The retail financial services sector will change dramatically in the next several years, creating opportunities for some firms at the expense of others. Institutions must start planning for the change.

• How will the financial services industry change?
• What skills will be needed to thrive?
• Where should firms focus their efforts?

Customers use multiple channels, but financial institutions often lack a way to deal with them across channels. Hear how Bank of America is integrating sales and service delivery across all of its distribution channels.

• What's the "upside" for integrating distribution channels?
• How do sales and service processes change?
• What organizational hurdles need to be overcome?

During the next 15 years, millions of baby boomers will hit retirement and trillions of dollars will change hands. Smart firms are positioning themselves now to get a bigger piece

• What must financial institutions do differently in the next 10 years to earn a disproportionate share of retirement money?
• How can firms win the attention and affection of affluent and mass-affluent boomers?
• What products and positioning will appeal to younger consumers?

Technology empowers consumers to access new levels of information while making their financial product decisions, significantly changing their path to purchase. This offers marketers new opportunities to reach and engage these informed consumers, who are on their path to decision. This session will address:

• How the Internet has changed consumers' paths for choosing financial services products
• The role of search and how it influences consumers
• How social media and social search change the path to purchase and the implications for finance marketers

Financial institutions face a multitude of threats to customer data and accounts. Adding to the pressure are the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council's (FFIEC) newly issued guidelines acknowledging that passwords are insufficient as the sole means of security. Rather than trying to eliminate every risk, firms need to adopt a more holistic risk management approach and make investments in detecting suspicious activity and deterring account compromise. Forrester analysts and industry practitioners will address the following questions during a session that looks at best practices from North America as well as Europe:

• What activities will be mandated by groups like the FFIEC?
• What are the best practices for minimizing risks?
• How do solutions compare in terms of security, usability, cost, and effectiveness?
• What defenses are financial institutions constructing in light of these guidelines and escalating attacks?
• What should a long-term security and fraud protection plan look like?

In this session, you'll learn about consumers' paths to purchase financial products online. Forrester and Compete will unveil a new research study detailing how consumers use the Web to search and select a lender, research products, and apply for mortgage loans. Through a combination of survey research and actual mortgage applicants' navigation patterns, the session will answer key questions, including:

• How do online researchers use search engines?
• Which search terms lead to the greatest conversion of online researchers to online applicants?
• Which lending sites attract the highest amount of prospects?
• Which sites are best at converting those prospects to applicants?
• What role does site content play in the overall decision process?
• What types of calculators and tools result in the highest conversion rates?

The session will also give attendees the unique opportunity to learn from best practice lenders. Lending leaders will discuss how they approach the Web site experience, the importance of building a cross-channel customer experience, and best practices in converting site visitors into applicants.

Many financial services firms are starting to use business process management (BPM) tools to automate and continuously improve their business processes. These solutions integrate with core applications, giving process owners, managers, and executives more control over and insights into how the business is performing. While the value of a properly automated process is easy to see when error rates and time-to-execute fall, companies capture additional benefits with an increase in agility, significantly improved customer service, audit trails for improved compliance tracking, and increased revenue. This session will combine the insights of several analysts with two panels of BPM users from banks and insurance companies.

• How should business execs think about BPM?
• What capabilities can BPM vendors provide
• What are the best practices for deploying BPM within banks?
• What are the best practices for deploying BPM within insurance companies?

Competition in the financial services industry continues to intensify as new competitors emerge from unexpected corners. New players with deep pockets pose fresh challenges.

• How do you get mainstream customers to do more business with you?
• When will cash and checks disappear?
• What payment devices will replace them?

All attendees, speakers, and sponsors are invited to join Forrester Research and all of its Event sponsors at Métrazur for an evening reception.

Named for a train that once ran along the beautiful Côte d'Azur en route to Monaco, every seat at Métrazur offers a view of Grand Central's spectacular ceiling filled with stars and constellations lighting up its "sky."

Historic Grand Central Terminal is one of Manhattan's most popular destinations. Newly renovated, Charlie Palmer's Métrazur — perched atop the East Balcony overlooking the main concourse — is one of the terminal's most exciting dining destinations.

To succeed online, financial services Web sites must reinforce the emotional and experiential aspects of their brand that appeal to their most important customers. But most don't.

• How well do banks, insurers, brokerages, and mutual fund companies build their brands online?
• What role should brand play in an online strategy?
• How should financial services institutions focus their brand-building efforts in the future?

Full-service brokerages like Edward Jones are thriving. But the business model for advice and guidance is changing.

• How will the advisor business change in the next five years?
• How will technology change the relationship between investors and their advisors?
• Will the branch office remain a viable channel for the foreseeable future?

