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Stealth Finsphere Corp Lands $10 mil for Mobile Transaction Verification Services

By Jim Bruene Posted on June 20, 2008
Categories: Credit/Debit Cards, Finsphere, Mobile Banking, Mobile Payments, Security

Last week, the Puget Sound Business Journal reported on a Pacific Northwest stealth startup that’s receiving a lot of attention from Silicon Valley, at least measured in dollars. The $10 million round for Finsphere is an impressive endorsement, especially given the apparent involvement of prominent VC Mohr Davidow.

There’s not a lot we know about the company other than the founders are out of the wireless industry, and the company’s services are described as “location-based transaction verification services.” That sounds like using the GPS-based or triangulated location of mobile phone users to authenticate card transactions and/or online banking logins. Armed with the GPS reading, card companies would know that you (or at least your mobile phone) are where your credit card activity says you are, e.g., buying a tank of gas in Washington D.C.

With GPS capabilities coming to the iPhone next month, this could be a very large market indeed. If we are right about the product, we’ll try to convince the company to demo at one of our Finovate conferences.

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MoneyAisle Bags $1 million in First Week

By Jim Bruene Posted on June 19, 2008
Categories: Deposits, Checking, Savings, CDs

The deposit-auction site MoneyAisle, which we wrote about last week, has reached its first milestone, $1 million in deposits. Assuming $25k per account, that's only 40 customers, but it's a decent start for a novel way to chase rates online. The company also said it had signed 7 new bank participants, bringing the total to 72.

The company has attracted good press coverage, especially in the Boston area, where MoneyAisle Chairman Ray Stata is the well-known co-founder and current Chairman of Analog Devices. There was a good interview with Stata posted at NECN.com last week.

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Enliven Your Website with Streaming Activity, Tickers, or Counters

By Jim Bruene Posted on June 18, 2008
Categories: Bank 2.0, Geezeo, ING Direct, Zillow

One thing hard to approximate online is the hubbub of a busy branch, retail outlet, or event. Other than the occasional popup inviting you to chat about whatever financial product you’re viewing, most financial websites are lonely experiences. Sure, Web-based video can personalize the online experience, but that’s still a one-on-one experience. That’s why building an online community is so important in the long run (see note 1).

One way to demonstrate just how much activity takes place at your website or through electronic banking, is to show a stream of real-time activity. For example, Zillow’s new mortgage marketplace shows realtime mortgage quotes as they come in from the mortgage brokers using the site (see above).

Geezeo recently added a public news feed to its site, similar to what social media users experience at Facebook.

And ING Direct has counted up the interest in pays customer in a little meter within online banking, as of a few minutes ago it was $4.5 million shy of $9 billion.

But the most daring example is Progressive Insurance which displays actual specific rate comparisons to its competitors in the center of its homepage
(see screenshot below).

Financial institutions could show streams of activity in the following areas:

credit/debit card transaction data: $63.42 at JC Penney’s Minneapolis, MN
bill payment transaction data (only to major merchants): $124.22 to PGE, LA, CA
funds transfers: A.C. transferred $1500 from checking to savings
results from online calculators: $15,000 vehicle at 6.5% for 5 years = $432/mo
mortgage quotes/locks: $572,000 purchase mortgage locked today at 6.375% with 1% fee
insurance quotes: $1,000,000 10-year level term for 42-year-old nonsmoker for A.E. in Tampa for $1123/yr
interest paid on deposits, checks processed, loans funded, website visits, online banking login, bills paid
comments in blogs/forums
search terms used on-site and possibly the top results
questions asked/answered online

Of course, you’ll need to make certain there is absolutely no data streamed that could be traced back to an individual user.

