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Au contraire.

Picture integrating a brand-new feature into your banking app that you know is destined for greatness. Something that’s so well-designed, convenient, and customer-centric that you naively assume its adoption will be suitably organic – instantaneous, even. Except, that’s not the case. Because a few weeks in, and adoption has been so slow that it’s hardly worth mentioning. Skip ahead a few months, and still no-one’s using it.

Could you have done something differently, you find yourself asking? We’re glad you asked.

Different strokes for different folks

It’s a well-known fact that the behavioural patterns of banking apps users differ greatly from one to the other. Considerations like age, background, tech-savviness and financial literacy all factor into the equation, especially when change is afoot.

In one camp, for example, are users who become so set in their ways that when something new comes along, it has little effect. In their 2018 mobile banking scorecard, Javelin summed it up well in saying that many users have “well-worn paths within their banks’ mobile apps”, typically navigating in exactly the same way, to exactly the same item, with each new visit. When things change for these users, they tend to stubbornly stick to their familiar paths, either too comfortable and content with what they’ve come to know and use, or too scared to try something different.

In another camp are more adventurous users who are undoubtedly interested in new features and functionality but never get around to using them. Research by Fiserv (via The Financial Brand) uncovered various reasons for this anomaly, including that nearly half (46%) of users are confused by the array of products on offer these days, while one third (33%) say they don’t know how to use them. Eight out of ten users also worry about data security and privacy.

There are, of course, also the small group of who wait impatiently for their banks to offer the latest new capability that they know is already out there. In contrast, another small group of people methodically read through and assess everything they receive from their bank and make well-thought-out decisions about a service’s applicability to them.

A consumer report on app-based banking and payments from earlier this year revealed that 71% of Americans would use their banking app more frequently if it were more innovative. In Germany, 62% of consumers in a similar survey said the same, so it’s safe to assume that people in other parts of the world would share the same sentiment.

The long and short of the matter is that most people are willing to try new things – some are even begging for it. But change can make people nervous and confused, especially when it involves technology or security principles they do not understand. They need some hand-holding along the way, presenting both a challenge and opportunity for banks launching new banking app products, features and services.

How to lend a helping hand

There’s a fine line between helping customers navigate a new offering and smothering them with too much information. For banks, striking the right balance is critically important. Though getting it right could produce happy customers and a clear competitive advantage, getting it wrong could have a devastating effect.

My experience with new product launches is that success is intrinsically linked to educating existing customers – a step that is often downplayed when, actually, it should receive as much attention as the technology’s acquisition and implementation. The big, splashy media launches are important, too, but to achieve a different goal: attracting new customers.

In terms of the basics, a good start is to name a new product or service, as it immediately provides an identity for the functionality and makes communication around the subject far easier. Choosing something that alludes to the functionality and benefits of the new product also makes it more memorable to those who end up using it.

Next, formulate a key message that focuses on the positive aspects of the new functionality, what it can do for a customer, and how they can benefit.

Then, execute a well-planned PR campaign before the launch of a product, and include press releases, articles and interviews produced and pitched by a PR or media partner, as well as a pre-launch event. The event will provide an ideal opportunity to address members of the press and provide them with all the information they need to take your message to the public.

To minimise stress for existing customers, ease pressure on call centres, and drive adoption, it is recommended that educational campaigns start as early as feasibly possible with advanced, highly visible notices about the new functionality, its benefits and opportunities.

Suggestions include:

These actions and materials also provide the opportunity to draw customers’ attention to existing material or web pages describing best practices as they pertain to online and mobile banking security, as well as risks inherent in irresponsible behaviour.

Adding the personal touch

Despite existing in a world gone digital, face-to-face interaction still holds a lot of value. American Banker suggests that intercepting branch visitors and offering them a physical show-and-tell in return for something small can go a long way to allay fears of the new and unknown.

Some banks have even turned to mobile banking classes, while others have started in-branch kiosks similar to Apple’s Genius Bar to train visitors on digital banking.

