teller
(and more importantly), probably don’t trust the web with financial transactions
such as these – which is understandable with all the doom merchants talking
about fraud, phishing, security etc… But common sense should prevail – and I
think that this is where I’m sure our very own Talented Mr Ripley - David Deane,
and his finance team will start to help shape banks into much more user friendly
and secure web sites that more consumers can and will trust. A quick look at how
eCommerce is developing, moving further away from the traditional “sell sell
sell” and into more of a total customer experience, making the user feel more
trusted, empowered and sense of enjoyment while on a website is where the
banking system must head.
We have great security technology (RSA for example) that can really lock down and lock out – any
hacking of accounts, but this all depends on the attitude of both financial
institute as well as the end consumer. Both need to be educated and when that
happens both will embrace the speed, simplicity and enjoyment of internet
banking and that in fact the only thing that it wont do is print out my
dollars…