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Does The UK Need Another Online Payment System?

Posted by Benjamin Ensor on August 9, 2010

  • 287 Recommendations

I am intrigued by last week's announcement from UK payment processor VocaLink and Australian financial software vendor eWise that they are collaborating to build an online banking transfer payment system for the UK. Online banking transfer systems make it (fairly) easy for online shoppers to authorize payments through online banking by integrating the payment details into their bank's secure online banking site. The customer is routed directly from the merchant's site to the bank to authorize the payment and back again.

In the Netherlands, the iDEAL online banking transfer system has been highly successful. It's now used by some 10 million Dutch online shoppers for about 5 million transactions a month. But the UK's online shopping market is different to the Dutch one in a couple of important ways. Firstly, debit cards can be used to pay online in the UK. Since almost all adults have a debit card, paying online is not a big problem in the UK, unlike many other European markets. Secondly, UK Net users have always been relatively complacent about online security compared with other Europeans. That means that one of the primary attributes of an online banking transfer system -- more robust security -- may not cut that much ice with British online shoppers.

Forrester has long argued that any new payment system needs to overcome three hurdles to succeed: providing a clear improvement over the existing alternatives, driving consumer and merchant adoption, and developing a viable business model for all parties.

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How Mature Is Your Mobile Strategy?

Posted by Benjamin Ensor on June 23, 2010

  • 272 Recommendations

Among the biggest strategic questions facing eBusiness & Channel Strategy executives are how to make use of the growing potential of the mobile channel, how to integrate mobile phones into their company's multi-channel strategy, and how to meet customers' rising expectations for mobile services.

We have argued that, for most companies, mobile's time has come. Every company needs to have a mobile strategy in place, even if that strategy is to wait until specific things happen before making serious investments.

Most of the eBusiness & Channel Strategy executives that we work with are either directly responsible for, or closely involved in, their company's mobile strategy.  So we would like your perspective -- and we'd like to help you benchmark your mobile strategy against that of your peers. 

We invite you to take part in a short survey about your company's mobile strategy, your objectives, the metrics you use and the challenges that you face. You can take part in the survey here.

  • The survey takes less than 15 minutes to complete. 
  • Individual responses will be kept strictly confidential and results only published in aggregate.

In return, we will give you a free executive summary of the survey results.

We're keen to get as wide a sample of industries and geographies as we can, so please feel free to forward this survey through your networks. If you are not familiar with your company’s mobile strategy, but know who is, please forward this survey to them.

I look forward to your perspectives. Thank you in advance for your time.

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The Co-operative Bank Tops Our UK Bank Content & Functionality Benchmark

Posted by Benjamin Ensor on June 17, 2010

  • 322 Recommendations

One of the most common questions banking eBusiness executives ask Forrester analysts is: "What do you think of my Web site?".  That's always a tough question to answer because what I think of a Web site depends on who I am and what I'm trying to use it for. To help UK bank eBusiness executives answer that question, my colleague Vanessa Niemeyer has just published a benchmark of the sales content and functionality on the Web sites of 10 of the UK's biggest banking brands, from the perspective of a typical customer trying to switch current account provider.

Some background: UK Net users are among the most likely anywhere in the world to use the Net to research and buy financial products. According to our Consumer Technographics® surveys,  almost 60% of UK Net users have researched a financial product online in the past 12 months, more than in any other European country. Two out of five UK Net users have applied for a financial product online in the past year, which is double the Western European average. So you might think that UK bank Web sites are all highly effective sales sites.

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