JPM.com Takes a Dive; Oracle Gets The Blame
JPMorgan Chase apologized after a three-day outage of its Web site and mobile banking services last month bumped millions of users offline, delayed bill payments and, according to reports, erased thousands of loan applications. A week later, speculation focused on a corrupted Oracle database. Database industry analyst Curt Monash, citing an insider, wrote in his blog that the crash affected applications for the main portal, ACH transactions, loan apps and private-client trading portfolio access. "Even before all this started JP Morgan Chase had an open project to look into replacing Oracle," he wrote.
Users Take control with fewer auto pays
A Fiserv survey of consumer billpay habits found fewer using auto-pay options and more managing cash flow through one-time payments. The survey also says a quarter of consumers change the methods they pay their bills month-to-month and 11 percent more are using bank sites for billpay-which means for the first time, bank-site billpay usage outranks the auto-debit payment activity through direct billers.
An SOS on sms: Alert use dips
A Forrester Research survey found that online account alert usage is down from 25 percent in 2007 to 15 percent today. One reason: few see the need for simple account updates. What banks should change, per Forrester, is promoting alerts tied to action items: overdue bills, upcoming ovedrafts, etc. advises analyst Emmett Higdon.
