Wendy Atkins looks at how credit cards can help both governments and corporations to save money and time, while keeping tabs on overall spending in a transparent, auditable way.

Bank Austria Creditanstalt is no longer a competitor but a subsidiary of UniCredit in central and southern Europe.Stephen Timewell considers the Austrian bank’s retail prospects.

Mortgages could be the next big thing in Russia if the retail banks and the Kremlin have their way. 

Financial services institutions embraced customer knowledge technologies in the mid-1990s. Customer relationship management (CRM) is more than a technology. It is a very specific business strategy that seeks to identify customers individually and then craft sales and service strategies that are uniquely appropriate for each customer.

On the surface, the investment banking and technology markets have little in common but both have complex terminologies that few people outside the industry understand. In the investment community, you have things Greek, like NOSTRO, SPEs and so on. Technology has an equally complicated array of terminology and three that are worth being aware of are Wiki, SOA and XML.

Self-service banking means more than withdrawing cash. Stephen Timewell talks to bankers about the future of the ATM – its potential as a promotional device and use via mobile phone and the internet.

Identity fraud is on the rise, but financial institutions are fighting back with a joint initiative designed to highlight the problem and improve staff training. Michael Imeson reports.

The Royal Bank of Canada’s merging of its IT and operations departments for retail and wholesale business is already paying dividends, CIO Marty Lippert tells Dan Barnes.
Marty Lippert’s recent decision to merge IT and operations departments from the retail and investment wholesale sides together was driven by the need to execute. The overarching strategy is what Mr Lippert, CIO at Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), calls the “client first initiative”.

The Banker examines reports on the price of basic banking services across the globe and the role of pricing in bank profits.

With central Europe already wrapped up, Erste Bank is having to look for ways to make its mature Czech and Polish markets more productive – and for new clientele, writes Robert Anderson in Prague.
Erste Bank’s dramatic expansion drive from Austria into the rest of the old Hapsburg Empire has now reached maturity. Last year it became the largest financial provider in central Europe in terms of assets, after already leading in terms of customers.