the EFMA invites Christophe Langlois, Founder of Visible-Banking.com, to speak at Online Financial Services 2008 in Athens

It is a pleasure to participate to EFMA's brilliant Online Financial Services event for the second year in a row. I want to thank Pol Navarro, Head of Innovation and Distribution Channels at Banco Sabadell, who recommended me to Philippe Van Fraechem, Programme Director at EFMA.
 
I believe it is the best event focused on Online Banking I ever attended: the quality of the audience is amazing (almost entirely of senior executives from the leading European banks, as well as more and more banks from the Middle East and the Asia Pacific region), and the presentations are insightful and "hands-on".

And Jim Bruene's Finovate days are the best events in Online Finance: it is the best opportunity to meet the most innovative startups around.

Key speakers
This year, the line up looks excellent again. Well done Philippe!

Please find below the list of key speakers.
* Tony de Bree, Senior management consultant separation and integration at ABN AMRO (Belgium): I contacted Tony on Linkedin a few weeks ago. Tony is a consultant who works on many innovative projects online.Tony wrote a few books like virtualisation in banking. I invite you to check Tony’s website.

* Tim Collins, SVP-Experiential Marketing at Wells Fargo (US): Tim is one of the most high-profile, and influential social media evangelists in the banking industry. Wells Fargo is by far the most innovative bank in the social media space. I invite you to check my video on Wells Fargo 2.0.

* Barbara Roels, Head of Product Management Save & Invest at Fortis (Belgium): I met Barbara at the event in Barcelona last year. She works with Catherine Ossemerct who launched Join2Grow.biz, the innovative social network for European Entrepreneurs, back in Feb 2007. Barbara is also the owner of Prompt! Speech Applications.

* Themos Vihos, Alpha Bank (Greece)

* Lars Gatschke, BEUC - Federation of German Consumer Organisations (Germany)

* Dennis Pereira, Head of E-Commerce and Outbound Marketing at SNS Bank (Netherlands)
I had the chance to meet Dennis last year in Barcelona where he won a best of the show award.
Dennis is an excellent presenter, and he was instrumental in the launch of most of SNS Bank recent innovative online initiatives such as their online mortgage advice service using video conferencing, document sharing and online chat. I very much looking forward to catching up with Dennis.

* Shin Kusunoki, Corporate Vice President, Center for Financial Technology Research at Nomura Research Institute (Japan)

* Annika King, Hansabank

* Catherine Palmieri, ex Managing Director, Citibank Direct / Citibank.com at Citi (USA): please check Catherine's website to find out more about her.

* Lukas Gant, Head of Customer Relationship Management at bwin Interactive Entertainment AG (Austria)
* Peter Hoitinga, Marketing manager at Ditzo (Netherlands): please check Peter's blog to find out more about him.

* Christophe Langlois, Founder of Visible-Banking.com (UK)

* Mark Rammond, Senior Digital Brand Marketing Manager at Nationwide Building Society (UK)

* Tal Shlasky, E-Banking & Call Center Division Manager at Bank Hapoalim (Israel)

* Meltem Çora, Akbank

* Christo Vrey, Managing Executive : Digital Channels at Absa Bank (South Africa)

* Massimo Cicardo, BNL (Italy)
 
* Constantine Stivaros, Senior Manager at Piraeus Bank (Greece):Piraeus bank won the Innovation Award last year for their Instant Cash service which gives their customer the immediate way to send and collect cash from Piraeus Bank ATMs without a card. I invite to check two additional innnovative services: easypay and winlife.  

Please note there are only three speakers from last year:
* Dennis Pereira, Head of Online Sales - SNS Bank, Netherlands
* Barbara Roels, Head of Remote and One to One Channels - Fortis Bank, Belgium
* myself ;)
 
Conference overview: "Growing channels, growing challenges"
I invite you to visit the conference website for more information.

The importance of conducting business through online channels (including the Internet and mobile services) continues to grow, bringing with it new technologies and new functionalities. These have had an impact on customer behaviour and expectations.

The conference will also look at issues such as:
* What is the best business model for direct online channels? Could examples from other sectors be applied to the financial sector?
* How can banks use new technologies to create richer customer interactions? What impact do Web 2.0 social networks have on financial services?
* How can online channels be made safer?

Special interest
I very much look forward to attend to Tony's presentation on "How Web 2.0 can help large financial institutions through the current crisis" and Tim's presentation on "Natural selection in media...if Charles Darwin had a blog". I love this title.

I also look forward to participating to the session 2 on Thursday 6 November.
Please find below the topics we will cover:
• How to encourage customers to use online channels and for which functions? How to help advise customers in their use of online channels?
• How to integrate the Internet channel into the multichannel approach to maximize both customer satisfaction and sales?
• How can banks use new technologies to create richer customer interactions? What impact do Web 2.0 socialnetworks have on financial services? What about usability and design, online video, account aggregation,…

Related articles on Visible-Banking.com
* Coverage - EFMA Online Financial Services 2007 (Barcelona)
* Coverage - FinovateStartup 2008 (San Francisco)
* Coverage - Online Retail Banking Services 2008 (NYC)
* Video - Focus on Wells Fargo 2.0
* Video - The 4 kinds of Social Media projects in Banking

Comments

[Rob Findlay]

How does one get these invites... you seem to be full time at conferences Christophe ... what does James say? Love your work, and good luck.

[Christophe]

Thanks for your kind words Rob.

I am not quite "full time at conferences" yet. But I am always delighted to travel and share my passion and vision for social media in the banking industry.

I feel fortunate. James is a prominent blogger and an excellent public speaker too. He totally understands the importance of personal branding and building up your external profile.

The "secret" is that I use my annual leave and I cover all my expenses myself...

[Tony de Bree]

Hi Christophe,

thanks for your kind words. I am also really looking forward to Athens. In the my current assignment as Separation Manager including Web 2.0 at ABN AMRO there are some new developments.

As you might have seen in the newspapers, since today a new situation has risen as Fortis has decided to sell ABN AMRO and leave the Consortium.

Unfortunately, what we all knew in the industry (and what we told everybody prior to the take-over) is clear now: the take-over was much too expensive.

The Governments have stepped in. So good news. And also a lot of extra work I think in my area of experience: killer-apps of.......eCompliance and Risk Management. Using Web 2.0........amongst other things.

I am looking for reviewers of articles, reports and ebooks I am writing, so if you are interested, let's team up.

Kind regards,
Tony

p.s.
Sometimes the linking to www.tonydebree.com (my blog) has hick-ups so you can also type in:

http://www.go4estrategy.nl/tonydebree for my blog. I would be happy to get feedback and ideas on the blog.