The banking industry in the west took a huge risk in the last decade by using countries like India, China and the Philippines to outsource their banking and financial services. For banks, it was a step in the right direction to reduce the number of customers walking into their branches, the number of calls taken by banking executives at the branch and reduce the work load on their existing call centres. They wanted to reduce costs of employing more people to cater to their ever increasing base of customers and provide better services to their customers besides gaining a competitive edge. For customers who have been used to traditional methods of banking such as visiting their nearest branch, were exposed to new and state of the art technologies. IT and IT enabled banking services were the new age success mantra for most banks in Europe and the Americas.

The focus of banks that outsourced parts of their business to other countries was to reduce costs and increase profits. Though their approach was cautious, there were loop holes in their strategy. AMEX was one of the first banks to set shop in India in the late 90′s. Theirs was a captive centre. However over the years, more and more BPOs have shown their capability in handling banking and financial services with greater efficiency and effectiveness. For customers of these banks, the challenge was conquering their fears of a stranger in a distant country having access to their account information and the mistrust in their ability to provide solutions. Besides, there were language and accent issues. Some customers generally called their banks and surpassed the IVR to speak to an agent as they were not very comfortable dealing with a machine and others demanded speaking to their branch in their own country. Such issues lead to delays in service. This led to dissatisfaction amongst customers and forced many to choose banks that hadn’t outsourced their work and catered to their needs from within the country.

Data security was also one the major concerns for banks. More than customers, banks have found themselves living on the edge with account details made accessible to BPOs in other countries. With data theft being a reality in countries like India, China and Japan, it was a proven fact that banking outsourcing wasn’t foolproof. For banks it may result in large law suits and a decrease in their customer base. Banks also had their reputation at stake. The third party vendors may follow practices that may be inconsistent with the policies and practices of the bank. Besides the political, social, legal and physical climate of the outsourcing country may impact banking services. For example, the floods in Mumbai during the monsoons put a complete stop to all business activities for almost 3 days. Such issues do affect the level of services delivered to customers.

Here are some statistics that reveal why banks in spite of all the challenges surrounding banking outsourcing, still prefer to outsource. The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) revealed that companies outsourcing back-office work to India save as much as 60% of their cost every year. In addition to this, they perceive Indian call centre agents to be more productive than agents of both the UK and the US. It has been observed that an Indian agent makes on an average 98 correct transactions compared to 95 by an agent from the UK in a day. It has also been seen that Indian call centre agents make approximately 120 transactions an hour while an agent from the UK makes only 100 calls. Moreover, the average speed of answer by an Indian call centre agent is about 8 seconds while compared to the US agent’s speed of 20 seconds.

The overall focus of banks wanting to outsource, needs to be of using IT and IT enabled services to provide newer and better channels for
banking. Banks need to adopt means to identify alternate banking trends and be open to partnering and collaborating with existing players rather than build their own networks to meet the competitive challenges. Banking at the branch needs to be replaced with virtual decentralized banking models. This can be achieved only through technology advancements that help customers to experience better services with a shorter turnaround time. Its time banks thought of giving excellent customer experience preference over just cost effectiveness.

A private bank is one that is not incorporated. Private banks are favoured by conservative investors because the directors are personally liable, and more likely to be cautious in managing client funds. Financial institutions like these are sometimes family owned and only cater to the very rich. One of the reasons why wealthy people choose them is their confidentiality – a pledge to maintain client records secret. For some it is a case of not wanting to be targeted by criminals, lawsuits or corrupt governments. Others use this secrecy to shield income from authorities like the IRS and evade tax.

Many of the world’s private banks are found in Switzerland because of the strict bank secrecy laws and sophistication of Swiss financial services. Small banks in countries like Switzerland are also more likely to keep their client records secret because they limit their operations to within the country’s bank secrecy laws. Not only private banks offer private banking services – in fact some of the biggest providers of private banking and wealth management services like UBS, Credit Suisse and the Barclays are not privately owned. Private clients of these huge banks can take advantage of their in-house trading and research departments, and sometimes choose to have almost all their assets managed by the bank. This way they expect much higher returns than those given by a simple savings account or certificate of deposit.

Usually only very affluent clients demand wealth management – where private bankers manage an investment portfolio for a family or an individual. The fee for this service varies from bank to bank and is charged yearly as a percentage of the total amount invested. The return of a portfolio will also depend on the standard of the private banking service. While some will provide excellent returns, others will continue to charge high fees while investing client funds in the bank’s own investment funds, regardless of whether or not this is beneficial to the client.

