Application of Price Bundling Strategies in Retail Banking in Europe

Application of price bundling strategies in retail banking in Europe is a report based on an empirical study of price bundling practices in Southern, Central and Northern Europe. The current report defines three core price bundling models that are in one form or another applied by the interviewed banks. The models are cost efficiency bundling, cross-selling bundling and loyalty bundling. Price bundling has been started to apply in retail banking in Europe in the 1980’s. Price bundling is regarded as an important strategy in the intensified competitive market and it is also supposed to satisfy increasingly sophisticated customers in the future. The price bundles that the interviewed banks apply can be explained by the competitive conditions in the retail banking markets concerning both what the banks aim at, their competitive advantages, and the market factors. Banks in different parts of Europe have different competitive advantages that they find important when pursuing their price bundling strategies. Common to all the markets is the threat of customers to switch banks, which was identified as the main driving force in competition.Price bundling; strategy; competition; competitive advantage; retail banking

Does Cedomon work?

In 2003 there was an experiment in Agrifood Research Finland (Vihti), which compared Cedomon, Baytan, wood smoke treatment and no-treatment. Barley and oat were chosen to the experiment

Exercise yards for dairy cows

The required area per cow depends on the use of the exercise yard. If all the cows are forced to go out at a certain time and if they are fed in there, an area between 5 and 10 m² per cow is needed. But if there is no feeding and the cows have free access to the yard only 4-5 m² per cow is needed. It is recommended to design the yard so that the area covered with soft material can be blockaded when ever it gets too wet. The design of sloping has to be very careful. The laboratory tests have shown that with filters consisting of straw, peat or woodchips it is possible to significantly lower the nutrient content of runoff waters

On-farm soil quality estimations

The study aims to develop a battery of on-farm soil quality tests for use in both organic and conventional farming. The work is largely based on available on-farm test systems

Monitoring programme of Finnish arable land : agua regia extractable trace elements in cultivated soils in 1998

The main aim of this study was to produce internationally comparable knowledge on the status of cultivated soils in Finland. From the soil material collected during the latest sampling process under the national monitoring programme in 1998, 338 samples were selected for this investigation. The sampling sites were situated evenly over the whole cultivated area in Finland. Samples taken as four sub-samples from the plough layer were analysed for arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), lead (Pb), mercury (Hg), nickel (Ni), selenium (Se), vanadium (V) and zinc (Zn) using aqua regia extraction according to an international standard method (ISO 11466). General statistical indicators of the analytical results of trace element concentrations are presented by soil type groups and by plant cultivation zones. Distributions of the results into the concentration classes are shown graphically and geographical distributions of the trace element concentrations are presented on the thematic maps

Regulation of multiple insulin-like growth factor binding protein genes by 1α,25-dihydroxyvitamin D(3)

Recently, insulin-like growth factor binding proteins (IGFBPs) have been found to be primary mediators of the anti-proliferative actions of the nuclear hormone 1α,25-dihydroxyvitamin D(3) [1α,25(OH)(2)D(3)], but dependent on cellular context IGFBPs can also have a mitogenic effect. In this study, we performed expression profiling of all six human IGFBP genes in prostate and bone cancer cells and demonstrated that IGFBP1, 3 and 5 are primary 1α,25(OH)(2)D(3) target genes. In silico screening of the 174 kb of genomic sequence surrounding all six IGFBP genes identified 15 candidate vitamin D response elements (VDREs) close to or in IGFBP1, 2, 3 and 5 but not in the IGFBP4 and 6 genes. The putative VDREs were evaluated in vitro by gelshift assays and in living cells by reporter gene and chromatin immuno-precipitation (ChIP) assays. Of these 10 VDREs appear to be functional. ChIP assays demonstrated for each of these an individual, stimulation time-dependent association profile not only with the vitamin D receptor, but also with first heterodimeric partner the retinoid X receptor, other regulatory complex components and phosphorylated RNA polymerase II. Some of the VDREs are located distantly from the transcription start sites of IGFBP1, 3 and 5, but all 10 VDREs seem to contribute to the regulation of the genes by 1α,25(OH)(2)D(3). In conclusion, IGFBP1, 3 and 5 are primary 1α,25(OH)(2)D(3) target genes that in intact cells are each under the control of multiple VDREs