AFP 2010 Roundup

Conference season has concluded. After several weeks on the road, I finally hit the last stop on the fall conference circuit - The AFP Annual Conference. This popular business banking conference took place last week in lovely San Antonio, Texas. The trend of increased attendance figures continues (see my BAI Retail Delivery post here), as the conference halls were loaded with attendees. The exhibit hall did seem a tad smaller than usual, although perhaps that was just due to the shape of the hall. In any case, after several days of good meetings with banks and software vendors, I noted the following themes:

• Mobile solutions for corporates are becoming mainstream. My colleague Zil and I noted the start of this trend at the recent SIBOS conference in Amsterdam. There were a ton of announcements, and demos were being showcased in the exhibit hall. Announcements were made by PNC, Union Bank, and Citizens Financial Group to name a few. Bank of America Merrill Lynch was also showcasing a mobile demo for its CashPro product. I first wrote a report on corporate mobile banking in 2007, complete with a case study on Wells Fargo's CEO Mobile. My report was a tad early for the market, and now that things are progressing I will revisit the topic in a 2011 report. Stay tuned!
• Growing interest in small business online banking solutions. Many of the conversations I had at the AFP were on the topic of small business online banking. The majority of banks still have no clue what differentiates a small business online banking solution from a corporate cash management solution. Luckily, I have addressed this topic with a vendor evaluation of small business online banking solutions. The report was released last week, just in time for the AFP, and provided for lots of questions from banks and vendors. A second report on the subject is forthcoming and should be released by the end of the month.
• Portal perplexity. To portal or not to portal? Several banks I spoke to are in the middle of trying to determine if they should build a corporate banking portal that would encompass all transaction banking services. This dashboard would provide quick task execution, at a glance info, and be fully customizable. The build versus buy debate was raging, coupled with the difficulty of integrating multiple vendor solutions.
• The cash management market is still on fire. The number of banks that have sent out RFIs or RFPs is staggering. I am still amazed at how many banks are undertaking decisions here. The fact is however that some of these fires are the same ones we witnessed last year - sales cycles and decision making times are long. Solution replacement growth is still quite strong and I expect it to continue well into 2011.

Those are my quick hits from the conference. I welcome all comments and thoughts. I also encourage those of you who were in attendance to share your experiences!