A popular alternative to wealth management is Self-Directed private banking, where the client manages his own portfolio, at times calling on advice from the bank. The advantages of this type of account are lower fees and greater personal control. Inheritance and tax planning are extra private banking services provided either directly or by referral for an extra fee.

Goal Setting: While most of us have a broad idea of what we want to spend our money on (a new house, a new car, college education for the kids etc.), many of us may not actually get down to hard numbers and calculate how much “college education for the kids” actually comes down to. Here is where a good Financial Advisor comes in. He is your “human calculator”, the one who actually does the calculations and tells you in hard figures how much of your money you have to keep aside for various activities.

Planning: Financial planning is something we all need to do at some point or the other, whether we like it or not. It can be something simple or something complex. While most of us may be able to deal with simple financial planning, a Financial Advisor would help with the complex part. This is simply because, as a qualified person, he would possess the knowledge and experience to understand our financial goals and draft them into a proper financial plan.

Professional Help: Lets face it – it isn’t easy for us to understand investment, tax-saving and the numerous other schemes being thrown into our face thanks to advertising. It’s pretty complex, and here is where the financial advisor can help us. By explaining and analyzing the numerous schemes available to us, he can help us make better, more informed choices.

Personal Attention: Everyone has unique financial needs and goals, and hence, everyone needs a financial advisor of their own, who can actually take time to study and decipher the different schemes that would suit one’s investment plans the best.

Choosing a financial advisor is a laborious process. It is important for us to have some knowledge of how things work financially, as that will help us decide. Equally important is to ‘shop around’ – check with professionals close to us like a lawyer or a bank manager, business associates, or even other family members. Interviewing potential candidates face to face, gauging their potential would be a good idea – after all you will reap the benefits of your hard work at the initial stages forever.

Dan Goldie is the President and Founder of Dan Goldie Financial Services. For nearly two decades he has devoted his professional career to helping individual investors and their families realize their investment and financial goals. He has been recognized by the San Francisco Business Times as one of the top 25 Bay Area independent advisors, and by Barron’s Magazine as one of the top 100 independent financial advisors and 1000 financial advisors in the United States.

At Dan Goldie Financial Services, they are an independent financial advisor, financial planner, and wealth manager. They can help you simplify your financial life, optimize your investments, and organize your personal financial planning. They work closely with you to help grow and protect your wealth and achieve your most important financial goals. They help their clients make smart financial and investment decisions, and gain confidence with a secure financial future.

After many frustrating months of trying to collect on past due accounts, a lender will normally obtain the services of one of the many collection agencies for the recovery of lost monies. Often, a debtor will skip town, leaving no information on where they can be contacted because they are behind on their bills. At that point, it is wise to hire professionals to assist with your bad debt collection efforts.

Most businesses do not have the time or resources to track down a debtor who has left town with no forwarding information, which is one very good reason for hiring someone to give them some collections help. A collection agency has access to many different types of information and resources when it comes to tracking a debtor down and collecting the money due. Once an agency has found the debtor but they are not able to pay the loan off, then a repayment schedule may be suggested but that is totally at the discretion of the lender.

Many collection agencies start making calls with in the first few minutes of getting your accounts. This method has very low results and many collection agencies leave money sitting on the table. CDI, will not take the short path to collect your accounts. Before any account is sent to the collection floor. Control Data Inc. pulls full financial and asset checks on each account. Its not enough to just turn your files over to any collection agency who is going to just cream the easy accounts for a quick in house return. All to often with collection you get one shot to collect money from hostile debtors. Control Data Inc has found by knowing a debtor before the collect agency even call them it can select different collection methods based on a persons financial history and ability to pay. The net result is that Control Data Inc. can yield higher returns on your unpaid accounts.

Every week, clients call Control Data Inc wanting to know the bottom line costs. They want to know if Control Data Inc. can give them money. Yes, it can but, even at the best rates in the world your still going to have some type of loss on accounts. Control Data Inc. has another solution. Did you know that by simply adding into your contract a clause that calls for collection costs, that the fees may be able to be added back into the original balance. This means that you may be able to make the debtors pay for the collection costs, which could give you a 100% return on your funds.

Are there ways to prevent overdue accounts? If you could limit yourself to only doing business with companies that have a spotless and perfect credit rating, then you would not have to worry about business to business collections, or have to hire a commercial collection agency to collect the money for you. Of course, if you did limit yourself to only those with great credit, then you may not have much of a business left to run.

Despite your best efforts, it is likely that you will need to contact a commercial collection agency to collect what is owed from other businesses. You do not want to jeopardize any current or potential business clients by laying down harsh terms, but it may be needed. It is also a good idea to hire a collection agency that is familiar with commercial collections to make the process a little easier for everyone involved.