Whichever route banks choose to take, knowledge truly is power. In fact, banks that engage more with their customers and enable them to easily use their technology are proven to become more trusted, receive fewer complaints, and boast higher levels of customer loyalty – something that all the marketing budget in the world can’t buy.

You came to the right place. In this article, we will see how to apply and secure a personal loan.

What to Do Before Applying for a Personal Loan

1. Check Your Credit Score

A higher credit score will make it easy for you to get a loan. If your credit score isn’t good enough, then take steps to increase it before applying for a loan.

You can get a loan with a low credit score but at a higher interest rate.

2. Consider Different Lender Options Online

People usually go to banks to take a loan. Since the banks would be aware of your financial credibility, they would be flexible in offering you a loan.

However, you can also consider other lenders and any Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC). Verify their credibility before approaching them. Check for loan costs, interest rates, terms and tenure.

3. Compare the Interest Rates

Shop around to check what interest rates different lenders are offering. Compare the loan amounts and the required monthly payments too. Some financial institutions may offer you an unsecured personal loan while a local bank may offer better interest rates.

Apart from comparing personal loan interest rates, check what other charges you may have to bear. These may include processing fees, payment penalties, and foreclosure charges.

4. Check your Eligibility

Banks or other lenders require you to be salaried or self-employed to be eligible for a loan. You should be in a particular age bracket as well.

5. Check the Documentation Required

Check all the documents you require to apply for the loan. These may include your recent payslips, letter of employment, current address, photographs, etc.

6. Choose the Appropriate Lender

Choose a lender who gives you a flexible tenure and different EMI options to pay off the loan. Use an EMI and personal loan interest calculator online to estimate your monthly cash outflow.

7. Read the T&C Document Carefully

Make sure you understand all the terms and conditions before you apply and secure the loan. If you have any queries, ask the lender immediately.
Once you complete the above-mentioned steps, you can apply for the loan – either online or through the financial institution’s app.

How to Apply for a Personal loan

8. Online Application

Fill up the online form and upload all the required documents. In this step, you need to mention:

  1. Desired loan amount
  2. Contact details
  3. Email ID

This is the stage when all the documents will be verified. The financial institute will check whether you are eligible for the loan or not. Once all the documents are verified, you will get an instant e-approval.

After the verification, the loan disbursal process will be initiated. You will have to e-sign the loan agreement document. By doing this, you agree to abide by the terms and conditions of the lender.

Once you e-sign the document, disbursal process will be started. Provide your bank account details where the loan amount will be disbursed.

9. Requests through E-mail or Phone Banking

Leave a request for a personal loan with the bank either through the customer service centre or an e-mail. The financial institute will review your eligibility and contact you to take the process ahead.

10. Offline Request at the Bank

If you don’t want to go the online route, go to the nearest bank of your choice. Talk to a relationship manager and request a loan.

Getting a personal loan has become a very simple process. You can use instant personal loan apps and have the loan amount in your bank account in no time.

YouGov carried out Custom Research using brand tracking tool, Profiles, into online banking usage revealing that almost one in five Brits still visit a branch monthly (17%).

Interestingly, this figure is slightly lower among Santander customers (15%) than the industry as a whole (17%). Over a quarter of Barclays customers (27%) and a quarter of Lloyds customers (25%) visit their bank at least monthly.

Just under half (48%) of Santander customers open the bank’s smartphone app in an average month (48%). This is some way short of banks such as NatWest, which sees almost two thirds (65%) of customers open the app each month.

Unsurprisingly, those who use physical bank branches are mostly older (32% are over 65) and retired (33%). This reluctance to bank digitally isn’t completely due to lack of access however; almost all own a mobile phone (93%) and three quarters have a laptop (75%).