Note:
1. See the following Online Banking Reports for more information:

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BancVue/FirstROI Launches Checking Finder

By Jim Bruene Posted on June 17, 2008
Categories: BancVue, Deposits, Checking, Savings, CDs, Lead Generation, Pricing, Verity CU

FirstROI, a division of Austin, TX-based BancVue (previous coverage here) launched its CheckingFinder service June 2. FinovateStartup attendees received a sneak peak in April and rewarded it with a Best of Show award (video here). The innovative service helps consumers find the best BancVue-powered rewards checking account based on geographic location, APY, or total return (see second screenshot below).

How it Works
The first challenge is getting customers to the site. FirstROI is investing heavily in Google AdWords to get the word out. For example, a search on “checking accounts” at Google today (note 1), displayed CheckingFinder in second place, trailing only BofA (see screenshot below).

As a relative newcomer to AdWords, the company’s bid price would have to be high to score the second slot over such big names as Schwab (#3), HSBCdirect (#4), Key Bank (#5), WaMu (#6), Chase (#10) and Wells Fargo (#11). CheckingFinder may very well be paying more than BofA, depending on how Google’s ad-positioning algorithm weighs its relevance.

Clicking the AdWords link results in a list of banks presorted by closest distance to the IP address used to search Google (see next screenshot). Unfortunately, the closest participating BancVue client, Altra Federal Credit Union, is 1043 miles away
(see note 2).

You can also sort the results by rate (APY) or plug in an estimated checking account balance and ATM usage and have the results sorted by highest annual return
(see note 3).

After selecting the account you prefer, users land on a page that lays out the offer in more detail and includes a bright green “open now” bar at the bottom of the page and another open button in the webpage bullseye, the upper-right corner. The online account opening process is powered by Andera.

Summary
Overall, it’s a good “micro” search engine, helping users quickly find the best checking account from the company’s client base. The big downside from a consumer perspective is that it’s currently limited to just 60 participating BancVue reward-checking clients. It will be more effective if they can get more of their 400+ banks and credit unions on board.

While I think most consumers will understand that they are searching a subset of available checking accounts, I think BancVue should disclose a bit more about its relationship with the financial institutions listed. That fact is touched on in the About Us section, but the FAQs don’t address this, nor are there any direct links back to BancVue or FirstROI.

Notes:

1. Google search conducted from Seattle IP address at 1 PM Pacific time, 17 June 2008.

2. Verity Credit Union, which is about 4 miles from my home, is a BancVue client, but their reward-checking account, Velocity Checking, is currently paying a short-term teaser rate of 6.75% to celebrate its 75th anniversary (APY updated 20 June per Shari’s comment). When Verity returns to its normal 5% APY, its account will be available through CheckingFinder. There is also a slightly closer California bank participating, Tri Counties Bank, but it is not marketing to Seattle residents, so I don’t see it in my CheckingFinder results page.

3. Jeffry Pilcher, who recently left Weber Marketing to found his own consultancy, ICONiQ, is also blogging at The Financial Brand. He cautions that the days of differentiating your brand with “reward checking” has passed in many markets.

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FiLife Debuts, Personal Finance Powered by Dow Jones and IAC

By Jim Bruene Posted on June 13, 2008
Categories: FiLife, Lead Generation, Personal Financial Management

I’ve been reading the FiLife blog and monitoring its URL since I heard about the intriguing concept last summer. After a couple false starts, the site went live yesterday.

The unique joint effort between News Corp’s Dow Jones and IAC is a cross between a personal finance tool like those powered by LeadFusion, a finance forum like FatWallet, a voting site such as Digg, and a full-blown magazine such as Money. It’s dripping with Web 2.0 touches from the trendy design to blogging with attitude and harnessing the collective intelligence of the user base.

The core FI Deals area shown below allows users to self-assess their financial situations. In FiLife-speak, it shows how you stack up, in key areas such as income, home value, credit score, debt and even the value of your car. The people pyramid (in the screenshot below) shows an orange stick figure representing where you stand against the rest of the country.