Financial Institutions should be achieving better ROIs for every dollar they spend acquiring revenue from their existing eCommerce channel than from any other channel, including print, direct mail, or mass media. Gregg Freishtat, Proficient Systems' chairman and CEO, will lead a session addressing the facts and the myths surrounding "chat" and how companies can drive revenue and profit by using data mining in combination with online interaction. Attendees will learn:

• How the evolution of eCommerce from commodity goods to complex goods requires changes in your approach and eCommerce strategy
• Why online communication is not a strategy and why focus must be on who you interact with and not the mode of communication
• How to determine the most profitable visitors to your Web site in real time

For more information on Proficient Systems, visit www.proficient.com.

The development of the Internet and digital media is changing the way people live and interact. For the first time in history, real-time information about what consumers are doing is becoming widely accessible. New technologies and media are also bringing greater levels of accountability to marketing, increasing the importance of account planning and research.

Yet even as the consumer decision-making process provides marketers with a framework for looking at accountability, ultimately marketers need to quantify results. The Internet is by far the best medium for measuring the "ROO" (return on objective) of marketing programs, and the most successful marketers have very defined objectives to measure against, taking the time to assess what's really important to their business goals.

Jon Kaplan, Google's Head of Financial Services, will share insights and observations on how to execute marketing in light of today's changing media landscape, including optimizing marketing programs — not just campaigns — and measuring strategically against your full set of marketing goals.

Why do we spend $750 million on online marketing and ignore 75%-90% of our best leads? We know up to 10%-15% of customers apply or open accounts online; what would happen to our acquisition rates if we continued personal communication with those interested but not yet ready to act?

An estimated $2 million to $8 million per financial Web site goes down the drain annually by not capturing visitors with active product interest.

Join Sherri Neasham, CEO of Leadfusion, and Steve Cone, managing director and head of advertising and brand management at Citigroup Global Wealth Management, to learn how to identify and connect with these in-market leads in order to increase conversion and your return on marketing. Discover how Lee Carter, president of Online Banking at Zions Bank, is using email conversations to convert search engine users and Web site visitors into new customer accounts.

See the future of online lead capture and conversion, and take home:

• The value of "in market" leads.
• What should be done to continue communication with customers who respond to direct marketing, such as search engine marketing, but who don't purchase.
• A way to utilize technology to maintain a dialogue with online visitors.
• Ways to improve ROM.
• A BOSE headphone, an iPod nano, or an autographed copy of Steve Cone's best-selling book Steal These Ideas!: Marketing Secrets That Will Make You A Star.

Online banks have been challenging traditional players for years with little success. But some of the upstarts are coming of age.

• What is different about selling financial services online?
• Will technology ever surpass the person-to-person experience?
• Can you ever be more than a niche player without physical branches?
• How will firms win tomorrow's customers?

Customer acquisition and cross-selling efforts won't succeed unless they satisfy consumers' needs. But most firms don't understand how consumers make decisions. Underhill, a pioneer in researching what motivates consumer behavior, will provide unique insights into how financial services firms can improve their sales efforts.

• What misconceptions do firms have about how consumers make decisions?
• What do financial services need to know about consumers?
• How can this information improve customer acquisition and cross-selling?

Financial services marketing is moving beyond the world of batch and blast to the new world of inbound and event-triggered marketing. The goal: Align the content and timing of marketing messages with customer needs and buying decisions, thereby increasing relevance, response, and, ultimately, revenue. But many marketers have spent lots of time and money implementing event-triggered programs, with less-than-stellar results. Forrester analysts and industry practitioners will address the following questions:

• What distinguishes successful event-triggered programs?
• What are the technology implications of inbound and event-triggered marketing?
• How can marketers implement measurement systems to drive sustained and predictable returns on investment in marketing campaigns?

The world is awash in consumer data. The challenge lies in finding the best data, figuring out how to use it, and outpacing your competitors in bringing compelling offers to market. In this session, Forrester will leverage the credit card and banking transaction data that we collect from thousands of our Ultimate Consumer Panel households to expose how payment behaviors and attitudes are changing. We will combine Forrester insights with a panel comprised of card issuers and financial services leaders to address the following questions:

• What underlies consumers' growing preference for debit over credit cards? How should issuers respond?
• How are card issuers successfully using consumer data to drive acquisition and retention strategies?
• What data matters most to companies seeking to get the best return on their consumer marketing and product development initiatives?

Faced with myriad risk and compliance mandates, financial services firms stumble in the dark in attempts to build a cohesive enterprise risk and compliance strategy. Current pressures on financial services firms require an enterprise approach to risk management and an end to fragmented risk and compliance silos. No longer is risk management just aimed at financial risks — it includes operational risks too, with compliance being a critical component. This session will combine Forrester insights and a panel representing financial services companies, professional services firms/auditors, and software vendors.

• What are the emerging risk and compliance requirements in the financial services vertical?
• How can firms best manage risk and compliance?
• What additional business benefits can firms get from their risk and compliance efforts?
• What technologies will help?