Staying safe when using financial apps and technology

Bosses need to take note- the DOS AND DON’TS of introducing a gamified rewards system

87% of financial services employees would welcome their boss introducing a gamified rewards system
Financial services workers have also revealed tips for bosses setting up this kind of system

A SERIES of dos and don’ts for financial services bosses introducing increasingly popular gamified rewards systems have been released.

A survey of 1,000 UK workers, carried out by workplace incentives and rewards provider, One4all Rewards, and published in The Gamification Report polled workers on their preferences for gamified bonus systems – which encourage achievement and good behaviour by awarding small rewards for desired actions.

I t found that the vast majority – 87% – of financial service employees including those working in banking, insurance and accounting would like to see these introduced at their place of work.

To help financial services bosses implement this kind of employee recognition scheme, One4all Rewards surveyed workers about how they would prefer these types of systems to be implemented – with interesting results.

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FCA bans fixed overdraft fees under new banking reforms

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has made the bold decision to stop banks and building societies from charging customers more when they borrow using an unarranged overdraft compared to arranged overdraft. Fixed fees will be banned under the new reforms, and instead, providers will be required to price overdrafts using a simple annual interest rate.

Banks and building societies will also need to display arranged overdrafts with an annual percentage rate (APR) to help consumers compare deals more clearly. Firms will also be expected to work harder to support consumers with financial strain and work out a strategy to reduce repeat overdraft use.

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UK EMPLOYEES are getting ill due to their workplaces being dirty, according to new research

The survey of 1,012 UK workers conducted by household appliances e-tailler, AppliancesDirect.co.uk, found that almost half (46%) believe that an unhygienic working environment has contributed to making them sick. When quizzed on the reasons they felt their workplace has made them sick in the past, the majority said that they believed this was due to lack of general hygiene in their workplace (68%), while 62% said it was due to colleagues bringing sickness into the office.

With 46% of respondents claiming that they’ve had at least one day sick in the past year due to their unhygienic workplace, this would come at a cost of £1.56 billion to UK employers*.

When quizzed on the least hygienic parts of their working environment, a further 48% said it was due to their unhygienic desk phone, while a shocking 45% cited their dirty office kitchen as being the reason for them getting sick.

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Inviting Banks, Financial Organizations, Companies, Technology Providers & Business Leaders to participate in the 9th Annual

Global Banking & Finance Awards®

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Keeping control of your cloud spend

While cloud adoption is proven to have a positive impact on banks’agility, there is always the risk that it will result in an excess of consumption that results in massive over spending.

But with cloud projects popping up across your business, those planned-for operational cost savings can vanish in a heartbeat. Plus the initial calculations around cloud provider pricing often ignore the full extent of on-premise support required, exacerbating the issue.

Analyst firm Gartner states that it is not unusual for public cloud bills to be 2x to 3x higher than expected. And it is a growing phenomenon, with Gartner anticipating that, “Through 2020, 80% of organisations will overshoot their cloud IaaS budgets due to lack of cost optimisation approaches.”

The need for restraint

We are already seeing this first hand. A growing number of banks are looking for help with their cloud cost optimisation as the realisation dawns that the unrestrained cloud spending cloud must stop.

No financial services organisation would consider running a data centre without adequate cost controls, and the same should apply in the cloud to avoid expenditure surprises, waste, and general inefficiency.

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