Following a few ideas on how to improve your standing, FiLife presents financial deals in descending order of how valuable the FiLife community deems them. In this case, a mortgage offer from Citibank is listed first due to its top-of-the-line 5-point score. In this case, since it’s the first day the site’s been live, the score comes from a single review by a FiLife staffer. As the site gains users, this score would reflect the average across all reviewers.

The other key area is the FiDeals (screenshot below). Here users can search the top deals across all categories as voted on by the community. Some deals have been placed in the site via sponsorship dollars. Those are indicated by the gold pyramid. Blue pyramid offers have been added by staff members. In either case, the score shown within the colored pyramid reflects the vote of the community, which includes staff member votes.

First Impressions
The deep-pocketed owners have the resources to build traffic and establish the FiLife brand, if they find it profitable. Assuming it gets significant visitor traction, this could be the place to find financial and banking deals online, at least in the United States.

The business model is clearly ad-supported. There’s nothing on the site at this point that would command subscription fees. And so far, the advertising is less intrusive than many other financial portals. And the bright look and good organization, not to mention professional personal finance content, add up to a potential winner.

But FiLife faces the same problem all ad-supported personal finance sites have: how to walk the fine line between the needs of users who want to find the best price vs. that of the advertisers that do not want to compete solely on price. FiLife sponsors may bolt if the community consistently posts poor reviews on their price-value. On the other hand, Google is dong just fine with AdWords, by ensuring that advertising is relevant. It will be interesting to see how FiLife strikes the proper balance.

And it’s no sure thing that FiLife ends up as the winner in the space. FiLife faces competition not only from startups such as SmartHippo, Wesabe, and Mint, but also from entrenched sites such as BankRate and TheStreet.com. And don’t count out the incumbent personal finance magazines, including Dow Jones’s own SmartMoney. These properties have enormous brand recognition and have already built substantial websites.

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Bank of America Hits Two Milestones: One Million Mobile and 25 Million Online Users

By Jim Bruene Posted on June 11, 2008
Categories: Bank of America, Metrics & Market Research, Mobile Banking

As expected, Bank of America reached the one-million-mobile-user milestone this week. Last month the bank disclosed it had 840,000 active mobile users as of March 31. With 160,000 new users in the past 9+ weeks, it appears that BofA has stayed on the 75,000/mo pace of first quarter.

Even more interesting to me was the news that the bank has "nearly 25 million" online banking users. That's 3 million more than the bank had last fall, an impressive 13% gain. Six years ago, there weren't even 20 million online banking households in the entire country (see note 1).

The bank also passed along a few other mobile metrics in today's press release:

40% are using mobile for money movement (bill pay and/or funds transfer within BofA accounts)
80% viewed transactions and balance data (leaving 20% who check balances only)
In May, the bank had 4 million mobile sessions, or 4.2 sessions per user/per month, assuming 950,000 active users
Two-thirds of mobile users are under 35, about 13% are age 35-44 and 20% are older than 45

Note:

1. Source: Online Banking Report: 2008 through 2017 Forecast

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Put Your Bank in Apple’s iPhone 3G App Store

By Jim Bruene Posted on June 10, 2008
Categories: Apple, Intuit, iPhone, Mobile Banking

I’ve written about how the iPhone could change the way consumers use mobile phones to access data (see note 1). But this slide from the Steve Jobs keynote yesterday at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), says it much better:

In case you can’t read the slide, it says that 98% of iPhone users use the built-in Safari browser, 94% use email and 90% use text messaging. That’s an amazing level of usage for what used to be considered “advanced” smartphone features. So far, the impact on ecommerce companies has been relatively small, with just 6 million users worldwide. But with Apple dropping the price by 50% to $199, there will soon be 10, 20, or 30 million Americans connecting to the Web via iPhone. If 90%+ use the browser and messaging, it will have a major impact in online/mobile banking usage.

New App Store
And to help those millions of new users find useful things to do on their phone, Apple is building a new App Store, accessible directly from the main deck of the iPhone once users download the 2.0 software in July. The App Store will include thousands of applications optimized for the iPhone that can be downloaded over the air.

