The implementation of an enterprise billing system (EBS) is a strategic choice for financial service institutions that count midsized to large corporations among their clientele. A small but growing pool of technology vendors offers enterprise billing solutions for FSIs. The focus of this TowerGroup Research Note is to review the business justification for investment in an enterprise billing solution, the implementation time frame, and the ways that applications can be utilized.

The new UK coalition government announced that it will introduce legislation to disband the UK financial regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), which was established by the previous government in 1997. Legislation will devolve the FSA's regulatory and supervisory powers to a variety of other financial regulatory supervisory bodies by 2012. This TowerGroup Research Note examines the impact of the prospective changes on financial services institutions (FSIs) and their technology service providers, particularly those providing information technology to meet the FSIs' regulatory and risk management requirements.

Since the inception of the Great Recession of 2008–10, mortgage loan portfolios have so deteriorated that fundamental change in assessing risk is required to staunch the delinquencies and revenue loss. Vendors have made strides in updating solutions, marketing new ones, and forming strategic partnerships to offer a spectrum of integrated credit and collateral risk management services and software to a broad range of financial services institutions. This Research Note evaluates leading vendors CoreLogic, Experian, FICO, IBM/Cognos, LPS, Moody's Analytics, and SAS. The report will be of use not only to institutions but also to vendors determining the best way to offer their services.

Despite the nascent economic recovery, the US mortgage lending industry faces two to three more years of managing high delinquency and foreclosure levels. Recovery of the general economy will not by itself restore lenders' financial health. Organic growth requires making new loans. Mortgage lenders cannot revert to originating new loans with old methods but must massively reengineer business processes in loan origination, compliance management, secondary marketing, and collections. This TowerGroup Research Note recommends ways to cure process defects in loan origination and servicing through automation, enhanced scoring, and implementation of strategies that can lower costs as well.

The Federal Reserve Board has amended Regulation E to prohibit financial services institutions from charging overdraft fees for ATM withdrawals or one-time point-of-sale debit card transactions unless the customer has opted in to overdraft coverage. TowerGroup estimates that banks and credit unions cumulatively will suffer an annual revenue loss of $7.7 billion as a result. This TowerGroup Research Note draws on surveys of banks conducted by Corporate Executive Board and FIS and discusses the impacts of the rules, FSIs' strategies for compliance, their expectations of customer opt-in, and their potential efforts to generate revenue to compensate for the lost fees.

No processes between banks and their corporate clients are more antiquated than opening, maintaining, and closing accounts. Despite tremendous advances in technology to support corporates' daily needs for transactions and information, banks still handle time-sensitive requests for account changes on paper or by fax. Electronic bank account management (eBAM), the result of a collaboration of leading global banks, corporates, SWIFT, and IT providers to address this critical problem, is rapidly emerging as a commercial opportunity. This Research Note discusses the components of eBAM, progress since the 2009 SWIFT eBAM pilots, and the factors necessary for wide adoption of eBAM.

This TowerGroup ViewPoint discusses the possible negative impact on the US commercial prepaid cards market of the amendment sponsored by US Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois, SA. 3989, entitled Reasonable Fees and Rules for Payment Card Transactions, to the Senate financial reform bill, S. 3217, the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010, passed by the Senate on May 21. The ViewPoint suggests that financial services institutions in the mid to large market segment will need to rethink their business plans entirely should the amendment move forward unchanged in the final version of the bill.

Financial services institutions that serve multinational corporations need to deliver the services in a way that pleases clients yet prevents excessive or unnecessary costs. This Research Note addresses client servicing in a world that continues to shrink through technology but grow more complicated by nature of global regulatory and cultural diversity. Countries and businesses (including smaller enterprises and microbusinesses) are doing business with one another across multiple borders at unprecedented rates, but getting the business done right remains very difficult. FSIs are adapting their processes and using technology in the best way to serve multinational corporations.

Regulators' proposed requirement of a "living will" for systemically important financial institutions will become a reality for the financial services industry around the globe. Despite good, sound reasons for such plans for orderly liquidation, winding down, or partial divestiture of a financial institution in the event it becomes seriously troubled or at risk of failing, potential drawbacks and unknown unintended consequences may thwart their purpose. This TowerGroup ViewPoint discusses the emerging regulatory requirement and examines the benefits and constraints that living wills would impose on financial institutions as well as possible unintended consequences, both good and bad.

The analysis of customer data to uncover opportunities to cross-sell, predict attrition, and improve revenue is widespread in retail banking but much less used in the wholesale bank, where it is applicable to the middle market. This Research Note discusses the current state of use of analytics for the middle market (corporate customers in the revenue size range $10–250 million). The Note outlines the requirements for extending current analysis to truly predictive analytic application and suggests how financial institutions and technology providers can help wholesale banking organizations to take better advantage of the power of predictive analytics to improve revenue performance.