Customer satisfaction and paid customer service: a contradiction?
There was a time when customer service was the cornerstone of customer satisfaction. But the Covid crisis happened, and some companies, which were used to being different thanks to a free service, had to rethink their strategy. This is the case of BNP Paribas, who announced, at the end of January 2021, that access to customer service advisors would become subject to a fee. Is it still possible to satisfy the customer under these...
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Fintech: a look back at 2020, perspectives and trends for 2021 [Interview]
This article takes stock of the year 2020 for fintech with Xavier Corman, the FinTech Belgium administrator. In the first part, we discuss the impact of the Covid crisis on fintech activities (and in particular, fund-raising) before discussing trends in InsureTech, RegTech, and AccountingTech. Xavier Corman will then react to Ana Botin (CEO Santander) on startups in the ecosystem of innovation and respect for business rules. Can the...
Connected insurance: reliability of connected wristbands and hacking
In today’s article, we will talk about the reliability of connected Fitbit wristbands and how they are being hacked. The phenomenon is still not very widespread in Europe, but in the United States, it has become a real problem. It is the owners of these connected bracelets who try to hack them. Why are they trying to hack them? We explain everything in this article. We take this opportunity to give you an analysis of the...
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[Podcast] FinTech trends with Jean-Louis van Houwe (Fintech Belgium)
For this last podcast of the year 2019, we welcome Jean-Louis Van Houwe, founder and CEO of Monizze and Chairman of the Board of Directors of FinTech Belgium. Jean-Louis Van Houwe reviews the need to structure the FinTech scene, the balance sheet of FinTech Belgium and the main trends of FinTech. Jean-Louis Van Houwe will detail in particular the three axes of value creation that structure the FinTech universe: a radical change in...
Market research: the evolution of credit card ownership in Europe
If you need to realise market research in the financial sector or on more generally on a B2C market, the data below may be of some help. I compiled data on credit card ownership in Europe to better understand the dynamics of this market and complement the article I wrote on payment methods used in Germany (by the way, did you know that for the first time Germans have not been using cash predominantly for their purchases in 2018: it...
Impact of artificial intelligence in the retail, media and insurance sectors
On the invitation of Philippe Warzée, editor-in-chief of Pub.be, I was pleased to present my latest thoughts on the impact of artificial intelligence in the media, retail and insurance sectors. The presentation started with a brief historical overview of recommendation algorithms, perhaps the most widespread type of algorithms around. After this introduction I dealt with 3 use cases : Netflix (media sector), coupons in the retail...
Customer satisfaction : Bpost Bank makes basic marketing mistakes
Admittedly, interest rates are at their lowest. Certainly, the savings of Belgians have never been so high. Indeed, the banking sector is under pressure. And yes, bpost is not doing well. But is it really enough to explain that Bpost Bank, the Belgian postal bank 50% owned by Bpost and 50% owned by BNP Paribas, is making such gross marketing errors by unilaterally and in the shadows deciding to make its customers pay their cash...
Market research : cashless payments are taking up in Germany
The Bank of Germany has published its 4th market research on the use of cash and cashless money instruments. It shows some interesting results we’d like to share with you (the report is available here but only in German). Today’s article complete the European perspective on payment methods we gave in this article. From the latter you may remember that the situation in Germany as far as payments is concerned is pretty...
Allianz mobile app for connected car insurance hooks prospective customers
Transforming leads into clients is a challenge for most companies and the heart of the sales process. What if leads could convert themselves into customers ? In that perspective the initiative of Allianz in the field of “connected insurance” is very clever. The promise of “connected car insurances” is to obtain a discount depending on how well you drive. Allianz gives up to 30% discount for good drivers. A...
Personalized car insurance has unexpected effects on customers behaviors
A recent article in a French magazine sheds light on progresses made by insurance company Allianz in the field of personalized car insurance. Like many other firms in the field, Allianz believes in the usefulness of telematic units (black boxes) to monitor drivers’ behaviors and better evaluate risks. 20000 customers of Allianz have already opted in France; a rather small number that reflects the risks perceived by customers (as...
Belfius : 95,25% customer satisfaction. Can you believe it?