Some will have a cost, with the developer keeping 70% of the revenue, but most are expected to be free. Since there is NO COST to list your app in Apple’s App Store (see update below), financial services companies should rush to get their app loaded as close to the July 11 launch date as possible.

So far, only two banks, Bank of America and Germany’s Postbank, have included their apps in the current online applications directory (here). A number of other financial apps are listed including Wesabe, Buxfer, and the latest, QuickBooks from Intuit (see inset right and screenshots below). Expect many more in the months and years to come.

Update 11 June: Important clarification from commenter “gerontius” (number 3 below). The current app directory includes webpages optimized for the iPhone. The new App Directory will include “native” apps that run directly on the iPhone operating system. That makes the bar quite a bit higher, depending on what you want to do.

Bank of America Bank of America on iphone Buxfer Buxfer on iphone

myBudget myBudget on iphone Postbank Postbank ibanking on iphone

Wesabe Wesabe on iphone Yodlee Yodlee on iphone

Note:

1. For more info, see our Online Banking Report on Mobile Banking

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MoneyAisle Launches Real-time Deposit Auctions, a Potentially Disruptive Technology

By Jim Bruene Posted on June 9, 2008
Categories: Lead Generation, MoneyAisle, Pricing

If you were to sit down with a blank piece of paper and design the perfect friction-free system for determining deposit rates, your invention would almost certainly include some type of competitive bidding. Over the years we’ve seen several banks test eBay-style auctions including PNC Bank, WaMu, and most recently Zions Direct. Those incorporated a traditional auction model, with the bank putting a deposit up for auction and selling it to the highest bidding consumer.

The latest entrant into auction-style finance, is MoneyAisle, a deposit marketplace from neoSaej, that launched today. MoneyAisle employs a reverse auction, where the consumer offers to buy an item, in this case a deposit of a certain size, and sellers bid against each other to offer the best price, in this case the highest interest rate.

In theory, MoneyAisle comes closest to the perfect deposit-pricing model. It’s right out of the Economics 101 textbook. If they can get enough buyers and sellers to make it work, it could cause a serious disruption in the market for so-called high-yield savings accounts and certificates of deposit (CDs).

I really like the auction model, but there are some obstacles for it to overcome on its way to market dominance. Here are a few that come to mind:

1. How to convince users that it’s in their best interest to take the rate offered at the end of the auction? The first thing I did after seeing the 3.1% offer was to type in www.ingdirect.com and see how it compared. And given that ING was just a bit less, 3.0%, it’s hard to get excited about opening a new account with an unknown bank for just 10 more basis points. Or worse yet, type “high yield savings rates” into Google and see five advertisers that can beat the 3.1% (see Google screenshot below).

2. How to make the auction’s feel “real?” It seems like a game, which is not necessarily bad. Users choose a deposit product, $ amount, and their state of residence, then spin the dial. Then in real time you watch the results as banks bid against each other for your money (see Step 2 screenshot below). Then after 60 seconds or so, the winner is displayed (see Step 3 screenshot below) and you can proceed to make your deposit, provided you are satisfied with the rate and the bank making the offer.

3. How to keep one bank from dominating the bidding? If the lowest-cost bank, or the one most skilled at cross-selling, or the one most in need of deposits, consistently bids “above-market” rates, will the remaining banks stay in the game?

