Britain’s Barclays bank and ABN Amro, Netherlands largest bank, have announced their intention to merge. Well, in the next couple of weeks we have to expect a number of analysis and comments that agree with this merger and that forecast a wave of similar mergers between banks in Europe. But let’s go back to business… [...]

We all come across various pieces of news and information every day. Most of them don’t get our attention, taken on their own. However, sometimes two seemingly unrelated pieces of information team up in our minds and suddenly become more interesting. This just happened to me. Last weekend, during my course of Real Estate Investment [...]

During the research stage for my PhD thesis I found a very interesting article by BAH (Booz Allen Hamilton). It focuses on the US auto finance industry and discusses the challenges for market players, which arrive from different industry forces, e.g. falling credit ratings for major OEMs. This article was written in 2004; however some [...]

Today I read a very interesting article in TheMcKinseyQuarterly. It is an interview with Jamie Dimon, president and CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase (JMPC). For all those, who do not have access to the online version of TheMcKinseyQuarterly (it is a premium article) I would like to recommend this website, where you can find the [...]

Beginning in January 2007 the German insurance company ALLIANZ will send bank clerks (of the Dresdner Bank, which was acquired in 2001) as an experiment to 100 agent offices. Customers of the insurance company will be able to get banking accounts, credit cards, personal loans as well as saving and investment schemes. These future “banking [...]

Due to my professional background I am also very interested in issues of banking in general and of retail banking in particular. Today I found the new research report “Banking online boosts and curbs customer loyalty” by Deutsche Bank Research. In summary most interesting outcomes are: Online banking customers probably are more loyal. The customer [...]