eCommerce for Financial Institutions in Germany and the USA

  Electronic Commerce for Financial Institutions in Germany and the  

  United States of America with respect to XXL Internet AG  

Table of Content

Table of Content .......................................................................................................... 2

Table of Tables ............................................................................................................ 3

Table of Graphics........................................................................................................ 4

  Acknowledge  5

1.  Executive Summary  6

2.  Company Overview  8

3.  Problem Definition  9

4.  History of Retail Banking  10

5.  Technical Standards for Online Financial Services  14

5.1.  Impact for Online Financial Institutions  28

6.  Competition  29

6.1.  Implication for Financial Institutions  32

7.  Opportunities  33

7.1.  Market Trends  33

7.1.2.  Implication for Financial Institutions  41

7.2.  Clients  41

7.2.1.  Implication for Financial Institutions  43

7.3.  Price  43

7.3.1.  Implication for Financial Institutions  45

7.4.  Products  46

7.4.1.  Implication for Financial Institutions  46

7.5.  Distribution  48

7.5.1.  Implication for Financial Institutions  48

8.  Threats  49

8.1.  Implication for Financial Institutions  52

9.  Strategic Alliances  53

9.1.  Implication for Financial Institutions  55

10.  Innovations and Visions  55

10.1.  Implication for Financial Institutions  59

11.  The US Market  59

12.  Implication for XXL Internet AG  69

13.  Abbreviation  81

14.  Bibliography  82

15.  Sources  87

  Klaus Schmidt  

  Page -2-  

20.08.2001  NA  

Electronic Commerce for Financial Institutions in Germany and the

United States of America with respect to XXL Internet AG

Table of Tables

Electronic Commerce for Financial Institutions in Germany and the

United States of America with respect to XXL Internet AG

Table of Graphics

Electronic Commerce for Financial Institutions in Germany and the United States of America with respect to XXL Internet AG

Acknowledge Mr. X and Mr. Y, both employed by the XXL Internet AG, have always given me a helping hand at any time during my research in Germany, and the USA. I enjoyed the discussions with both people and t heir profound interest for my master thesis. Both supported me and gave me meaningful advice. The interaction enlightened me and gave me a better understanding of the business environment in this particular sector.

In addition, Dr. Teri Shaffer (Director MBA Program) was also very helpful to me in supporting my ideas concerning the master thesis. She helped me balance the requirements of XXL Internet AG, Southeastern Louisiana University as well as the Fachhochschule Reutlingen, Germany.

I also thank reviewers of this paper at early versions of the research for many valuable comments and suggestions.

Electronic Commerce for Financial Institutions in Germany and the United States of America with respect to XXL Internet AG

1. Executive Summary

Online banks dig for continued quantitative growth in account number, transaction, and value of transaction since these factors are essential for valuation of the company at the stock exchange.

The market for online financial services, or “eFinance”, is growing in Europe and the US. The German market is the biggest but not the fastest growing market within Europe. Financial institutions have to consider trends in the market in order to survive and prosper in this very dynamic and competitive environment. Simple products like current account, saving accounts and brokerage, incl. mutual funds, as well as personal loans will be sold more on the Internet. However, customers are using the Internet as an information tool but close the contact often at physical branches. In order to avoid this miss match, online financial institutions will be forced to obtain core competence in:

• Customer relationship management

The ability to capture, manipulate, and utilise customer data will be one of the principal keys in the competition for market share.

• Multi-channel banking

Customers increasingly demand being served any time, any place, anywhere. Meanwhile, employees and suppliers alike are more likely to be connected to the financial institution’s architecture. This additional complexity will require innovative solutions by financial institutions, and most likely, a real-time online platform.

• Customer satisfaction

Technology problems such as poor system performances or poor execution of orders are a source of much frustration for customers. A dissatisfied customer with a greater number of options in the Internet is less likely to remain loyal for long.

Electronic Commerce for Financial Institutions in Germany and the United States of America with respect to XXL Internet AG

• Competitive differentiation

Technology supports new product and feature development, as well as customisation, which allows online financial institutions to differentiate their offer from their competitors. Branding requires a sophisticated differentiation strategy.

The online financial institution faces a number of challenges: a heavy transaction load, fast moving shifts in channel usage and a requirement to sew all the channels together. There are many requirements for the success of this business environment: security, data management, degree of customisation, and range of products and features.