4. How do you compete with the offers available via Google AdWords, another type of auction (see below)?

How it Works
After registering with a bare minimum of info (username, password, and security question only), it’s a simple three-step process that couldn’t be easier:

1. Decide whether you want a high-yield savings account or a CD (see step 1, screenshot below)

2. Start the auction (see step 2, screenshot below) and participating banks bid in real time via a preprogrammed, proxy bidding system

3. A few minutes later, accept the winning rate and arrange for account opening with the winning bank (see step 3, screenshot below)

In testing today, 51 banks bid on my high-yield savings account (at just after midnight Pacific Time) and 72 bid on a 1-year CD (at 5 PM Pacific Time). We were offered identical 3.1% APYs for a $5,000 savings account in Washington state and a $50,000 one in New York. When we ran an actual savings-account auction after registering, the winning bidder was Massachusetts-based Beverly National Bank with again, a 3.1% rate (see note 1). A $25,000 1-year CD in Washington earned a top bid of 3.90% by Michigan-based Isabella Bank, similar to the best rate advertised on Google.

MoneyAisle step 1: Choose a deposit product

Step 2: Watch as banks go through several rounds of bidding to reach the final rate

Step 3: Confirm you want the rate within 30 minutes and complete the rest of the form; the winning bank then contacts the customer to complete the transaction

Note:

1. The bank’s bid was more than double its published rate for a $20,000 deposit. But Beverly does currently pay 3.0% APY on $100,000 balances. When I reran the auction at 5PM Pacific Time, the bid was 30 basis points higher, 3.4% from Umbrella Bank.

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GreenNote Introduces P2P Student Loan Hybrid: Virgin Money Meets Facebook with a Dash of Prosper

By Jim Bruene Posted on June 5, 2008
Categories: GreenNote, P2P Lending, Social Networks, Student Loans

This week two Finovate Startup alums launched the
services they demo’d a month ago at our conference:

June 2: CheckingFinder from FirstROI/BancVue
June 4: Friends & family student loan facilitator, GreenNote

We’ll start with GreenNote and look at CheckingFinder tomorrow. Although I’d seen the GreenNote demo, since it was in closed beta, I hadn’t had a chance to use it until earlier this week.

My first impressions are favorable. The site helps students reach out to family and friends to put together a “personal loan consortium” to finance educational expenses (also called a “pledge drive”). While GreenNote does not currently provide access to funds from outside the student’s own network of friends and family, the service does offer tools to solicit loan pledges via email. It also collects the resulting loan pledges from interested parties, then sets up and services the resulting loan.

The process:

Students solicit loan pledges from their network, and hopefully the networks of their network
Interested friends, family, or anyone else who’s received a loan request from the student (either directly, or through forwarding) create a GreenNote account and make loan pledges (minimum $100)
Once the loan is funded (minimum $1,000, no maximum), GreenNote verifies enrollment, collects the money, and packages it into a single loan agreement with the student
When it comes time to repay the loan, lenders can choose to forego the principal and/or interest and gift it to the student; lenders will also be able to lower the rate

The terms:

Loans are deferred for up to five years while the borrower is in school, then initiate a six-month grace period before repayment begins
Interest accrues during the deferment period
Repayment is over a 10-year period, meaning that lenders must commit their money for 15 years
The rate is currently 6.8% fixed, but GreenNote takes 100 basis points of that, so lenders receive a 5.8% return (which they can elect to lower at repayment time)
GreenNote charges a 2% loan fee at funding, with a minimum of $49

Coming soon:

Allow third parties to browse loans they might want to fund (e.g., alumni)
Facebook integration

Analysis
At first glance, it looks like an expensive way to put a nice wrapper around funds that have already been made available by the student’s family. And certainly, if moms and dads are providing the bulk of the cash, it’s not necessary to pay 2% for a promissory note. For most loans, you can do that for less at online paperwork specialists such as Virgin Money or LoanBack.

However, the power of GreenNote’s model is tapping into the friends of friends, and the friends of those friends, and so on. As a student puts together an email pledge drive, recipients are encouraged to pass the request on to appropriate parties who might be willing to participate. For example, Pat who is headed to Michigan State, knows Jon whose uncle is a successful alum of the school. Jon’s uncle, who’d be highly unlikely to simply write Pat a check, might be very interested in putting a few thousand dollars into a long-term 5.8% deposit that earns him a fair rate of return and helps someone go to Michigan State.

