Links from My April 13 FIS Customer Conference Presentation

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Conferences, FIS

Thanks again to FIS for allowing me to speak at its annual customer confab in Milwaukee. And thanks to everyone who attended.

Here are the links from my presentation in the order presented:

2010/2011 highlights:

Pack is back! Capital One and Discover Card preapproved lookup (Netbanker post) Square  ISIS  BMO MoneyLogic powered by Strands (FinovateEurope 2011 demo) Chase Bank Community Giving Facebook page American Express Small Business Saturday Facebook page

 Mobile does new tricks:

Online Banking Report mobile/online forecast comScore Mobile Financial research results Amazon Price Check iphone app Visa local shopping iphone app MasterCard Marketplace (Overwhelming Offers) iphone app Chase Bank iPhone app with mobile remote deposit Mitek* Mobile Photo BillPay Mitek* mobile receipt capture P2P Payments from PayPal*, MasterCard MoneySend, ZashPay  from Fiserv* (Finovate 2010 demo), Popmoney from CashEdge (Finovate 2010 demo), Serve…

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Bank Website Redesigns are Back: Salem Five Outdoes Itself

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Salem Five Savings Bank, Website Usability & Design

Unless it was mission critical, or compliance mandated, there is a good chance your pet project was put on hold during the 2008-2010 financial crisis. Most website-redesign projects, despite good ROI, drop into that "discretionary spending" bucket.

But as we approach the one-third-mark of 2011, we are starting to see the results of design projects green-lighted in the last budget cycle. Bank of America, the most-visited financial website, rolled out its new design late last year.

But smaller financial institutions are also doing great work, ofttimes offering a better user experience than the big brands, which must be all things to all people. The Financial Brand rounded up a half-dozen great examples in a March 23 post.

One that I particularly liked (note 1) is Salem Five's new homepage (shown below). Not only is it gorgeous, the navigation is outstanding with a large box…

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Ally Bank Posts Real-time Call-center Wait Times on Homepage

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Best of the Web, Service

Ally Bank made news this week as one of the few major banks offering consumer PC/scanner-based remote deposit (USAA and US Bank also offer it, note 1). But that new feature has not yet filtered out  to its website. While disappointed in not finding what I was searching for, I did notice something even better:   

The wait time for its call center, updated in real-time, right at the top of every page (see screenshot, below). 

The first few times I checked the site, it always said zero and I wondered if the bank left it permanently there to demonstrate its call-center prowess. But now the wait-time has moved out to six minutes (11 AM Pacific time on a Thursday...a couple days in front of the U.S. tax deadline).

But that's even more important for public acknowledgement. When wait times stretch to several minutes, customers can decide to…

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Can’t make it to FinovateSpring? Then don’t miss out on FinovateFall this September in NYC!

By finovate Posted on
Categories: FinovateFall 2011, FinovateSpring 2011

In less than four weeks, dozens of leading fintech companies will take the stage at FinovateSpring in San Francisco to demo their latest innovations to a packed audience of companies like Wells Fargo, PayPal, Time Inc., SunTrust, Bank of America, H&R Block, Ally Bank, Intuit, Yahoo, Citi, Jack Henry, Bank of Montreal, Bain Capital and Visa.

While we are incredibly excited about that show (it's shaping up to be the biggest Finovate ever, and we still have a few tickets remaining), we would be doing you a disservice if we didn't point out that the FinovateFall pre-sale ticket price of only $995 (a savings of $400) will expire this Friday (less than 48 hours from now).

So, if you're unable to join us in San Francisco in May or simply want a great deal on FinovateFall, I highly encourage you to lock in your seat and your savings…

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Can’t make it to FinovateSpring? Then don’t miss out on FinovateFall this September in NYC!

By finovate Posted on
Categories: FinovateFall2011, FinovateSpring 2011

In less than four weeks dozens of leading fintech companies will take the stage at FinovateSpring in San Francisco to demo their latest innovations to a packed audience of companies like Wells Fargo, PayPal, Time Inc., SunTrust, Bank of America, H&R Block, Ally Bank, Intuit, Yahoo, Citi, Jack Henry, Bank of Montreal, Bain Capital and Visa.

While we are incredibly excited about that show (it's shaping up to be the biggest Finovate ever and we still have a few tickets remaining), we would be doing you a disservice if we didn't point out that the FinovateFall pre-sale ticket price of only $995 (a savings of $400) will expire this Friday (less than 48 hours from now).

So, if you're unable to join us in San Francisco in May or simply want a great deal on FinovateFall, I highly encourage you to lock in your seat and your savings…

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Alumni News — Week of April 4, 2011

By finovate Posted on
Categories: Cardlytics, eWise, Fiserv, Kasasa, Mint.com, SmartyPig, Stocktwits

To see our Alumni companies' updates in real time, follow us on Twitter. 

eWise officially relocates from Australia to Denver, Colorado. http://bit.ly/finovate44114 Fiserv and Cardlytics partner for merchant-funded in-statement rewards. http://bit.ly/finovate45112.   See last month's Online Banking Report for more info. Southwest Louisiana Credit Union joins Kasasa with fun and games on April Fools' Day. SLCU has served the Lake Charles, LA, region since 1952. http://bit.ly/finovate45111  Mint introduces mobile advice for iPhone. The feature will come to the Android app this summer. http://bit.ly/finovate44111 SmartyPig launched a free mobile app for Android. http://bit.ly/Finovate44112 Follow the markets through the StockTwits blog network. Users can follow more than 40 profiles in StockTwits network. http://bit.ly/finovate45113

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Bank of America Offering Trusteer’s Rapport Plug-in to Protect Online Banking Customers

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Bank of America, Security, Security & Privacy, Trusteer

If there was any question as to whether Trusteer  had become the industry standard in online banking protection, it was answered this week. Bank of America is now offering the optional Rapport protection to its 29 million online banking customers. Ann Carrns in the NY Times Bucks blog wrote about it a week ago, but I guessed I missed it in all the April Fools Day commotion.

