Posts Tagged ‘financial services’
The Apple Card
Today we get to see the beginning of the rollout of Apple’s continued services expansion plan.
Introducing the Apple Card, a new credit card issued in partnership with Goldman Sachs, which goes into a “preview rollout” today and will be available to all iPhone users in the U.S. later in August.
Axios’ rundown on how it works: “At its base level, the Apple Card is an “iPhone-first” MasterCard that can be used anywhere Apple Pay or MasterCard is accepted.”
Though users can get a physical card, the Apple Card is “mobile-first” and customers use an iPhone to sign up for the card, view their transactions and pay their bills.
The physical card has a traditional credit card number on its chip and magnetic stripe, but that number isn’t visible on the card, and customers can provide a different one stored on their iPhone if they need a numeric number to give out.
Apple is saying the card will have no fees including no annual fee, no foreign transaction fees, and no late fees, and it doesn’t boost its interest rate if customers miss a payment.
Apple also indicated it would neither collect nor view anything about where you shopped, what you bought, or how much you paid.
We shall see if you can easily cancel those persnickety app subscriptions!
Live @ IBM InterConnect 2012: A Q&A With Manoj Saxena About IBM’s Watson Being Put To Work

IBM General Manager of Watson Solutions Manoj Saxena is responsible for the commercialization efforts of IBM’s Watson technology globally.
This morning on the IBM InterConnect stage, IBM general manager for the IBM Watson Solutions organization, Manoj Saxena, explained to the gathered audience in Singapore how IBM has taken Watson out of its “Jeopardy!” TV show playground and put Watson to work!
I last discussed Watson with Manoj this past April at the IBM Impact event, when Watson had just matriculated into the workforce, getting jobs in both the healthcare and financial services industries.
During our interview yesterday here at IBM InterConnect, Manoj and I conducted a mid-year performance review for Watson, and the evaluation was overwhelmingly positive — Watson will continue to stay gainfully employed, but as with any cutting edge technology, there are always areas for improvement.
We discussed all of this, and how Manoj’s team has made Watson smaller and smarter, during our interview here in Singapore. Manoj also explained how Watson has really become a demonstrable example of “one of the most dramatic shifts we’re going to see in our life times,” the shift from transactional to cognitive computing.
You can view the interview here.
Bank On The Run
The Washington Post reported earlier that three of the nation’s four largest banks are about to launch a system called “ClearXchange” that will let customers transfer money from their checking accounts using only a mobile number or email address.
The three banks include Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Wells Fargo & Co., and they expect to add other financial institutions later as they work to build an industry-wide utility for moving money around.
I’ve been with an Internet-only bank since 1996, so for my money, this is long overdue. Of course, it does beg the question as to how this squares with a service like PayPal.
PayPal being, of course, the e-payments market leader, and which according to this post processed some $27.5 billion (U.S.) in payments in the first quarter.
But enough about money on the move…let’s get Rational for a brief spell.
I mentioned in a prior post that the IBM Innovate software and systems innovation conference is transpiring in Orlando, Florida, June 5-9. That’s just around the corner.
You can still register to attend here, and if you’re not sure if you want to make the trip yet or not, try out the sample agenda builder here, which might just tip the balance and send you on your way.
Our world class Rational social media team will be providing expanded coverage of the event this year. You can follow some of the key social streams (including Twitter, YouTube, and live video coverage via LiveStream) on the IBM Innovate conversations site.‘
This year, folks can also submit questions for panelists directly from our social spaces for the Day 4 keynote expert panel discussion.
And of course, you won’t want to miss “The Guild’s” Felicia Day, who will be Innovate 2011’s special guest emcee.
In a recent interview with our Smarter Planet blog, Felicia provided a big reveal: Her brother worked for IBM and has been to Innovate numerous times!
Banking On IBM Industry Expertise
IBM has been relentlessly focused in recent weeks on the opportunity the smarter planet initiative presents to assist businesses in industry-specific contexts.
At Lotusphere in January, Lotus introduced its collaboration framework, which provided specific collaboration-oriented guidance across several industry-specific areas.
Last week in Las Vegas, IBM’s Mike Rhodin did the same for the integrated service management sector at IBM Pulse 2010.
Today, IBM announced that Whitney National Bank, with $12 billion in assets, has become a new banking customer and one that is utilizing IBM’s recently announced banking industry framework.
To compete in today’s dramatically altered financial playing field, banks must employ smarter banking strategies to achieve new levels of risk control, efficiency and customer service.
Whitney National Bank is using IBM technology across its regional banks to simplify its business practices, meet regulatory compliance and ensure transparency with customers.
Whitney can now extract key intelligence to obtain a full view of a customer’s transaction history — including a comprehensive analysis of sales trends and costs — to deliver more customized services and offerings. Increased visibility to this account data also empowers the bank’s customers to regulate their activities and expenses.
With industry consolidation, the number one priority of banks is to be able to assess liquidity.
After acquiring more than a dozen regional banks, Whitney National Bank faced the challenge of consolidating customer information and a host of disparate IT systems for checking and savings account management, online bill payment and loan processing.

Whitney National Bank is using IBM Cognos software to extract key intelligence to help it obtain a full view of its customer bases' behavior, including a comprehensive analysis of sales trends and costs, so it can deliver more customized services and offerings.
By integrating data from disparate IT systems, Whitney has been able to modernize its technology systems across regional branches to better manage risk and enhance customer service.
By using IBM’s Banking Industry Frameworks, Whitney National Bank is able to leverage pre-built industry-proven data and process models already employed by more than 250 financial institutions.
The bank is also migrating to IBM Power System with DB2 in its data centers in Allen, Texas and Prattville, Alabama.
Whitney National Bank is the latest example of how the right combination of hardware and software can be fine-tuned to meet the specific demands of banks.