Monday, February 22, 2010

Green Dot Opening Opening and Keynote Address - How ING Direct Succeeded By Being A Rebel With a Cause: Driving Success Through Innovation

Prepaid Expo officially kicked off with the Green Dot Opening ceremony! The Las Vegas Marching Arts band played a couple of tunes in honor of our armed forces. Take a look below at a 2 min clip of the band:



Immediately following the band Marilyn Bochicchio, CEO of Paybefore and Jill Ozovek, managing director of the finance division of IIR, welcomed all attendees with some opening remarks. Marilyn was able to motivate the crowd by mentioning that we in the industry need to “embrace the challenges of the future and celebrate our success and drive this industry forward.” Jill Ozovek then introduced the expo’s first keynote speaker Arkadi Kuhlmann, President & CEO of ING Direct. Here are some key highlights from his presentation.


Arkadi mentioned that financial services have had a lot of problems having to do with rebuilding trust. Inventions in the last 30 years for financial services have been about bits and pieces, but companies need to act like retailers and think differently. Financial services have lost touch with long term focus. At ING employees and consumers get the same rate, there are no special “employee discounts” and so this helps build credibility for the company. Companies need to go against common practices in order to innovate in these times.

There is lot of innovation yet to be done in terms of prepaid cards. Companies should focus on innovating the product, the process, and finally the customer. Communication and connection with the customer is constantly changing and so the prepaid industry needs to follow that trend. There is room for improvement in card systems, incentive programs, and trade-offs for the unbanked.

What is the being said about the customer when the prepaid card is purchased? The answer to this question says a lot about innovative opportunities.



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