New Account Sign-Up

Over the years, we’ve signed up with hundreds of Web sites, including dozens of banks and brokerages. Every year the process becomes easier. There are even third party utilities like NextCard’s Concierge which promise to complete routine Web forms automatically.

In our experience, banks have lagged their peers in other industries in making signup a snap. Bank signup forms have been tedious, confusing, and laden with disclosure traps (see table below). It’s no wonder industry application abandonment rates have been 70% to 80% according to eFunds unit. Efunds is marketing a product that automates the initial funding of an account via ACH. The Deluxe Data unit recently filed an S-1 to be spun off in an IPO.

E*Trade places its signup form front and center. On April 13, it featured a 3-Minute IRA.

Online Application Problems*

*We are not trying to embarrass these companies. In most cases, the reason we tested its signup process was because the company was a pioneering a new feature or product; most, if not all, the problems listed above have been fixed.

The Dream Application

Source: Online Banking Report, 4/00