GreenNote is well thought out and well implemented. The main problem though, is finding enough deep pockets willing to put thousands of dollars on deposit for up to 15 years with no guarantee of repayment.

Financial institution opportunities
Lenders have taken some heat recently as they’ve cut back on student lending during the credit market turmoil. A bank or credit union could gain some positive PR by facilitating this type of lending among their own customer base and community. It could be built from scratch or potentially in partnership with GreenNote.

Background
GreenNote is backed by Menlo Ventures, among others, and has an impressive board and advisors including prolific blogger and partner at Glenbrook Partners, Scott Loftesness. Bill Harris of Intuit, X.com (now PayPal), and Passmark (now RSA) fame is on the board. The launch was covered this week by TechCrunch, VentureBeat, and C|Net among others.

GreenNote homepage (5 June 2008)

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Financial Direct Mail Drops 10%, Still Delivers 40 Offers to Every U.S. Household

By Jim Bruene Posted on June 3, 2008
Categories: Direct Mail, Market Research & Metrics

Did your recycling bin feel a bit lighter last quarter? According to Mintel Comperemedia, financial service direct mail was down 10% in the latest quarter:

Total
Q1 2008: 4.2 billion pieces Down 10%
Q1 2007: 4.6 billion pieces

Credit cards
Q1 2008: 2.6 billion pieces Down 14%
Q1 2007: 3.1 billion pieces

I’d like to think that online marketing has turned the corner and is finally making a dent in traditional direct marketing. But it’s probably more likely that card companies, using stricter underwriting, simply had 14% fewer credit-worthy prospects. Plus, a few more people are opting out of snail mail (see note below).

Assuming 80 million credit-worthy households in the United States (out of 110 million total), the average household received 53 mailings in first quarter. If you are prime or alt-prime credit, you likely saw little-to-no change in your junk mail pile.

Note: photo credit
Proving once again that you can find anything online, the picture above is from Jason Carter’s blog where he is collecting credit card offers. This is his first-quarter haul, 23 for his wife and 7 for him. While that is slightly below the national average, Jason has been actively opting out of direct mail offers, so it is not a representative example.

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Wachovia Way2Save Lands 650,000 Accounts

By Jim Bruene Posted on June 2, 2008
Categories: Advertising & Promotion, Deposits, Checking, Savings, CDs, Wachovia

In an interview in the Charlotte Business Journal (here), Wachovia’s Savings Director Kathryn Black reveals that the bank has added 650,000 Way2Save accounts since its launch four months ago, and are “well ahead of our goal to have 1 million Way2Save customers by the end of (2008).” She also said they are looking at expanding the service:

We consider (Way2Save) generation one. We’re continuing to think through what’s next — how do we make this product better? How do we add on to this idea for other segments who have different needs?

— Kathryn Black, Wachovia’s Savings Director, 30 May 2008

The Way2Save account offers up to 15% APY in the first year on a maximum average annual balance of $600, built up through automated savings of up to $100/mo. That works out to a maximum of $90 in interest the first year (not including the golf bonus detailed below), about $70 more before-tax than you can earn on other high-yield accounts. For more details, see our previous coverage here. For small savers, it provides above-average returns and helps them sock away cash without thinking about it.

Way2Save Golf Bonus
In addition to the maximum 15% first-year rate, Wachovia ran a promotion in May tied to this year’s PGA tournament Wachovia Championship (see screenshot below). All Way2Save customers, new and existing, will earn a rate of interest in June, July and August pegged to the number of strokes under par scored by the tournament winner. With Anthony Kim beating the course record by 3 strokes, for a 16-under score, Wachovia is now paying 16% interest for the next 3 months. For the savers that started their $100/mo contributions in February, it will be another $15 in extra interest. For those just getting started in May, it’s only $5 more before tax. It also means that the first year’s blended rate — (16% x 3 months) + (5% x 9 months) — is just under 8% (see note 1).

