Manhattan District Attorney and Money Laundering Regulations

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Bank of America, Bank Secrecy Act, JP Morgan Chase, Money Laundering, Wells Fargo

Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, together with federal and New York state banking officials, is on the verge of settling serious money laundering charges against the Bank of America Corp. with a reported $25 million fine, making this the second largest money laundering case the long-time DA has settled in three months. In December, the Manhattan DA, the New York State Banking Department, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. settled a similar case with Israel Discount Bank of New York, also for a fine totaling $25 million, including the costs of the investigation.

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Citibank using Google to Pitch Credit Monitoring

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Citibank, Credit Reports & ID Theft Protection, Google, Search Engine Marketing

Citi_creditmonitoring_logo

Since the dawn of the online credit bureau era (1997/1998), online credit report marketing has been dominated by the specialists: Experian, Equifax, TransUnion, ConsumerInfo.com (now owned by Experian), Fair Isaac, Intersections, and others.

Citi_creditmonitoring_googlead_2Now, financial institutions are becoming more involved. For example, Citibank’s AdWords spot pitching its Credit Monitoring Service showed up fourth overall (and second in the right-hand column) in a search today for "credit report monitoring" on Google (click on inset right for a closer view). With 84 advertisers vying for space on the first page or two of results, that’s expensive real estate.

Citi’s $9.95/mo service (after one free month) is powered by Intersections <intersections.com> and includes info from all three credit bureaus, daily alerts based on Equifax info, $20,000 in identity theft insurance, and other benefits (see screenshot below for a full listing).

Another surprise advertiser in the category is Wal-Mart whose ad appears in the sixth position along the right side of the search results (see inset above). The retail giant’s $7.46/mo service is co-branded with TransUnion’s TrueCredit (click here for screenshot).

Citi_creditmonitoring_learnmoreAnalysis
We are big fans of credit report monitoring, having personally used it for more than a decade. And while the service does deliver significant value, we think the single $9.95/mo price point is too high for the mass market. Granted, ten bucks is better than the $14.95/mo charged by TransUnion’s TrueCredit for a similar service (see inset for an email received today). But the $120/yr is simply too much for information that can be extracted relatively easily by consumers themselves.

Better would be a multi-tiered offering: Regular/Gold/Platinum that starts at under $5/mo and peaks at $9.95/mo for an individual, $14.95/mo for a family. That way, more customers would receive the benefits of proactive monitoring while the truly paranoid could use the pricier options for added peace of mind. Truecredit_email

Another puzzling aspect of Citi’s service: it’s impossible to find it through the home page. It not only lacks its own link in the product menus, but also comes up blank in searching on "credit report monitoring" or even "credit reports." You shouldn’t have to use Google to find such an important service, especially at a bank that’s spent tens of millions promoting itself as a safe haven against identity theft.

For more information on credit-report monitoring, see Online Banking Report #83/84. For more on pricing, see OBR #109.

—JB

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E*Trade’s Intelligent Investment Analyzer

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: E*Trade, Investment Products

Etrade_intelligent_investorToday E*Trade added yet another new feature to its website, the Intelligent Investment Analyzer. It sounds a lot sexier than it is, an eight-question asset-allocation worksheet. But that’s the point. E*Trade is using classic marketing techniques to identify customer needs and concerns and design the solutions to address them.

The company’s core messages touch on security, maximizing investment returns, minimizing loan rates, and so on. And the messages are delivered with an understated flair. For example, look at the homepage graphic above. It delivers the message in a number of ways including good color, an effective image of an open laptop displaying a colorful pie chart, and copy that emphasizes key benefits:

  • Fast: "recommendations in minutes" and "one-click investing"
  • Smart: "diversified," "optimizer," and "intelligent"
  • Personalized: "custom recommendations"

Etrade_intelligent_investor_questionaireWho wouldn’t be tempted to click through to see what’s behind the optimizer? Unfortunately, the questionnaire, powered by Thomson Financial, isn’t particularly appealing (click on inset left for a closer view). And once completed, users are required to log in to their E*Trade account to view the "All Star" mutual fund recommendation designed to fit your self-described investment needs. But all in all, it’s an excellent lead into the company’s mutual fund area.

For more on E*Trade’s string of innovations, select "E*Trade" in the topics reachable via the top navigation bar, or click here.

—JB

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Len Heckwolf Moves from Morgan/Chase to Bank of America

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase

Veteran payments executive Len Heckworth is leaving JP Morgan Chase & Co. to head Bank of America’s new payments and receipts product management group, part of BofA’s global treasury services unit. He’s responsible for all U.S. payments and receipts product management and development, and reports to Skip Heaps, global product management executive for global treasury services.

