CEO Jamie McDonald demonstrates Sparkroom's new lead-management service, LeadIQ is currently focused on mortgage leads and has found an average 120% ROI improvement across clients.
FinovateStartup Live: Aradiom Demos QuickFramework
Aradiom and mobile strategies are going to build a mobile banking application live, during their 5-minute slot.
You don't have to be an IT expert: The interface is 100% graphic.
Simple, easy to understand, efficient. Well done, Aradiom. Perfect delivery at this time of the day.
FinovateStartup Live: FirstROI Debuts CheckingFinder.com
Fun presentation. One of the most entertaining of the day. New service allows user to comparison shop for new rewards-checking accounts.
Online account-opening application powered by Andera.
Good interface. Launch date: 2 June 2008.
FinovateStartup Live: Business Logic Debuts MoneyPools
Proactive identity protection. New version of their flagship service, IDFreeze. Yesterday, they announced the first true family package.
Another service to manage your investments. The interface is simple and intuitive. A lot of graphics and a good Web 2.0 look and feel. The colors are not as fun as on either Zecco, or Mint. It looks like a comprehensive service, but not as cool as the leading Web 2.0 startups.
The presentation was also a bit too dry. No jokes, no frills. Remember that it is already 2:30 p.m., and the pace at Finovate is hectic. Nothing personal, but we need some entertaining presentations!
FinovateStartup Launches Tomorrow
Our first annual FinovateStartup debuts tomorrow in San Francisco. The 40 presenters will demo new and improved versions of their products. There will also be a number of new product launches, company rebrandings, and even several company debuts.
Christophe Langlois, from Visible Banking, will be live blogging here at NetBanker, so tune in tomorrow for his impressions. Also, expect even more opinions from the dozen other bloggers in the room, along with a number of other press representatives.
We'll be naming the Best of Show winners here on Wednesday and posting full-length videos of each demo soon. Sign up for our Finovate announcement list here (lower-left corner) if you want to be notified when the videos become available.
Quicken Loans is *Really* Using Twitter
Last week, I may have jumped the gun when I thought I'd found a bank using Twitter (post here). It's pretty apparent that E*Trade is not officially involved with that Twitter account.
But the ever diligent Ann-Marie Murphy was quick to add to the comments that her company, Quicken Loans, is *really* using Twitter to support its Quizzle personal finance site (see Quizzle coverage here). Beginning Feb. 22, the mortgage lender has posted 52 updates through last week (those would be called "tweets" if you are a real geek). That's about one per day, a good steady flow, without inundating the follower.
Here's Murphy's rationale for using Twitter:
We've found it to be a great way to chat with our site visitors, get honest and helpful feedback to make the site better and give interesting home-related tips to followers. I especially like the instantaneous feedback. Ask a question, get a bunch of answers from folks who enjoy helping others.
Now this is what a real Twitter update stream looks like, complete with custom design. Nice.
WaMu Posts Best Banking Facebook Page So Far
As a marketer you have to love WaMu. They are bold, quirky, and not afraid to poke fun at conventional wisdom. I haven't liked all their advertising campaigns, but that doesn't matter as long as the bank is reaching its target markets and delivering results.
While the bank has its challenges cleaning up the mortgage mess, its marketing department and ad agency are still producing good work. Case in point: WaMu's new Facebook page (below).
I realize that all banking pages in Facebook will appear lame to just about every 20-something that happens to stumble across them (see previous coverage here). But 20-somethings do still need checking accounts, debit/credit cards, vehicle loans, and so forth. So they will buy banking services. And what brand will they choose? The one that is at least making an effort to meet them on their turf with Facebook pages, text messaging, and humorous advertising, such as the talking banner campaign shown below.
WaMu's Facebook page, which looks like it was posted April 17, contains videos, a crossword game, a branch finder, a checking account application form, a fan area and a communications app (note 1) that can be added to your Facebook profile. Take a look yourself here.
Excellent work: A
WaMu Facebook Page (23 April 2008) (note 2)
Notes:
1. Even though I added it to my profile, I'm not sure what the WaMu Facebook application does. It appears to be a way to communicate with friends on Facebook and has 49 daily users.
2. The bar across the middle of the page is unrelated to the WaMu page; it's the new Facebook chat feature, that appears along the bottom of all screens, and messes up my screenshot. It does show you where the "fold" exists on a 13.3 high resolution laptop screen.
One Week Away: FinovateStartup Adds Invesra, Sparkroom, and Zopa to Demo Lineup
One week from now, we will be halfway through an amazing day at FinovateStartup, where 40 financial services startups strut their stuff at the UCSF Mission Bay conference center in San Francisco. There are still a few tickets remaining, so come steep yourself in financial innovation at this unique, one-day event.
We are pleased to announce three more companies to the demo lineup: Invesra, Sparkroom, and Zopa. See you next week.
Bank of America Reports 2.5 Million Users of My Portfolio, its Online Personal Finance Tool
Two months ago we published a table (here) showing active users at the leading online personal finance startups. Below is the table, updated with March traffic and the addition of one more player: Bank of America.
