| Documents
> Reports > Banking industry (December 2000 / January 2001) |
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| Preliminary report |
| 39 websites scanned
- Dates: December 21, 2000 - January 18, 2001: |
| Banks: |
| Arab Bank - Bank
of New York Inter Maritime Bank - Amas SA - Coop - Diamantaire
Anversoise SA - Dresdner Kleinwort Benson - Edouard Constant
SA - von Ernst - Franck SA - Leu SA - Mees Pierson Gonet SA
- Pasche Group - Piguet & Cie SA - Privée Edmond de Rothschild
SA - Sarasin - SCS Alliance SA - Financière de la Cité
- BNP Paribas SA - Clariden Bank - Crédit Agricole Indosuez
- Crédit Lyonnais SA - Crédit Suisse - Deutsche
Bank SA - Discount Bank Group - European Financial Group - Lloyds
Bank Plc - Merrill Lynch Bank SA - Rabo Robeco Bank - Republic
National Bank of New York HSBC - Royal Bank Financial Group
- Standard Chartered Bank Ltd - Union Bancaire Privée
- Union de Banques Suisses |
| Private bankers: |
| Bordier & Cie - Darier,
Hentsch & Cie - Ferrier Lullin & Cie - Lombard Odier & Cie -
Mirabaud & Cie - Pictet & Cie |
| 1. General aspects: |
| 1.1. Search engine
visibility - Test: Yahoo, Altavista: |
Amazingly deficient when considering
the ordinary keywords used to perform the search - see hereafter;
i.e. whether in French or English, only a couple of the above
listed companies eventually appear on the first page of results?!
In order to provide a pretty large overview of the Banking Industry
in Geneva and despite the statement made in the Documents
area, we also scanned the websites of some renowned banks,
which have their headquarters outside Switzerland. |
The results here below are to
be read as follow: the slash (/) indicates singular,
then plural keywords; the hyphen (-) represents the keyword
with a small letter, then a capital &/or the keyword without
an accent, then with an accent.
Example: +bank/s +geneva - Geneva and the results 2
/ 0 - 2 / 0 with Altavista, mean:
+bank +geneva = 2 / +banks + geneva = 0 - +bank
+Geneva = 2 / +banks +Geneva = 0. |
| Research with the following combinations |
Altavista |
Yahoo |
+bank/s +geneva - Geneva
+banker/s +geneva - Geneva
+private +banking +geneva - Geneva
+"private banking" +geneva - Geneva
+financial +advice +investment/s
+banque/s +geneve - genève
+banque/s +Geneve - Genève
+banquier/s +geneve - genève
+banquier/s +Geneve - Genève
+banque/s +privée/s +geneve - genève
+banque/s +privée/s +Geneve - Genève
+"banque/s privée/s" +geneve - genève
+"banque/s privée/s" +Geneve - Genève
+conseil/s +financier/s investissement/s |
2 / 0 - 2 / 0
0 / 0 - 0 / 0
5 - 5
3 - 2
0 / 0
3 / 0 - 3 / 1
3 / 0 - 3 / 1
0 / 1 - 0 / 1
0 / 1 - 0 / 1
0 / 1 - 0 / 1
0 / 1 - 0 / 1
1 / 1 - 2 / 2
2 / 1 - 2 / 2
0 / 2 |
5 / 5 - 5 / 5
0 / 0 - 0 / 0
2 - 2
1 - 1
0 / 0
3 / 3 - 3 / 0
3 / 3 - 3 / 0
0 / 3 - 1 / 1
0 / 3 - 0 / 1
2 / 0 - 1 / 1
2 / 0 - 3 / 1
2 / 0 - 1 / 1
1 / 0 - 1 / 1
0 - 0 |
|
| Knowing that a search engine's
first page of results usually contains up to 20 items, the above
(between 0 and 5) give an obvious idea of what efforts remain
to be done accordingly... |
| 1.2. Websites compatibility
with browsers: |
| This analysis will be performed
upon request... |
2. Ease of download: |
Reminder of the custom:
Internet users will leave your website if a page is not loaded
in less than 10 seconds! - i.e. the size of the related pages
is bigger than 30 KB. Here, the average amount of slow pages
sums up to 22%...
Clearly, no overall comment can be made; yet, we decided to
consider the above websites according to their number of Mimes
- "[...] besides email software, the Mime standard is also universally
used by Web Servers to identify the files they are sending to
Web Clients [...]"; the software used to perform the analysis
considers the following Mimes: HTLM, images, executables, audio,
video and others. We now have 3 categories: |
mega:
> 20'000 Mimes |
they incorporate Flash, audio/video technologies,
Acrobat format, lots of heavy images, etc.; most of the
time, surfing is really tricky: many pop-ups, different
addresses (making it impossible to use the 'back' button),
many clicks before actually obtaining the requested information,
etc. |
|
average:
> 1'000 Mimes |
they also incorporate the above technologies,
but to a 'lighter' extent; surfing is fairly easier due
to the smaller amount of pages, but depending on the images'
weight, downloading time can be as long as half a minute!