The web presentation should include dynamic tools. The speed of data transfer increases and makes further development in Customer Relationship and Content Management advisable. Product adaptation will be necessary by the financial institutions to satisfy the Internet users needs, which are often the most profitable customers. These are ingredients of success. Personalization, and traditional channels of contact through the call center or to the common physical branch, enhance the acceptance of online financial service. Since XXL Internet AG consults financial institutions, it is important to be aware of these future requirements.

Financial institutions do not have the necessary manpower to manage and develop the online presentation by themselves. Their personnel often do not accept the challenge from the Internet and change management requires high investment. XXL Internet AG has the opportunity to enter alliances with these financial institutions and implement the Internet presentation, and further develop new ideas for sales and service.

Standards and security play an important role and change quickly. Mobile phones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) are starting to become connected to the Internet via Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), which

Electronic Commerce for Financial Institutions in Germany and the United States of America with respect to XXL Internet AG

opens tremendous new ways to reach new customers. iTV is the latest media to reach customers, but it was not successful in the US and has not fulfilled the prognoses. For iTV a separate receiver is necessary and customers in the US rejected spending extra money for the service. The future will tell whether German customers will accept iTV.

2. Company Overview

XXL Internet AG is a full service company and developed web solutions for a number of companies. Some references are Siemens AG, Quelle, RWE, Entrium, Sparda-Banken-Gruppe, Nordsee, Deutsche Shell, E-Plus, and Yves Rocher. XXL is the market leader and innovator for economically successful sustainable web solutions and efficient business models on the Internet.

Since July 1, 2000 XXL Internet AG satisfies the function as a holding. XXL is diversified in three strategic business units (SBU) that allow different market activities: XXL vision2market, XXL vision2product, a nd XXL vision2capital. Therefore, XXL is more flexible in adapting to changing market conditions.

XXL vision2market combines the core business competence from xxl interactive and xxl network. Synergy effects of both operative units guarantee successful e Commerce, financial, and business solutions. XXL vision2market also develops strategies for its clients and advices towards optimizing the internal workflow (SCM) and enhancing the marketing activities. XXL vision2market is linked by cooperation that add t o the performance with market leaders like Internshop, Cisco, Sun Microsystem and Gauss.

XXL vision2product develops and sells innovative products based on the Internet. In addition, stakes in companies operating on the Internet in

Electronic Commerce for Financial Institutions in Germany and the United States of America with respect to XXL Internet AG

Germany and abroad enhance the potential given on the Internet by exploring synergy effects.

XXL vision2capital financially participates in other Internet companies only. As financial arranger XXL vision2capital brings prosperous companies or needs from its own companies together with investors.

XXL Internet AG has its head office in Nürnberg, Germany, and has subsidiaries in Hamburg, Köln, München and Berlin. XXL Internet AG has acquired additional agencies in Stuttgart, Bremen and Prag. Currently, XXL has a workforce of about 310 employees 1 and its shares are traded at the German “Neue Markt” i in Frankfurt, Germany.

3. Problem Definition

XXL Internet AG recently developed Internet presentations for a number of German financial institutions (for example Entrium Direct Bankers AG and Sparda-Banken). Mr. Y, responsible Sales Manager at XXL’s SBU vision2market asked me to evaluate the current advancement in Germany and the United States in the financial market with respect to eCommerce and the Internet agency XXL Internet AG.

Banking is an information intensive business and financial institutions must be able to delight its customers with offerings that are convenient, broad in range, secure, cheep, efficient, and, crucially, accessible from multiple access points. 2 How many consumers are actively conducting online

banking with an institution, and what exactly are the customer demands? In addition, future evolution in the German market should be estimated in the master thesis. Differences in development and practice between Germany

i The “Neue Markt” is the stock market for innovative German companies under the umbrella of the “Deutsche Börse AG”.

Electronic Commerce for Financial Institutions in Germany and the United States of America with respect to XXL Internet AG

and the United States should be discovered. What are requirements for successful online financial service in Germany?

XXL Internet AG not only implements web-solutions but also strategically advices its customers in this segment and requires further details about the market trend in this innovative market segment.

Technical standards are the basis for online financial service. The different standards in Germany and the US have to be analyzed and compared in order to give a better overview of the different opportunities in Germany and the US as well as to use the information for a possible cooperation with an US company operating in the same business and planning to expand to Germany.