The bank, which offers a full-featured online personal finance management solution called My Portfolio, powered by Yodlee, has 2.5 million active users, according to BofA exec Marina Moore (note 3). That's an impressive 10% of the bank's online user base, and about 6x the total user base of all the online startups combined (note 4).
| Company | Users (1) | % of Total | March Traffic(2) | Jan Traffic(2) | Chg |
| Bank of America | 2.5 million | 86% | — | — | — |
| Mint | 180,000 | 6% | 160,000 | 150,000 | 7% |
| Wesabe | 100,000 | 3% | 28,000 | 41,000 | (32%) |
| Buxfer | 80,000 | 3% | 8,400 | 9,200 | (9%) |
| Geezeo | 20,000+ | 0.7% | 8,400 | 14,000 | (40%) |
| NetWorthIQ | 13,000 | 0.5% | 10,000 | 11,000 | (10%) |
| BillMonk | 10,000+ | 0.3% | 1,700 | 1,000 | +70% |
| Expensr | Five figs | 0.3%+ | 2,000 | 1,700 | +18% |
| Total | 2.9 million | 100% |
For more information:
- Online Banking Report (131/132): Personal Finance Features for Online Banking
- Online Banking Report (142/143): Social Personal Finance
- Our FinovateStartup Conference April 29 in San Francisco, where Buxfer, Expensr, Jwaala, Mint, and Wesabe will present the latest in online personal finance features
Notes/Sources:
1. Users: per BusinessWeek Online, Feb 2008, figures are reported by the companies and may include inactive users; Mint has been updated to 180,000 from 130,00 based on new figures reported in the Bank Technology News article published in April 2008
2. Traffic: per Compete estimates of website traffic for March 2008, retrieved April 21, 2008. Compete estimates traffic from its online data and can be off by a factor of two or three-fold for smaller websites.
3. As reported in a Bank Technology News article published in April 2008.
4. This table does not reflect all the players, such as Intuit's new Quicken Online, just the ones highlighted in the BusinessWeek article.
New Online Direct Bank: OnBank from M&T
It's been six months since the last direct bank launch, Provident Direct (coverage here). The latest entry is OnBank from M&T Bank, a $66 billion bank based in Buffalo, NY.
OnBank passes our strict 25-word homepage standard, joining ING Direct, EmigrantDirect on the short list of financial institutions with Google-like clarity on their home page. It takes just a few seconds to know that this is a place to get a high rate of interest on your money, but you should look elsewhere for a commercial loan.
The user has just two main choices of what to do next (screenshots below):
- Apply…encased in a trendy lime green button
- More details…which leads to an equally succinct page that answers the important questions (see last screenshot below):
– fee free
– minimum balance of $1
– FDIC insured
– quick online opening process
The only thing missing is a comparison to other banks. Given that it's one of the highest savings rates available right now, OnBank should be aggressively showing how it compares to key online rivals, including ING Direct's 3%.
Not only is the bank direct and to the point in its copywriting, it also uses simple, effective graphics, including a gimmick sure to gain attention. To reinforce its 24/7 "always on" branding, OnBank takes a page from the iPhone weather forecast interface, showing the current time in reverse lettering in front of a background image that changes to match the time of day. As you can see in the three screenshots below: daylight (4:42 PM), sun setting (8:58 PM), and nighttime (9:02 PM). Presumably they also have a sunrise background. The bank displays the time according to the user's machine, PDT in my case.
We didn't test the Metavante-powered online application all the way through, but it looked relatively straightforward, although graphically not as appealing as the other OnBank pages.
Thanks to Bank Deals for the find.
OnBank homepage during daytime (17 April 2008)
Evening (16 April 2008)
Night (16 April 2008)
"More details page" (17 April 2008)
Deja Vu: The First* Canadian Person-to-Person Lending Service Readies for Launch — CommunityLend
Community Lend reached out to bloggers last week to get the launch buzz started (note 1). The site appears ready to go, all it needs is a loan/borrow signup form in place the email notification box in the center of the homepage (below).
From the look of it, the startup has a good design team. It's direct and to the point in the main section while staying fresh with blog posts, selected news stories, and press releases displayed in widget-like boxes along the bottom of the screen (below the fold on my laptop). But I'll reserve judgement until I see the actual lending and borrowing screens when they become available.
The most interesting part of the pre-release info was the list of official advisors to the startup which included Virgin Money (US) CEO Asheesh Advani as well as the Phil Hopper, CEO of Australian P2P lender, iGrin. It will be interesting to see if those relationships turn into future Canadian partnerships.
For more information on P2P lending, see our recent Online Banking Report (#148/149) and catch Prosper and Loanio on stage at our FinovateStartup April 29 in San Francisco.
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*Technically, IOU Central was first in the Canadian market. However, a few weeks after launch it was forced to shut down as it works to satisfy regulators (coverage here). Therefore, the honor looks like it will go to CommunityLend.
CommunityLend pre-launch homepage (17 April 2008)
Note:
1. Blogger outreach is the modern day equivalent to the press conference. Dave Colman's emails to bloggers resulted in five blog posts that same day, and that's without any news other than its UNOPENED site had been remodeled. Think back to the last time you revamped your website, did you get five press mentions?
E*Trade Bank Posts Savings Rates on Twitter
I was searching Twitter today to see if any major brokerages were using it to reach out to customers. The only hit was E*Trade which is using Twitter to update its Complete Savings Account rates. It seems to be coming from the bank, but it's possible someone else, perhaps an employee or fan, is responsible for the two entries: the first on March 12 announcing a 3.45% yield and then on April 1 when the rate dropped to 3.01% (note 1).
Regardless of who's responsible, it makes sense to use the new channel for outbound communications. If nothing else, the 90 seconds spent creating those two entries have already generated a favorable mention in this blog.
For those of you not familiar with Twitter, it's a communications tool that allows users to post short (140 characters max) updates about what they are doing, what they are thinking, or anything else. Unless the user chooses to make their updates private, anyone can read them, just like a blog post. That's why Twittering is sometimes called micro-blogging. But it's more like "broadcast instant messaging" for most people who's musing will be seen by just a handful of friends, family and/or colleagues.
For more info from an actual Twitter user, read Ron Shevlin's recent post.
Note:
1. I suspect it's an "unofficial" Twitter page because they didn't put APY behind the percentage, although that is spelled out in the short bio section in the upper right, and they are not using the company logo.