BFSI

Omnichannel Fiasco #1: Standard Chartered Credit Card

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I recently went through two omnichannel experiences, one that started well but went downhill thereafter, and another that was a disaster right from the beginning. Before I deep dive into my experiences, here’s a quick working definition of omnichannel: Omnichannel is where a single business process is deliberately split across multiple channels so that each … Read more

When Does Analytics End And Hair Splitting Start?

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Advances in Big Data, Internet of Things and other technologies are contributing to an ever-increasing deluge of information in today’s digital world. Not surprisingly, analytics has once again become a hot topic. But I sometimes wonder if there’s such a thing as “too much analytics”. I’m not referring to “analysis paralysis” where no action results … Read more

Coin Solves A Pain. But Is It A 100 Dollar Pain?

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In Mobile Wallets Should Fix What’s Broken – And It Ain’t Payments, I’d highlighted why paying with plastic cards comes naturally to most people and why mobile wallets are not offering any compelling reason for people to switch to them instead of continuing to use plastic cards for their everyday payments. I’d also pointed out in … Read more

Google Search – Upheaval Does Not Equal Abuse

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Every update to Google’s search algorithm – Penguin and Panda to name the latest two – is accompanied by major upheavals in the rankings of websites on the Google Search Engine Results Page. Take the case of Mahalo for example: After the Panda update, the human-powered search directory found itself shunted off from the #1 position … Read more

Three More Ways How Tech Can Help Banks Accelerate Legacy Transformation

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In How Tech Can Help Banks Accelerate Legacy Transformation, I’d described three issues with open systems that hold banks back from migrating their legacy applications to open systems. Here are three more: #4. Sudden Loss of Functionality In this brilliant article titled When Product Features Disappear – Amazon, Apple and Tesla and the Troubled Future for … Read more

Beware of Credit Card Reward Redemption Theft

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In Will The Sad State Of Logistics Hurt eCommerce?, I highlighted how DHL, FedEx and other multinational courier companies are 8-10X costlier than the local ones, and are, therefore, affordable only for high-value consignments. I recently went through an experience which highlighted the risk of sending anything valuable via couriers. I placed my credit card … Read more

Is The US “Closed Loop” Payments System Making Americans Less Creditworthy?

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For several years, American travelers have been having a tough time trying to use their magstripe credit cards in EMV Europe. In India, as highlighted here, many ecommerce and bill payment websites have recently started refusing American credit cards. This is because these cards don’t have Mobile OTP, a two factor authentication mechanism that is now … Read more

Mobile Wallet Has Few Takers – Even At Starbucks

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In a world that’s awash with exuberant projections in 2022 for products that are not yet launched in 2013 – no, I’m not just looking at you, ISIS – GigaOm injected a touch of reality by providing some actual figures for mobile wallet payment volumes: US$ 500M in USA last year (Source: GigaOm / Berg … Read more

Season’s Greetings!

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Season’s Greetings and Best Wishes for a Happy and Prosperous New Year 2014. We’re happy to share the following highlights of 2013: Our Location Based Task Reminder app LBTR360 made it to the Computerworld Top 100 Android Apps list We released the QR360 Framework that provides QR code best practices. While we have a vested interest in this … Read more