Remember the custom? |
|
small:
< 1'000 Mimes |
most of these sites we scanned are basically
'brochures' on-line... Usually no sophisticated technologies
are used and the navigation is as easy as turning pages,
which somehow is a good point! - please see custom hereafter.
|
|
Many websites incorporate
the Flash technology, which encourages design abuse,
breaks the Internet fundamentals and distracts attention from
the site's core value. One of the major Internet principles
is INTERACTION - users control their own destiny; i.e. a website
should provide them with the information they are looking for
- as quickly and easily as possible - especially when it comes
to global financial services! We do acknowledge the fact that
a Flash session is very pleasant and could therefore be used...
but scarcely! Thus always keeping in mind that users with a
normal 56K modem connection will not be able to 'enjoy' it for
what it is - a gimmick that only increases time of download;
i.e. they will leave the site...
Audio/video technologies require specific players, which
might not be integrated into basic computer installations. Should
you offer a direct download of these programs from your site,
never forget to mention time of download and size of the software;
nothing is more irritating than being 'stuck' for half an hour...
Another custom states that the structure of a website
should contain 3 to 5 levels maximum; i.e. any information should
be reachable within 3 to 5 clicks (starting from the homepage)-
the more complicated the structure, the bigger the risk of 'losing'
your visitors!
Regarding images, it is indeed always amusing to see
how people look like... Yet, is it not more important for you
- in terms of Image - to provide your clients with the information
they REALLY need, rather than with the bank's buildings worldwide?
- unless it concerns the Real Estate department!... A far better
solution would be to leave the choice of viewing whom - or whatever
they want up to your visitors; e.g. a pop-up window or a separate
'album' section, and higher resolution pictures...
Obviously, we could no enter the e-banking/private sections
when existing; therefore, it is impossible for us to consider
them in terms of Ease of download. |
| 3. Ease of use: |
| 3.1. Broken links: |
To date, all the
surveyed industries show a very low number of broken links.
What does it mean? Internally speaking, that the sites are well
managed (regular checks and clean-ups), bringing to a minimum
the number of bugs which could occur while surfing on a site
- 1 good point!... Externally, it illustrates again, that these
websites are not connected to others; i.e. they are functioning
like islands ignoring one another - which is the exact opposite
of the Web purpose... In doing so, they become invisible for
search engines (e.g. Google), which pick up sites ONLY with
regards to the number of links they have with other sites having
a similar content.
Moreover, the most important argument is that broken links frustrate
your audiences/customers and make you look bad... |
| |
| 3.2. Attributes: |
An attribute consists
of tags (information) regarding the height, width and alt (alternative
text description for an object) of an image on a webpage. Adding
these tags decreases the time needed for a browser to render
a page when requested.
Furthermore, an alt tag (name) allows to reduces "further" surfing
difficulties; i.e. for even slightly disabled people or for
users with the 'image function' turned off.
Here, missing attributes average out at 48%, situation that
could be rather easily improved... Yet, if adding an alt tag
is technically VERY easy, think about the amount of patience
needed when it comes to searching for every single image over
hundreds or thousands of objects!!!...
Needless to say the more detailed a project is planned, the
less amendments to be made later... |
| 4. High quality
content: |
Again, an overall
comment cannot be made... yet, one fact the above sites all
have in common is the non-existence of a supplier 'information
package', while not even half of them have a recruitment section!
What about people who might be interested to join the company
or potential 'office suppliers' (non production-process related
goods), who would like to know which requirements they have
to meet?
Another observation is that NOT all of them do e-commerce: why?
Nowadays, it is possible to buy almost everything on-line...
why not the full range of financial services, whatever the size
and the activities of the bank? |
| 5. Frequent updates: |
Overall, 20% of the pages are
more than 4 months old - but half of the sites stand between
25 to 67%!... however, this ratio depends on what kind of pages
are old; i.e. indeed, a bank's history is not AS changing as
the markets or the news - yet, when it comes to mergers and
acquisitions, it IS another story!!!
Besides, the software used to perform this analysis determines
the 'last modification date' by reading the header codes returned
by the server when a page is requested. So, websites setting
the 'date of the day' instead of the 'last modification date'
of a page render the test impossible; i.e. some pages might
be 'old' but they are not visible... we therefore cannot establish
which elements should be 'updated' on the related sites.
However, what should be kept in mind is that updated information
increases recurrent traffic, customer satisfaction and therefore
helps building trust! - in addition to the fact that old content
should be examined to ensure it is still relevant!?!... |
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