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Bill Nelson Joins FS/ISAC as Exec. Director

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Uncategorized

Bill Nelson, NACHA’s long-time executive vice president, left that organization effective Feb. 1 to be the FS/ISAC executive director. His job: Grow the organization from its current 1,800 members—up from 60 in 2002—and reinforce its mission, possibly to include fraud alerts in its daily information feeds.

“We want every financial institution in the country to be a member,” says Nelson. “There really isn’t any reason they shouldn’t be, in some capacity. So I’m going all over the country as part of an ongoing FDIC road show and pitching it. The U.S. Treasury, the FDIC, and the American Banker’s Association have all endorsed it.”

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Billeo Powers Bill Pay at Visa.com

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Billeo, Credit/Debit Cards, Epayments, VISA

Visa_billeo_searchboxLast week, Visa USA redesigned its direct bill-pay area using Billeo’s technology to power biller search and facilitate direct payments via credit card. It is a major coup for the fledgling direct bill-pay solutions provider Billeo, which earned an Online Banking Report Best of the Web last year for its innovative bill-pay toolbar (OBR 116/117).

The implementation at Visa bears careful review. It wisely uses biller search to engage users (see inset), then prompts them to save their personal biller list using Billeo. After registering, users download and install the toolbar directly into their browser, Billeo_visa_mainthen input credit card information to facilitate payments. After the initial setup, users can pay select bills directly from the toolbar using the saved credit card and biller info.

Next week, we’ll look at Visa’s implementation in more detail and share insights from our conversation with Billeo founder, Murali Subbarao. In the meantime, you might want to give it a spin yourself at Visa’s bill-pay site, <usa.visa.com/personal/using_visa/pay_bills_with_visa/> (click on screenshot right for a closer look).

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–JB

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The Truth about ID Theft from Javelin Strategy

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Bank of America, Identity Theft, Metrics & Market Research, Security & Privacy, Washington Mutual, Wells Fargo

Judging by media reports, almost everyone in the civilized world has lost their identity to cyber-criminals. But while there has been an unending torrent of news about data breaches and related identity thefts, the damage has been much less drastic than that, says a study from Javelin Strategy & Research.

“The impression in the general public is that identity fraud is spiraling out of control, but what we came away with is the contrary; the growth [in the phenomenon] has been contained,” says Rubina Johannes, the Javelin research analyst who wrote the report.

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Bank of America’s “Keep the Change” Banner on MSN

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Advertising & Promotion, Bank of America, Credit/Debit Cards, Deposits, Checking, Savings, CDs

Bofa_msn_homepageAlthough we have concerns about the underlying program (see NetBanker Oct. 5, 2005), you have to tip your hat to the marketing execution of Bank of America’s Keep the Change campaign. Today a small but distinctive postage-stamp ad on MSN’s homepage, tied in with MSN Money headlines (see inset), invites readers to "Open a Checking Account and Keep the Change."

Bofa_msn_landingpageIt’s an intriguing headline and likely does well prompting clickthroughs. The landing page (click on inset right for a closeup) is also well done. A graphical explanation of the keep-the-change rebate is shown on the right, which helps alleviate the need for prospects to wade through the 479 words of fine print on the bottom of the landing page.

Another landing-page graphical element that you should immediately consider adopting: pictures of the three key banking products being pitched with simple checkboxes for selection (see below). However, in this case it’s used in a backwards fashion. Users are supposed to tell the bank which accounts they already have, rather than the ones they want to buy. This is counter-intuitive and should be redesigned.

Bofa_msn_landingpage_orderform_5

Bofa_msn_ddasav_appAfter selecting the BofA accounts already owned, users arrive on a secure Checking & Savings Account Application page that does a good job reinforcing benefits and referencing the original "Keep the Change" hook (click on inset left). A pop-up box offers live chat with a Deposit Specialist if desired.

Summary
The bank scores high for great online copywriting, superb graphics, and good ad positioning at MSN. We also like how Bank of America reinforces the benefits of automated savings. However, the offer is complicated and smacks of a gimmick that will do little to engender long-term loyalty or create a real savings ethic. Finally, the low 0.50 percent rate paid on the underlying savings account damages the program’s credibility and makes it less likely the account will be used to amass meaningful deposit balances.

Grades:
A+ for online advertising and sales (banner, landing page, application)
B+ for encouraging savings
C- for the debit card rewards program

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