Luring in new customers with high interest rates on savings accounts or by offering freebies is a well known and often used strategy for banks. It seems to make sense, but does it really? Perhaps banks would be better off rewarding their existing customers for staying loyal in these difficult times.

Take for instance the special offer from Credit Europe, a small Dutch bank that provides online savings accounts. Credit Europe, for a short period at the beginning of this year, offered higher interest rates to existing customers than it did for new customers.

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Would it be wise for banks to stop charging money for paper statements, or at least lower the fees? We ask because, according to the largest consumer organization in the Netherlands, the Consumentenbond, these fees are one of the biggest gripes of bank customers.

As much as 600 consumers contacted the Consumentenbond over the past two years with complaints about their bank.

One of the biggest annoyances were the fees charged for the privilege of receiving paper bank statements. The five largest banks in the Netherlands send bank statements with intervals varying from one to four weeks. If you want to get one more often, you’ll have to pay.

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This week, Finland based mobile technology manufacturer Nokia introduced a new mobile payment service called Nokia Money. The new service allows financial management and payments from a mobile phone.

“In many countries, mobile phone ownership significantly exceeds bank account usage,” explains Mary McDowell, EVP and Chief Development Officer at Nokia. “With more than 4 billion mobile phone users and only 1.6 billion bank accounts, global demand for access to financial services presents a strong opportunity to combine mobile devices with simple but powerful financial services.”

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People’s desire for personal interaction with a bank clerk still proves to be strong. Financial advisors offering advice that is specific to the customer’s situation will help re-establish the faith people have in banks.

These are the conclusions of a survey performed by Deloitte, the globally operating service provider for accountants, tax advisors, consultants and financial planners.

According to Deloitte, an improvement in cross selling – an important source of profit in a satiated market – will lead to an improvement in trust.

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The idea of offering microcredit to entrepreneurs in 3rd world countries may be ideological in its basis, many of todays investors seem to have lost sight of this original intention.

At least, that is one of the conclusions drawn in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal.

In a quest for high yield and maximum profit, countries like India are bombarded with microcredits. The people living in these countries are tempted by the easy credit but often get into financial trouble as a result. They spend the money on luxury items instead of investing it in their enterprise and when they find themselves unable to repay, they might take out a new loan to cover the old one. This way, the concept misses its original point and the inhabitants of 3rd world countries are back at square one.

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28 year old Albert Gonzalez has recently been charged with stealing 130 million credit and debit card numbers.

This is on top of the 100 million credit card numbers he stole before. Gonzalez acquired the numbers by breaking into the computers of, amongst others, payment processor Heartland Payment Systems. Add this to the rising number of skimming attacks and other forms of identity theft and it seems that no bank account is safe from crooks.

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A new service makes it possible for bank customers to deposit checks immediately through their mobile phones. How it works? Simple. Using a special application they can take a picture of both sides of the check with the phone’s camera and electronically deposit it to their account.

USSA – an American privately held bank and insurance company – presents this new service called USAA Deposit@Mobile which is available for the iPhone only.

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How can governments avoid the forced nationalization of suffering banks and, more importantly, the hefty claims made by investors that come with them?

One option is to put the banks under compulsory state administration instead. This way, no structural changes are made in the bank’s ownership and the government has less trouble pulling out when the situation improves. The German parliament is working to implement such a plan right now.

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Is there a way for American banks to get rid of high risk mortgages? Yes there is. Sell them to private investors, pension funds or insurance companies.

The US government is offering individuals and firms the possibility to invest in the toxic assets that banks want to lose, through the Public-Private Investment Program (PPIP).

The US Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner, announced this program in March. Since then, nine private fund managers and investors have participated in PPIP; amongst others Invesco and BlackRock.

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Have banks invested too little in common services, because the margins are too small? While the answer to that question might no longer be relevant, improvement of these services certainly is.

This is the conclusion of a recent Dutch study, commissioned by VODW Marketing, amongst some 5000 customers of 9 large Dutch banks.

The results: the quality of common daily services makes up 40% of the trust people put in a bank.

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