David Emery OnlineBanking 2.0
15 November 2006
All over the news today (over here in UK at least) was the announcement by First Direct that they’re going to start charging for current accounts. I have to say that I think this move is going to prove hugely unsuccessful – the banking market here is far to competitive to put up with this sort of move, and the average punter on the street already think that banks make far too much money as it is.
From the other side of the pond comes this story on BoingBoing. The gist of is that Bank of America, by way of seriously bad customer service to one individual (he ended up in jail!) they’ve lost over $50m of business so far by way of people closing accounts.
While being interesting footnotes in the long battle between customer and corporation, both these stories highlight a rather glaring gap in the market:
Yes, we need Banking 2.0*.
We need simple banking, that focuses on user experience over and above everything else. A few simple things are necessary; it must have a debit card that works in all shops (Maestro or Visa Debit then), it must have a good online banking system (more on this below) and it must have an overdraft facility (but that’s in their interest, due to interest).
What’s easy is what it doesn’t need. There doesn’t need to be branches. Or telephone support (as long as there’s true 24hr email support). Obviously paper statements are a waste of time – even email statements don’t make sense (they’re just a relic of the old system).
Cheque books are ripe for being dumped too – I can’t remember the last time I used mine. Sure, they do still have their uses and I know a lot of people use them, but to me it feels very much like the situation floppy disks were in before the original iMac came out – sure, people use them but it’s high time they moved on to something else.
The cornerstone of this enterprise would have to be the online banking system. Improving in this area would be easy though; I’ve never used an online banking system that’s actually any good. Imagine how useful a modern banking site could be – add a bit of ajax to the interface and spend a bit of time simplifying it 37signals-style and it could truly replace the traditional bricks-and-mortor banks.
Taking the thinking further, wouldn’t it be great if you could get a password protected rss feed of your account’s transactions? Or maybe have a calendar you can subscribe to in iCal or Google Calendar of all your direct debits and standing orders?
It would be so easy for someone new to enter this market – which is huge – and completely clean up. Bank customers are clambering for an alternative, but most banks are as bad as each other.
We could all do with something better.