4. History of Retail Banking

Financial institutions perform a number of functions that did change only very little over time or across countries However, the way in which these functions are performed and the form of the institutions performing these functions can vary significantly due to differences in or changes in technological innovation, the regulatory environment, or competition. 3

The six core functions are: 4

1) The pooling of economic resources to fund large scale enterprises, through securities, like stocks and mortgage- backed securities, or financial intermediaries, like banks and mutual funds (e.g. through acquiring customer deposits) 2) The transfer of economic resources across distance, over time, and between industries (e.g. through lending and investing) 3) The management of risk, through hedging (though swap markets, spot markets, and forward/futures markets),

Electronic Commerce for Financial Institutions in Germany and the United States of America with respect to XXL Internet AG

through diversifying (through the combination of non- perfectly correlated returns), and through insuring (including traditional actuarial insurance and financial guarantees) 4) The provision of systems for the clearing and settling of payments (e.g. depository institutions like banks provide wire transfers, checking accounts, and credit cards, securities markets allow the trading of stocks, commodities, options, and currencies) 5) The handling of incentive problems, such as those that occur due to information asymmetries (like those between lenders and borrowers) and incentive misalignment (like those between managers and shareholders) 6) The provision of price information, like interest rates and securities prices, to facilitate decentralized decision-making.

For fifty years, into the early 1980s, banking had a business paradigm based on regulatory guidelines and constraints intended to ensure competitive and operating stability. Regulations drove products, pricing, place, and promotion decisions. Banks were greatly restricted in their ability to compete freely against the criteria usually considered relevant at the stock exchanges in the US and Germany. 5

Throughout this period, however, important environmental forces were at work eroding the banking industry’s traditional business model. Outside the structure of banking regulation, non-bank competitors offered product and services alternatives to bank and were able to attract consumers. New products like Cash Management Accounts ii gave consumers an alternative

for financial services traditionally associated with banks. At the same time, new changing technologies also put pressure on the banking industry. By

ii Cash Management Account was offered by Merrill Lynch and combined money market mutual fund rates with checking ability, credit card access, and brokerage account privileges.

Electronic Commerce for Financial Institutions in Germany and the United States of America with respect to XXL Internet AG

competitive necessity, non-bank competitors leaned to develop and implement effective non-branch distribution systems iii , and by doing so, they enjoyed great success in taking market share away from banks. 5

Changing financial markets, new competition from non-bank competitors, and rapid d evelopment of technology altered market performance and consumer expectations. A paradigm shift was clearly under way. Through the 1990s, industry consolidation, new technologies, and new competitive approaches to retail banking changed the underlying business economics, and created a stressful environment for all competitors. 6

Retail banks generated income through the interest earned on loans and deposits, and fees charged for accounts. For a typical retail bank, the bulk of profits (often as high as 80%) derived from a small portion of customer base (typically 20%), which forced banks to consider how to manage their customer base 7 . Ideally, banks would serve only profitable customers, but the situation was made difficult by how bank products were designed. For example, current accounts typically charged a monthly fee iv and allowed customers to write checks, go in the branch, and call the telephone center. Banks designed their products to attract more profitable customers, but there were no guarantees that o nly profitable customers would be attracted to the product. Since customer transactions behavior was critical to determining customer profitability, it was very difficult for banks to attract only profitable customers. In fact, up to 60% of a bank’s retail customer’s base had transaction behaviors that made them unprofitable. 7

At various points in retail banking history, new distribution channels have been introduced. Each of these channels had a lower marginal cost per

iii Examples are AT&T Universal Card in the US and Volkswagen Bank offers financial products in Germany.

iv The monthly fee was often waived in the US when certain minimum balance requirements were met.