Analysis
So it’s no wonder Wachovia has attracted a slew of accounts. It’s been live for about four months, so it’s adding about 150,000 accounts per month. The most anyone could have amassed in the account so far is $400 plus a buck per electronic transaction. Assuming average balances of $200 per account, the product has attracted approximately $130 million so far.

Whether the new account pans out for the bank is yet to be seen. Assuming it pays out an average of $60 extra to each new Way2Save customer, Wachovia will have invested more than $60 million to attract a million low-balance savings accounts. And that doesn’t include the marketing or customer-service expenses or the cost to open 15 new checking accounts for one person so they can open 15 Way2Save accounts (see previous post). It will be years before Wachovia knows if this product has a positive ROI.

Granted, a bigger strategic issue is at play here: creating awareness of the Wachovia brand. It could be a huge success if the bank opens up hundreds of thousands of new customer relationships due to the promotion.

Note:
1. The 16% rate applies to accounts opened before May 30th.

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Snack-Sized Innovation: Safe Deposit Box Content Archives

By Jim Bruene Posted on May 29, 2008
Categories: Alerts & Messaging, Insurance, Security & Privacy, Wells Fargo

I heard from a new company last week that has created a service to help life insurance and bank-account holders to notify beneficiaries periodically that they are named on the account. According to FindYourPolicy.com (see screenshot below), $1 billion in insurance policies go unclaimed each year due to unknown or lost beneficiaries. Although it sounds simple, tracking down beneficiaries can be a timely and expensive process. Outsourcing some or all of that is an appealing idea.

However, as a consumer-direct service, I don’t think FindYourPolicy.com will get a lot of traction. The list price of $29.95 plus $3.95 per month is a lot for twice-yearly postcards (see note 1) to your beneficiaries. But the company is likely more interested in setting a high retail “value” on the service so they can wholesale it to financial institutions for pennies on the dollar.

Using the same concept for safe deposit boxes
While the beneficiary notification is an idea deserving of a second look, I was more intrigued with another of its features, safe deposit documentation and notification service. I just spent 30 minutes last Friday making a trip to the bank to look in my safe deposit to see if my son’s social security card was there (note 2). Of course, it wasn’t. I could have saved the trip if I’d had good records on its contents. I’m sure I wrote it down somewhere, but it would likely take much longer than 30 minutes to find it.

Ideas to help memory-challenged customers like myself:

Simplest: It would be great if my bank had a simple email-like software app available near the safe-deposit area where I could list the contents of the box and then email the info to myself AND store a record of that communication within online banking so I could access it years from now when the email is long lost.
Harder: In addition to manually entering info, have a scanner available so that I can scan copies of the documents in the safe deposit box for a digital record.
Hardest: Extend the service to the home/office and allow me either to store items virtually, using my home/office scanner, or by uploading/emailing documents into the virtual safe-deposit box. This is the core idea behind vSafe from Wells Fargo.

However, as Tripp Johnson at Gonzobanker so eloquently laid out in this article, there are serious questions regarding overall demand for virtual safe-deposit services, not to mention pesky compliance issues that cannot be ignored.

FindYourPolicy.com homepage (29 May 2008; see note 3)

Note:

1. Why TWICE yearly? Once per year seems like plenty. Or how about one postcard and one email message each year? (Update 1 June: The reason for mailing 2x per year is that the U.S. Postal Service forwards mail only for six months, so with this frequency the company ensures it gets the forwarding address. (See comment #2 from Michael Hartmann of FindYourPolicy.com)

2. My bank is requiring a faxed copy of my 18-year-old son’s social security card in order to add him to my account. I’m all for good authentication (who isn’t?), but that seems extreme. More on that in a future post.

3. Sometime during the past 10 days, FindYourPolicy.com added the “member of American Bankers Association” seal. It’s a reasonable touch, but it only means they’ve paid at least $1,250 for a service membership to the ABA.

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