ING Direct was first to offer the program, launching in May 2008. Since then dozens of financial institutions have followed including Zions, PSECU, CIBC, PayPal, Santander, RBS and about 70 more (see full client list below in note 2).

In total, Trusteer says it's been downloaded more than 20 million times.

Analysis: It's a good move by Bank of America. While Rapport does not protect from all possible threats, it does seem…

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Watching the Mobile Payments Battle Unfold

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Alt Payments, Conferences, Mobile Commerce, Mobile Payments

Editor's note: This guest post was written by Daniel Thomas, a 25-year veteran of the financial services industry and a principal consultant with Mindful Insights LLC. He's been involved in strategy and product development for Online Resources Corporation, ARINC, and TeleCheck. He recently authored a report on merchant-funded in-statement rewards for Online Banking Report.


The Alternative Payments Systems Innovations (APSI) conference held in San Francisco last week may want to change its name to Mobile Payments Systems Innovation. It seems that all things mobile has totally eclipsed any interest in non-mobile untraditional payments.

And for good reason, the speakers and a hundred or so fully engaged attendees at the second annual APSI summit, seemed unanimously to agree that the convergence of virtual and physical purchasing, social networking, rewards and promotions will be solved by the use of mobile phones. And that is saying a lot given the…

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New Online Banking Report Published: Delivering "Live Help" Online

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Online Banking Report, Service

At Online Banking Report we've written a few reports about online customer service over the years (see note 1). However, we'd never looked in-depth at so-called "live help," (note 2) which includes:

Live chat: predominantly audio, but can also be one or two-way video Click-to-call: a button used to request a call-back from an agent Co-browsing: sharing a screen between user and agent

Co-browsing is still a little too out there for most customers, so we focused primarily on live chat and click-to-call, both relatively widely adopted and proven money makers for online retailers.

Bottom line: After reviewing dozens of white papers, talking to a number of industry experts, looking at a hundred websites, and live chatting with service reps in the wee hours, I've come to a definitive conclusion on the value of live chat.

It depends. 

Clearly, live…

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Chase Bank Plays the Ecommerce Card: Offers $100 Bonus for its "Instant Storefront" Solution

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Advertising & Promotion, Chase Bank, Chase Paymentech Solutions, Small Business

Chase Bank is aggressively pushing its latest small biz initiative, Instant Storefront, billed as a way for old-school "9 to 5" businesses to sell online 24/7. Here's where I ran across it last week: 

A radio ad a few days ago (in Seattle) Full-page ad in the San Francisco Business Times (p. 24 of March 25-31 issue) On the main account management page within online banking Small ad on Chase's business banking public page today (see last screenshot, note 1) Email yesterday offering a $100 bonus to give it a try (see first screenshot, note 2). 

The email is short and sweet with a good subject line and appealing design. The green button leads to a landing page with more info (second screenshot). The page includes an old-school, and very effective lead-gen technique, offering to email the $100 coupon to…

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Alumni News — Week of March 28, 2011

By finovate Posted on
Categories: Betterment, Bill.com, Bling Nation, Bobber Interactive, Capital Access Network, eRollover, mFoundry, Mint.com, Silver Tail Systems, Sybase 365, Xero

To follow Finovate alumni news in real time, follow us on Twitter here. 

Bill.com and Doxo recognized as "AlwaysOn OnDemand 100 Top Private Company." http://bit.ly/finovate329114 http://bit.ly/finovate329115 Bling Nation launches Social Connect platform. The platform allows Bling users to connect online with social rewards features from their favorite merchants. http://bit.ly/finovate328113 Bobber Interactive garners $1.1 million Series A funding round. This funding round was led by PEAK6 Investments. http://bit.ly/finovate41113 Capital Access expands remittance program to include Puerto Rico and 21 more countries. The Capital Access platform is designed for "daily" remittances and revenue-sharing programs.  http://bit.ly/finovate329111 COCC selects mFoundry as mobile banking partners. The company has selected mFoundry's mobile INSIGHT product for multi-mode mobile banking services. http://bit.ly/finovate328114 Mint.com launches "Quest for Money" online game. The game is intended for middle school students and is available to play online. http://bit.ly/finovate411111 Morningstar to provide mutual fund Platform to eRollover. eRollover users will have…

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Last Chance to Save with an Early-Bird Ticket to FinovateSpring 2011!

By finovate Posted on
Categories: FinovateSpring 2011

Friday April 1st is the early-bird ticket deadline for our upcoming FinovateSpring conference.

Which means you have only a few hours left to save on your ticket! Don't miss out on your chance to witness 60 handpicked companies demo their latest financial and banking technology innovations live on stage.

If you decide to attend, you'll watch the selected companies showcase their latest ideas as part of an influential audience that's shaping up to be Finovate's largest ever. We're on track to pack the auditorium with more than 750 attendees (up from 550 last year).

A small sample of the organizations already registered includes: Ally Bank, Bain Capital, Bank of America, Battery Ventures, BBVA, BMO, Capital One, Chase, Citi, CNN Money, eTrade, Fidelity, FIS Global, GE Capital, GRP Partners, H&R Block, Harland, Highland Capital Partners, ING Direct, Intuit, JD Power & Associates, Reuters, Scotiabank, SunTrust, The Motley Fool, Time…

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