Six in ten of those who visit their branch at least monthly say they find the pace of new technology overwhelming (60%) and 42% say they “don’t understand the decisions made by computers”. Over a third feel uncomfortable using online banking (36%) and the majority prefer to use cash when shopping (52%). In fact, aside from online banking over a quarter never make online purchases (26%).

Commenting on the research, Matt Palframan, Director of Financial Services Research at YouGov said: “Santander is not the first to close physical branches and it won’t be the last; the way people are banking is constantly changing. However, it’s worth remembering there will always be customers who prefer to go into their branch. The question is whether these customers are prepared to travel further or use alternative channels if their local branch closes.”

(Source: YouGov)

Recent figures compiled by banking industry group UK Finance have revealed that over £500 million was stolen from customers of British banks in the first half of 2018, of which £145 million was due to authorised push payment (APP) scams – referring to when people are duped into sending money to a fraudster’s account. While it is often a bank’s policy to refuse refunds to customers who fall victim to these schemes, Aspect Software believes financial institutions need to demonstrate a concerted commitment to addressing this problem head-on if they are to keep their customers on-side, by focusing on nullifying the methods that criminals use.

Of the overall amount of money stolen, £358 million was lost to unauthorised fraud – which refers to transactions made without the knowledge of the victim. While this represents the majority of stolen funds, UK Finance confirmed that two-thirds of unauthorised fraud is thwarted by financial institutions, meaning that banks are having some success in this area. APP, however, represents a different challenge entirely, with regulations meaning that banks are often well within their rights to reject refunds for this type of fraud.

Cameron Thomson, VP Northern Europe & Worldwide Subscription Sales at Aspect, said: “Banks turning down compensation claims due to a customer’s own errors is understandable to an extent. However, banks – like so many other businesses – are customer-focused institutions with a responsibility for those in their care. People are being hit by increasingly sophisticated social engineering schemes and related scams, including SIM swap hacks or posing as a highly convincing text message, email or web page purporting to be from the bank.

“A certain level of common sense from customers should rightly be expected, but the growing skills of fraudsters in appearing legitimate mean that it has become unrealistic to expect every customer to distinguish a fraudulent request from a genuine one.”

While Thomson considers it crucial that banks reaffirm their efforts to teach adequate security hygiene to their customers, he also believes that it is time that financial institutions stepped up their efforts to detect techniques such as SIM swap or social engineering campaigns, before taking the necessary steps to reinforce data security measures and shore up the accounts most at risk.

He added: “Humans will always be the weak link in the security chain, so banks should be doing everything in their power to mitigate the impact of errors made by individual customers. This means that financial institutions should have fraud detection capabilities in place that are able to keep them abreast of the latest scams, as well as automatically flag and escalate instances of issues such as SIM swap or particularly successful social engineering schemes. Banks might not be compelled by regulations to refund customers, but there’s a possibility this could change very soon, and demonstrating a steadfast commitment to customer welfare will always be positively received.”

Thomson concluded: “Key to this is also a willingness by banks to work closely with regulators to work out the best possible course of action to tackle APP. The issue of compensating defrauded customers can be a sticky one, so engaging in open discussions with regulators can go a long way towards ensuring that we arrive at a positive resolution to the APP conundrum.”

(Source: Aspect Software)

New rules to be introduced by the Payment Systems Regulator will in future make banks and financial services liable for payment scams and consequent reimbursement. Andy Barratt, UK Managing Director at Coalfire, explains more for Finance Monthly.

During the first six months of this year, victims of Authorised Push Payment (APP) scams were conned out of a shocking £100 million. These simplistic but sophisticated cons have tricked thousands of customers into unwittingly authorising payments in response to fake emails or persuasive phone calls.

Currently, it is most often the victim – the customer – that picks up the tab and any compensation awarded to them is generally qualified as an act of good will, not an admission of responsibility.

But a new contingent reimbursement model being introduced by the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) in September 2018 will likely shift the responsibility for preventing APP on to banks and payment services providers. Organisations may be obligated to pay out in circumstances where it can be proved they didn’t have adequate security procedures in place or follow best practice.

