See MoneyTracker in action at Symitar’s 2008 Client Conference in San Diego, July 26th-29th

“The Next Big Thing”
This year’s theme is right up our alley! Although we dont have just one thing. We have many. Stop by to see what we mean.

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Our last blog post was about some recent Javelin research highlighting how important online capabilities are when it comes to choosing a financial institution.

Very timely indeed.

This latest blog post on the Filene CUTomorrow blog entitled Why I will join Great Wisconsin Credit Union just backs up that great research up with some nice anecdotal tidbits. Ben makes some great points in this article, including the fact that by integrating PFM directly into a CUs online banking, you are actually simplifying life for your members. The point is if you send your members off to Quicken, Money, Mint, Wesabe, etc, not only are you loosing your member’s attention and eyeballs, but you are also making life difficult for the members. Why go 2 places when you could just go 1. This is something that Amplify FCU figured out a while ago, and is seeing great results, they have been offering integrated PFM via MoneyTracker since mid 2007.

Mint.com and Wesabe.com (I have an account) are doing great work already, but the reason I like Money Tracker for credit unions is that it makes managing finances part of your existing financial life, not one more Web site you have to visit (no matter how slick). It will serve those who just want to track their finances passively as well as the hard-core minority that wants to set up a new Web site relationship and share their savings goals with others.

Thanks Ben for taking the time to write about MoneyTracker, and we hope you enjoy using MoneyTracker as much as we do!

We have just launched a new demo site for Jwaala MoneyTracker. Lots of additional information, screenshots, and even examples of live widgets. Please head on over to BetterOnlineBanking and take a look.

Why another site?  We love the idea of mini-sites, something pretty popular these days to enable companies to really focus on one thing in a website, even though the company has multiple products.  BetterOnlineBanking started of as just a live demo site for Jwaala MoneyTracker technology.  But after adding some basic product data, and then some more, it blossomed into it’s own mini-site.

Also, don’t forget we have BetterMFA as well, focusing on the flexible Jwaala MFA solution.

Javelin provides quantitative research focused exclusively on financial services topics, and it’s great great stuff.

A recent report entitled “Online Banking Behavior Segmentation: A Behavioral Approach to Improving Adoption” takes a close look at consumer behavior and how it relates to online banking habits. What they uncovered is something that I think we all know intuitively, but it always helps to have some primary research to back up this intuition.

Basically they found that online banking features are very very important. So important in fact, that when deciding upon a new financial institution, online features rank above customer service, ATM/branch network, product selection, and even personal recommendations.

Just let that sink in for a moment.

When a consumer looks at your financial institution, your online features and capabilities are going to play a very important part in that consumer deciding to go with you or not.

Like a branch?

Here’s another way to think about it. I have talked to some financial institutions that have started to think of the online channel as it’s own branch. This means having a branch manager, and having a budget more like that of a branch. It’s a concerted effort to raise the internal importance of the online channel.

That’s sounds great and all. But then I ask … “ok, so you have 30 physical branches, and 1 online branch, for a total of 31 branches. Now it’s time to cut costs, which branch will you close?”. Most likely the answer will not be the online branch. “Ok, you have to cut more, you have to close 20 branches!”. Again, most likely the online branch will not be chosen for closure.

The point is, it’s great to think of the online channel as it’s own branch, and that certainly raises it a notch from where it is now (at least for most FIs), but this really does not go far enough. It’s basically a “super branch”. So super in fact that it is probably the most important branch that you have, and if it is not today, then it certainly will be pretty soon.

So treat your online channel right.