Tag: Financials

Emirates Post and Noor Islamic Bank sign MOU to Offer Financial Services for Low Income Segment

Posted by | Jan 20, 2008 | |

Noor Islamic Bank PJSC (“Noor”) and Emirates Post Holding Group have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish a company that will offer banking services to the low income segment of the UAE population.

The new venture is in line with recent Federal Government initiatives aimed at the low income segment, and will develop specific products and services to cater to their needs.

The company will provide Sharia-compliant financial services, targeted at the low income and unbanked sectors of the population. It will leverage Noor Islamic Bank’s expertise in the provision of Sharia-compliant financial services and Emirates Post’s country-wide reach and brand reputation to offer a comprehensive basket of financial services.

Launched two weeks ago, Noor Islamic Bank has already established strategic partnerships with public sector institutions as well as the private sector. It is fast developing a reputation for being a modern, innovative and progressive Islamic financial institution, reflecting the core values of the UAE.

The proposed activities of the joint venture will include debit cards, Islamic insurance, credit cards, micro-financing, salary payments, remittances and currency exchange.

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Irish company launches mobile banking, ATM solution

Posted by | Jan 18, 2008 | |

Banks will now be able to reach customers on any mobile phone without the customer having to download special software, according to Ireland-based Kinzna Ltd., which specializes in mobile-Internet solutions.

Kinzna has launched a product that allows bank customers to view statements and account histories, receive alerts on account activities and overdrafts, monitor deposits, access loan statements, transfer funds and pay bills. Other value-added services include a branch and ATM locator, currency rates and mobile-phone top-up.

The product, called mobileBank, does not use WAP (wireless application protocol), nor it is restricted to a certain set of customers who use a specific mobile device or subscribe to a certain mobile operator. MobileBank conforms to industry best practice in the area of secure transmission of private customer data. It protects users’ data in three ways. Each time customers access mobileBank, they must authenticate themselves. No personal data, including account numbers, are ever stored on the phone or the mobileBank system. And all data exchanged between the phone and the bank has 128-bit encryption.

“With mobileBank, there is no need for client-software download,” said Isam Khalaf, Kinzna’s managing director. “Banks can offer mobile-banking services to all customers, and customers can enjoy the service, irrespective of whether they are using a mobile phone, PDA, XDA, Black Berry or any other device.”

MobileBank also can be interfaced with an already operational ATM-management system over ISO 8583 interface and act as an ATM.

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Post Office UK cuts mortgate rate

Posted by | Jan 15, 2008 | |

The Post Office® today announced an interest rate cut to its three year fixed rate mortgage to 5.48 per cent – making it the best mortgage deal of its kind on the high street.

This is the second rate cut to the Post Office®’s three year fixed rate mortgage in two months, and the third since its launch in November 2007 when it offered a rate of 6.09 per cent.

The mortgage continues to carry its low fixed arrangement fee of just GBP 399 and can be taken out on up to 95 per cent of a home’s value. There is no higher lending charge or extended tie-in, giving Post Office® customers a market leading deal.

The three year fixed rate deal is part of a range of mortgages being trialled by the Post Office® in selected branches in the North of England.

Post Office® has also slashed the rates of its three year fixed buy-to-let and self-certification mortgages to 5.99 per cent.

Post Office® director of lending Gary Fitton said: “These new rate cuts put our mortgage range at the top of the comparison tables, further proving our commitment to offering customers transparent and excellent value for money products.

The mortgage trial, launched in September 2007, follows a succession of well-received financial product launches by the Post Office® which is now the fastest growing financial services provider in the UK. It has already attracted more than one million customers with its easy to understand and good value products.

Post Office® Mortgages are provided in conjunction with Bristol and West, the Bank of Ireland’s lending arm. As a responsible lender, the Post Office® applies strict lending criteria and enforces appropriate checks before an offer is made.

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Italy’s “safe” postal bank ready to float

Posted by | Jan 11, 2008 | |

Now might not be a great time to launch a financial services stock, but Italy’s national postal service — led by its booming banking unit — is gearing up for a float.

When that happens depends on the government, but the company — emboldened by a foray into financial services that turned it around from a loss-making bureaucracy — is already rivalling more obviously sophisticated institutions for capital.

“At the moment, we are working as if at any moment we would be asked to become public,” Chief Executive Massimo Sarmi told Reuters in an interview.

Having rewritten its history as a lethargic administration that could barely be trusted to deliver a letter in time, the post office was valued this year by investment banks at as much as 15 billion euros, said Sarmi. He declined to say which banks had provided the estimate.

That would make it Italy’s third-largest retail bank by market value at current share prices and is 50 percent higher than the estimated value Sarmi cited for the postal group more than a year ago.

And while billions have been wiped off banks’ market value globally by their loans to ‘subprime’ borrowers, analysts say the post office — which in a float would offer shares to both domestic and foreign investors — is a banking story that has succeeded by betting on the simple and safe.

Key to Poste Italiane’s business model has been a strategy of using its 14,000 outlets across Italy to offer bank accounts and loans, exploiting its reputation as a conservative player that has catered to pensioners and families for decades

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Moneygram® and Post Office® deliver greater peace of mind to international money transfers

Posted by | Jan 10, 2008 | |

Post Office® and MoneyGram® have welcomed the introduction of the UK Remittances Task Force Customer Charter, supported by the Department for International Development.

MoneyGram is one of the founder signatories to the new charter which aims to ensure greater transparency and security of service for the millions of people across the UK who send money transfers worth an estimated GBP 2.3 bn abroad each year.

MoneyGram’s international money transfer service is available at all 14,000 Post Office® branches nationwide making it the largest provider in the UK to sign up to the charter – its participation in the scheme ensures that over half of the UK’s transfer outlets will immediately comply with its standards.

The MoneyGram service at the Post Office® is fully in line with the charter’s standards which aim to ensure customers understand the fees and exchange rates that will apply to their transactions before completion, as well defining the information required to ensure secure delivery to the recipient e.g. location of collection points and timescales for delivery.

The Post Office® and MoneyGram have a long term commitment to leading the way in providing international money transfer services which customers can trust to offer high levels of speed and security. The recent introduction of a new computerised system allows cash to securely travel in just ten minutes* from any Post Office® to 138,000 MoneyGram locations across the world.

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