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Geezeo signs three more referral engine clients.
Last week, we looked at how Square makes a single webpage look great across various mobile platforms. Today, we look at the exact opposite problem. How to showcase your various mobile apps on a single webpage.
Pageonce does it as well as we’ve seen, using a single showcase panel that includes all five of its mobile app platforms across the top: iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry and Windows. Users can scroll horizontally to see two sets of screenshots for each platform.
The company also includes version number, date of the last update, and app size in the lower right corner. And of course, there’s a link to download the appropriate marketplace to download the app. The Android page uses a QR code instead of a link.
In other news, Pageonce added bill payment to its iPhone and Android app today, moving ahead of Mint in the features arm race. The new Gold service, which we haven’t tested yet, is priced at $4.99/mo, good news for fee-starved online financial providers. Mint says it has bill payment coming too. It will be interesting to see if they put a fee on it.
Relevance for Netbankers: The addition of transactional services such as bill payment makes third-party PFMs, or virtual banks such as BankSimple, bigger threats to mainstream banks and credit unions. As uber-consultant Richard Crone always says, "He who enrolls, controls."
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Pageonce iPhone app
iPad
Android
BlackBerry
Windows
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Note: We cover mobile banking and payments periodically in our Online Banking Report (subscription).
Earlier this week, American Banker described the science that FinTech companies use to learn the spending habits of consumers, the Payments Genome.
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Earlier today, Pageonce launched a mobile bill pay service that provides consumers more flexibility when paying bills:
“Now Pageonce gives users the option to pay immediately from their choice of accounts with a few taps on their smartphone. Pageonce makes paper bills, checks and stamps, and logging into several different websites for online bill pay, obsolete — helping users save time and avoid annoying late and overdraft fees.”
Here’s how it works:
Pageonce collects information about a user’s bills, including due date, amount due and itemized details, and presents them in an easy-to-read format on a smartphone. Before a bill is due, users get an alert that allows them to pay in three steps:
1. Select how to pay2. Enter the amount3. Tap Pay
This service is available on Apple and Android platforms for $4.99 per month.
South Florida Business Journal covers Weemba’s borrower-lender matching service.
- “Record September originations of $7.4 mil, up almost four-fold from $2.0 mil last year
- 11% compounded monthly growth rate over the last 12 months
- Currently, providing a 10.7% “seasoned return” to investors
- Actual annualized loss rate of 5.5%, beating forecast loss rate of 7.1%
- High credit-quality consumer loans: 737 average Experian Scorex PLUS credit score for first-time Prosper borrowers.”
After being acquired by Taulia, billFLO announces its services will be shutting down Dec 1, 2011.
To my knowledge, ING Direct is the only major U.S. bank blocking third-party PFM access. But users can direct their PFM around the gate with a special "read-only" access code.
How it works
It’s not particularly easy to find, buried three levels deep in MyAccounts | Preferences | Access Code.
The default setting is Blocked, as you can see in the first screenshot below.
But once you find the page, it couldn’t be simpler to set up. Simply press the blue Create Access Code button in the upper right, and in a split second, you have created a read-only access code and opened your account to PFM access.
To change back, you merely click the "Block" button in upper right.
The only thing missing is an explanation of what to do with the Access Code. Is it the username or password? While that’s explained in an link from the first page, it’s not on the second page where you need it. (BTW, it’s the password).
The bank also confirmed the new code via email right away (third screenshot).
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Access code main page (20 Oct 2011)
New access code
Email confirmation
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Note: OBR subscribers can access our previous reports on security at OnlineBankingReport.com (published in 1999, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007 and 2008).
The browser was supposed to make web design simple, at least in terms of page layout. But it’s always been tough to keep up with changing screen sizes, varying resolutions, and frustrating differences between browsers.
Liquid layouts that adjust automatically to the available screen real estate have been a huge help. But then along came the mobile browser, complicating everything both by their small size and by the two viewing modes, portrait and landscape.
But it’s not an insurmountable problem. Square is one financial company that’s doing it right. It’s website looks just as good on a 10-inch iPad2 screen as it does on a 24-inch monitor (see screenshot #1 to 4 below).
To make it work, copy and navigation options must be kept to a bare minimum. Square uses a catchy background image of its reader in use, then has an info box that "floats" depending on the screen size. It even works in portrait mode on the iPad (screenshot #4).
Of course, it’s much easier to pull off for a one-product company like Square than for a commercial bank with dozens of business lines.
But even Square had to make compromises on its smartphone layout (see inset above). Instead of asking for contact info, the company simply instructs users to download one or both of its apps: Square or Card Case.
Relevance for Netbankers: We are about to see a flood of redesigned websites using new design and programming techniques (e.g. HTML5). Citibank was the first major U.S. bank to simplify its design. Discover just emailed users today with a sneak preview of its pared down design (screenshot #6). And it already had a relatively clean design (screenshot #5).
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1. Square homepage on 24-inch monitor
2. Square on 12-inch laptop
3. Square iPad landscape
4. Square iPad portrait
5. Discover homepage (current)
6. Discover new (coming soon)
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Note: We cover financial website and mobile design issues periodically in our Online Banking Report (subscription).