forex usa

Macro economic indicators (2006)

GDP at current prices	$13,225 billion
Inhabitants	299.7 million
GDP per head	$44,071
Economic growth rate	+3.3%
Consumer confidence indicator	99.6
Unemployment rate	4.7%
Consumer Price Index	4.0%
Banking Importance	20.8%
Number of branches	92,000
Number of ATMs	420,000
Households savings ratio	0.5%
Inflation rate	+3.2%
Interest rate, consumer credit	13.21%
Interest rate, residential	6.22%
Number of credit cards	1,46 billion

Type and size of players

Total Banking Income and Cost/Income Ratio
(Operating Expenses/Total Banking Income)

Products

U.S. retail banking market is highly fragmented. This is illustrated by the fact that the top 10 U.S. Banks held only about 36% of the market share based on total U.S. deposits.

Total Deposits in US$ (31.12.2006 )

Trends

Customer Experience
• Banks are beginning to design products that cross customer silos:
- Customers in the past have had varying experiences and disparities in service quality across channels (branch, phone, internet) and across products (mortgage, etc.)
- Banks are beginning to improve and align processes like product applications and cross-selling
• Interactive products are increasing as customers become more comfortable using the internet:
- Banks expected to offer new products geared towards online self-service interactions
• Branch locations are increasing in number and being renovated:
- Self-service channels (ATM, phone, internet) are not effective for customer acquisition and cross-selling
- Branch locations are to be used as sales platforms by leveraging retail practices such as product displays, merchandising and layouts (demographic targeting)

Marketing / Target Products
• Faced with strong competition, banks are becoming more proactive with their marketing initiatives:
- Customer acquisition strategies being replaced by efforts to cross-sell products and services with marketing campaigns around specific customer interactions
• Continued investment in non-core product offerings:
- In redefining their marketing strategies, banks remain attracted to products traditionally offered by Financial Services companies
• Competition with Financial Services firms for retirement assets:
- Banks are marketing 401K programs to corporations in order to gain access to their employees in expectation of cross-selling other products and services

M&A Overload
• Recent acquisitions have resulted in some large banks having huge asset totals that must be earning returns for investors:
- Heated competition and sophistication in targeting loan offers to consumers