Electronic Commerce for Financial Institutions in Germany and the United States of America with respect to XXL Internet AG

transaction than the previous channels. The intent was to migrate customers to these new channels in order to reduce the cost incurred by the bank in serving the customers’ demanding and evolving behavior. However, convenience of new channels often translated into more intensive customer- transaction activities. Balancing the expansion of new customer convenience with the cost of new channels was one of the most significant strategic challenges the retail banking industry wrestled in the 1980s and 1990s. 5

The first alternative channel to branches was the automated teller machine (ATM), which was introduced in the USA in 1970 and a few years later in Europe. 5

Telephone banking entered the mainstream soon after ATMs in the USA, similarly allowing customers to move money between accounts and check balances without having to go physically into a branch. In Germany telephone banking became popular in the 1990s. Slowly, banks increased the hours of availability at their call centers until virtually every bank had call center representatives available 24 x 7:24 hours a day, 7 days a week. While telephone banking was an added convenience for customers, the cost of providing the service continued to rise steeply. Some customers called multiple times daily to check their account balances. As a result, banks instituted voice response units (VRU), which allowed computers to give basic information over the phone in response to touch tones, without call center representatives. By 2000, VRUs handled more than 80% of all calls to a retail bank call center. v5

Following call centers, banking via a personal computer originated in the late 1980s in the USA and the beginning of the 1990s in Germany. These first systems required special proprietary software so that customer could log in directly to a bank’s systems (called PC banking systems). The

v Fleet Boston Financial Corporation

Electronic Commerce for Financial Institutions in Germany and the United States of America with respect to XXL Internet AG

first product to gain broad adoption was the American Intuits Quicken, which could be connected to different banks checking accounts. While the early adopters of PC banking were enthusiastic, they were also limited in number. Moreover, again the industry also did not experience any reduction in customer use of other channels. By 2000, most PC banking systems were replaced by Internet banking, where customers accessed their accounts through the bank’s web page. 5

5. Technical Standards for Online Financial Services

In this chapter I want to examine t he current standards applied by financial institutions that are selling its products and services online. In addition, the client’s capabilities will be put in consideration. Further developments are described in the last chapter that focuses on innovations.

I assume that most financial institutions in Europe and the US are aware of the vital role technology plays in managing business and growth.

The trend towards home banking was recognized years ago and lead to the introduction of the home banking standard HBCI (Home Banking Computer Interface) by German financial institutions in 1995. The aim was to create a standardized interface for communication between customer and banking systems to allow home banking transactions. It was intended that this interface could be used for the widest variety of terminal devices. At approximately the same time, two competing standards appeared on the market in the USA with the same purpose although they cover a considerably wider field of application than HBCI does.

The establishment of home banking standards is beneficial not only to financial institutions and technology suppliers, but also to customers. Financial institutions can reduce their costs for the development of communication interfaces and technology suppliers by the means of not

Electronic Commerce for Financial Institutions in Germany and the United States of America with respect to XXL Internet AG

offering special solutions for particular financial institutions. Customers can process home banking with different financial institutions using a single unit software package. The question arises as to why the strategic opportunity of taking a further step in the direction of a uniform electronic banking platform, by taking the existing UN/EDI-FACT data format as a basis, is not exploited. None of the home banking standards mentioned is in conformity with the UN/EDI-FACT types of communication, although a large portion of business transactions could be imaged with UN/EDI-FACT formats. 8 The resulting, different mode of serving private and corporate customers leads to higher costs for financial institutions as a result of administration of heterogeneous data formats and the ensuing care of additional interfaces 9 . The Zentraler Kreditausschuss, ZKA (Central Credit Committee), which is the leading organization of the German Banking Associations, gives, as the reason for the decision not to use the EDIFACT concept, the complexity of the EDIFACT format and the lack, in some cases, of specific types of communication for imaging business transactions for private customers. 35

5.1.1 HBCI

In the Eighties, when Btx home banking established itself in Germany, a standard was devised by the ZKA. This merely specifies rudimentary business transactions was never either strictly set nor in adequate detail, so that each institute used the standard differently. This standard was never being generally accepted. In addition, it was not developed for online services, or the Internet.

The purpose of the HBCI Standard developed by the ZKA is to create an interface for customer and financial institutions to communicate independent of the transmission service. Due to the independence, HBCI can be used both Internet-based (TCP/ IP, HTTP) and via T-Online (CEPT standard). 35 Since it is assumed that the channel of communication is insecure, in addition to the syntax and control of the dialog, security mechanisms form an

Electronic Commerce for Financial Institutions in Germany and the United States of America with respect to XXL Internet AG

important part of the HBCI specification. Framework legislation, such as the German Signaturgesetz (Law governing digital Signatures), has been taken into account in the technical design of the security mechanisms 10 . HBCI is designed to make customer systems capable of multi-bank communication, which means that, in Germany home-banking transactions can be safely effected by the customer with all financial institutions systems, which support HBCI, using a single type of software package. 35

Based on the HBCI Agreement of 1.10.1998, all German financial institutions have bindingly undertaken to adapt their home banking offers to the HBCI Standard. In spite of the fact that this period has already expired, the greater majority of financial institutions have still not introduced HBCI for their home banking offers. This is primarily attributable to the priority given to coping with the change over to the Euro and Year 2000 problems. In addition, the fact that HBCI has not yet been fully developed according to the requirements of the financial institution and, in particular, the question of the introduction of the chip card, causes the hesitation vi35 However, currently most German financial institutions have established the standard.