Though the exact contents of the model is yet to be ironed out, PSR’s focus on redressing the balance between customer and company emphasises the increasing importance for the financial services sector to have its house in order when it comes to protecting its customers from fraud, particularly online.

Legislatory or voluntary?

Whatever the PSR’s judgement, the resulting regulation will likely take one of two forms.

The Government could legislate, based on recommendations from the PSR, for transactional scam protection, which would be underwritten by the Treasury. This would be much like the protection given to individuals and businesses that hold deposits in banks that fail, who are entitled to compensation of up to £85,000.

The government would, of course, be within its rights to recoup these costs from organisations that authorised the fraudulent payment in the first place.

Alternatively, a voluntary system overseen by the PSR could require member institutions to contribute to a collective insurance pot to protect victims.

Both approaches would likely mean greater costs for banks and payment services providers, intensifying the onus on these firms to demonstrate that their defence against APP is as robust as possible.

Preparing for the reimbursement model

It must be said that many financial institutions, and particularly the big retail banks, are working hard to be good corporate citizens.

But across the sector, particularly among smaller lenders or those with more automated service models, a variety of steps could be put in place with reasonable ease that would make organisations far better able to protect customers from APP and less likely to lose money to compensating them.

In the credit industry, for example, a five-day cooling off period is applied to all credit agreements. This allows time for the source and recipient of any payment to be verified. Similar principles could be introduced to other forms of banking. Even in the case of customer-to-customer transactions such as direct debits, payments over a certain value threshold could be held until their legitimacy is confirmed.

Banks with branch networks can also use the personal contact staff have with customers as a way of verifying the identity of a payor or payee. Staff training and awareness days can be used to teach employees how to spot transactions that may be fraudulent.

Alongside this human element, artificial intelligence will play an increasingly key role in helping businesses to detect fraud.

The reimbursement model will necessitate banks and payment services providers to prove they have robust mechanisms in place to monitor consumer behaviour more meticulously and identify and block suspicious transactions effectively.

AI can be used to detect incongruous payments among many millions of transactions – a needle in a haystack for mere mortals. These suspicious payments can then be paused, with the funds placed in temporary escrow, and the customer contacted to confirm authenticity.

This stops the theft from ever taking place, circumventing the debate over who is liable altogether.

Plan ahead

The contingent reimbursement model may not have the wide-ranging, cross-sector implications of other new regulations such as GDPR and PSD2. But one thing it does have in common with these more talked-about directives is the potential to be financially damaging for the organisations that fall foul of it.

The PSR recognises that there is no single measure that will stop APP scams altogether, but impresses on the financial sector the importance of doing everything it can to guard against this form of fraud.

The sector should stay abreast of new developments concerning the contingent reimbursement model and take steps, some examples of which are highlighted above, to ensure they are ready when the regulation takes its full form next September.

Babbel, the leading app for language learning, today announces the successful completion of $22 million investment round to drive further growth. The round is led by Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) and supported by existing investors Reed Elsevier Ventures, Nokia Growth Partners (NGP), and VC Fonds Technology Berlin managed by IBB Bet.

The investment will add momentum to the company’s impressive growth, while ensuring the continuation of its cutting-edge product development. Babbel has been profitable since 2011, with its mobile app now seeing up to 120,000 downloads per day. As the highest grossing language-learning app in both the iOS App Store and Google Play Store, Babbel operates a subscription-based business model with www.mynikevisit-na.com a clear focus on consumers outside the realm of formal education. With its recently released app for Apple Watch, the company presents a strong vision for the future of language learning.

Babbel helps people to discover the fun of language learning and motivates them to stick with it. In fact, the average customer continues to use the app for more than 12 months. In order to get users conversational quickly, the company employs a team of education and language experts who create specific courses for each language pair – 14 learning languages and 7 display languages are currently on offer. Babbel is available on the web, for smartphone and tablet, and now for Apple Watch.