I visited a Belfius branch last week and was stunned to see their latest marketing campaign and their claim about their high customer satisfaction: 95,25% customer satisfaction ! Can you imagine ? This is just an amazing score. So amazing that it can hardly be trusted as I already wrote many years ago on this blog. I digged into this matter, looked for facts on the satisfaction in the banking industry and explain below why the...
Market research : Norwegians don’t want personnalized insurance
Insurance companies are getting increasingly personal and thanks to digitization they are proposing new tailor-made products. Two main applications can be found : Personalized health insurance Personalized car insurance We have explored in recent articles the different aspects of such insurances (see for instance our article on black boxes in cars, or this article on the dangers of personalized health insurances) but hadn’t...
Vitality offers Apple watch to monitor your activity : one more insurance into big (health) data
A few weeks ago we were discussing on this blog the trend of the insurance market to collect very intrusive data. I had the opportunity to raise my concerns at several conferences and got the impression that people were not aware of what was going on (especially as far as car insurances are concerned). In particular I gave the example of CSS Insurance in Switzerland which proposed customers to wear a fit band capturing activity data...
Banks are laying off : only because of digitalisation ?
ING : 3500 jobs cut. Axa : 650 jobs cut. BNP Paribas Fortis : 1000 jobs cut. As the Financial Times pointed out, some 100,000 jobs will be cut in the banking sector in 2016. Read again. One hundred thousands. That’s a lot. The reason which is given is that digitalisation have made jobs redundant. And I very much agree with the fact that digitalisation has dramatically changed the business landscape and has forced companies to...
Why you should not wear health devices
So far insurances had to rely on your declarative questionnaires to evaluate the risk you represented. Those have been found to be very intrusive; so intrusive in fact that Belgian consumers’ defense organization Test Achats has urged insurance companies to change those questionnaires (link in French). This evaluation was made at the time you subscribed the insurance and was likely not to be revised afterwards. Insurances had to...
Big Data : what are the trends in the retail and insurance sectors ?
In partnership with Microsoft Europe (Brussels), the University of Louvain (Belgium) organized a conference on 13 May where I discussed the future impact of Big Data in the retail and insurance sectors. I started by outlining the 4 sectors that are heavy data producers and users : banking, insurance, retail and telecom. I showed that Big Data is used for only two purposes in these sectors : reduce costs or generate revenues. I then...
Are smart boxes the future of car insurance?
Telematic units, also called black or smart boxes, are devices installed in a car to monitor a driver’s behavior (speed, acceleration, deceleration, …). They are increasingly used by insurance companies to develop a pay-as-you-drive pricing. Such pricing may be especially interesting for young drivers who are hit by high insurance premiums. Young drivers are victims of their youth One metric sums it up all: 25% of accidents are caused...
5 trends that threaten old broadcasters
Old-fashion medias have never been more threatened than today by new consumers’ behaviors. Television channels are certainly in the middle of the storm and must quickly adapt to consumers aged under 30. Read further to discover 5 trends that will re-shape the business models in the coming years. Trend 1: television is not King anymore Recent studies show that younger watchers between 14 and 25 prefer watching TV on a computer...
Data Mining: does your insurance spy you on Facebook?
Have you ever thought that what you post on Facebook may have a direct financial impact on the price you pay for products and services? You may want to read further if you want to find out why. We just started an amazing assignment in the field of CRM, Big Data and data mining. On this occasion we’re exploring various way to exploit data from different sources: Facebook, Twitter, connected objects, …. During a group discussion a very...
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Let’s dream about it and put this message in perspective after last night’s finance ministers’ meeting in Luxembourg. They decided to delay the next payment to Greece and it therefore sharply contrasts with the optimistic message displayed by the European Commission: “Towards a stronger economic...
Let’s dig deeper
I found it interesting to look back at the post I wrote almost 2 weeks ago on what was about to happen on the financial market. I’m writing this post on September, 19th after a chaotic day on the financial markets. If you look at the chart you can clearly see a downwards going trend and the bouncing-ball pattern that I was talking about. I’m convinced it’s only the beginning of tremendous changes that will have dramatic impacts on...
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