5.1.2 OFX

The Open Financial Exchange Standard (OFX) was established in 1997 by the American financial software manufacturers CheckFree, Intuit and Microsoft and is controlled by these. The OFX Specification controls the exchange of financial data, as well as the settlement of financial transactions between customers’ system and a financial i nstitute system via the Internet and is far more than merely a home banking standard. The aim of the manufacturers responsible for its development was to enable standardized, safe Internet communication with different financial institutions, for example, to provide a multi-bank capability. In addition, OFX enables to better sell the

vi Among the financial institutions already using the HBCI are: Advance Bank, BfG Bank, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank 24, Dresdner Bank, HASPA, HypoVereinsbank, Bankhaus Reuschel & Co, Gontard und Metallbank, Oldenburgische Landesbank, Raiffeisen Volksbank eG Mainz, Volksbank Aachen Süd

Electronic Commerce for Financial Institutions in Germany and the United States of America with respect to XXL Internet AG

own products on the Internet (eCommerce). Financial institutions and suppliers of technology solutions also co-operate on the standard, which has been made public.

OFX is already being used by a large number of financial institutions in both America and Europe (Austria, Portugal, Switzerland, and UK). The syntax of OFX is based on SGML (Standard Generalized Mark-up Language) The Version 2.0 is based on XML.

5.1.3 Gold

The company Integrion, which had been formed from a consortium of American and Canadian financial institutions, IBM and VISA in order to define a general payment standard, has developed Gold 11 . Integrion provides a platform for financial institutions to develop an interactive banking offer via the Internet. Gold makes it possible for users to purchase, pay bills and to pay with digital money via the Internet.

5.1.4 IFX

Version 1.0 of the Interactive Financial Exchange (IFX) specification was published in March 1999. The initiative for the development of the IFX came from the Banking Industry Technology Secretariat (BITS). The objective of the BITS is to foster the development and widen the use of online financial services and the online exchange of data between the suppliers of financial services. In addition, it is intended to create a stable and non-platform dependent basis for the exchange of financial data. An effort is made to achieve this objective by combining the two standards most widely used for home banking and finance management in the USA, namely, OFX and Gold.

The organizational prerequisite for the development of an open standard which continues to be accepted was created by the establishment of the IFX Forum, in which the most important representatives of the

Electronic Commerce for Financial Institutions in Germany and the United States of America with respect to XXL Internet AG

interests of the financial service sector, such as financial institutions, investment brokers, suppliers of electronic accounting systems and suppliers of technology for OFX and Gold, are represented.

5.1.5 Comparison of HBCI and OFX

OFX and Gold are two completely different modes of implementation with differing syntaxes. IFX supports all the business transactions of OFX and Gold. 12

In the following, HBCI will be compared with the OFX Standard. For this purpose, the criteria (a) security, (b) degree of acceptance financial institutions, (c) customer acceptance, and (d) flexibility are applied.

(a) Security

The subject ’security’ is influenced to a high degree by the general legal conditions of the different nations. A comparison of the standards must, therefore, first throw light on the legal aspects. In Germany, the Signaturgesetz has been in effect since 08/01/97. This regulates the legally valid settlement of transactions by electronic means. It provides for the use of electronic signatures, which are to be treated as equivalent to the written signature for certain business transactions. Although the HBCI Standard does not require the use of digital signatures, attempts are being made to fulfil the requirements of the Standard. This is attributable to the extension of the field of application of HBCI to be expected in the future. The use of the HBCI Standard for non-home banking applications, for example, for the transmission of forms to city administrations, has already been tested in pilot projects. HBCI is not fully in conformity with the Signaturgesetz requirements. 35

The USA has currently passed a law similar to the German Signaturgesetz that provides for the use of signatures. 13 OFX takes as a basis the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Protocol, which regulates the