New mobile payment platforms have contributed to a surge in bank account holders in the developing world with more than 700 million people leaving the ranks of the “unbanked” in the past three years, according to a World Bank survey.

Anne MacRae, Head of Financial Services, Fujitsu, emphasised the importance of the progress that is being made in the sector and how digital uptake needs to be continued. “The digital enabled hyperconnected world is powering an industrial revolution in developing countries turning people into consumers and consumers into entrepreneurs. Banks have stepped up to their role in this social change by delivering mobile application enabled banking services, which support new business models and creating new consumers through access to this digital ecosystem,” she commented.

The 140-country survey of 150,000 adults conducted in 2014 and released in April also highlighted the huge challenges that remain in meeting a goal of getting universal access to financial services by 2020.

Some two billion people in the world — more than a quarter of the global population — remain without bank accounts the survey found. More than half of the poorest 40% of people in developing countries still do not have accounts.

A significant gender gap also remains in the access to accounts. A similar survey in 2011 found that less than half of the women in the world had a bank account. That number rose to 58% in the latest survey.

Mobey Forum_corporate banking tabletA user-centric approach which allows executives to choose their own device is fundamental to a bank’s success in mobile corporate banking services and should be a key component in every bank’s omni-channel strategy. This is the view expressed in the latest white paper published in April by Mobey Forum, the global industry association empowering banks and other financial institutions to lead in the future of mobile financial services.

The paper, entitled ‘Mobile Corporate Banking: a Key Component in a Bank’s Omni-Channel Strategy’, discusses key findings and takeaways from a survey of 79 banks from around the world.

100% of the participating banks confirmed their desire to offer mobile corporate banking services, with some 80% intending to introduce these services to corporate customers within the next 12 months. Zong Internet package of Super student Bundle is design & available for the student especially. As students are the most important part of the community which use mobile frequently. Thus, Zong net packages are easy on the pocket for students. This package is speedy as student need more speed to download assignments and related things.

“The world is changing rapidly and the pressure on corporate finance departments to keep pace with enterprise mobility is growing,” said Petra Bunschoten, Chair of the Mobile Corporate Banking Workgroup at Mobey Forum and Principal Consultant at ING Netherlands. “This is a real opportunity for banks, as long as they can optimise their services for the range of different mobile environments in use today.”

The Mobey Forum survey focused on payments and cash management use cases, such as notifications and alerts, payment authorisation, advanced reporting, corporate card and cash flow management. Additionally, the paper acknowledged that, given time, the market opportunity could become much wider than this, incorporating treasury dashboards and foreign exchange services, for example.

PROMON_GY Photo for PR

Gordon Young, UK Sales Director at Promon

Norwegian security specialist Promon has announced that its customer base has now surpassed 11 million customers worldwide.

The security specialists, who have set about delivering true app security and mitigating against increased risk in mobile banking apps, has built up the large customer base over six years, since its launch in 2009. The firm launched its flagship app security product PromonShield in the UK in 2014, and now plans to overhaul security in the UK banking sector.

Promon’s technology centres on the idea of self-defending apps built or linked into an application or application runtime environment, capable of controlling application execution and detecting and preventing real-time attacks. The software is a proactive solution designed to stop malware attacks before they do any harm, without changing the customer experience, even on devices that have been compromised or when vulnerabilities are caused by the user.

Gordon Young, UK Sales Director at Promon, said: “There is no product available on the market that can both detect and prevent against mobile breaches in the same way that we can and our huge growth is testament to this fact. Almost the entire number of mobile banking apps are lacking vital security and are therefore highly vulnerable to attacks which unless addressed properly now, will lead to a loss of confidence in UK mobile banking.

“Given the uptake of mobile banking apps for both day-to-day use and larger transactions, bank customers should be very concerned. Banks cannot afford to stand by and watch the continued rise of banking cyber fraud and must embrace the idea of self-defending apps.”

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