Tomorrow, the most unusual conference in the banking industry, BarCamp Bank kicks off at 9 AM in Seattle's Pioneer Square historical district. It costs approximately 1/50th of a normal conference ($35) and has no set speakers, agenda, or sales pitches. It's just an excuse for a bunch of creative types to get together and talk about the future of money and banking. I'm very much looking forward to it.

Thanks again to Jessie Robbins for organizing the event. If you can make it to Seattle tomorrow or Sunday, you can still sign up here.  

The first thing we'll do tomorrow is brainstorm topics for group discussion. Here's my short(ish) list: 

• Outside the box: If you were to design a financial institution from scratch, disregarding all current regulatory constraints, what would it look like?  
• Alt delivery: Is online account access already old-fashioned? Do customers really want to log in to their bank multiple times each week or is there an easier and less intrusive way to keep consumers abreast of their financial lives?
• Social networks: Will social networks such as Facebook spawn their own virtual credit unions to serve the financial needs of members? Or will existing financial instructions step in to serve the need?
• Mobile finance: Mobile banking and payments are on their second trip up the hype curve. Is it real this time? If so, will mobile services be extensions of existing solutions, replacements for them, or an entirely new type of service?  
• Security: Financial security and privacy concerns remain top-of-mind with consumers. What role should financial institutions take in education, prevention, and resolution?
• Opensource marketing: With 15,000 financial institutions in the United States alone and most of them setting up shop online, it's absurd to think that your customers aren't looking around for the best prices. Why not follow the Progressive Auto Insurance model and actually enable price searches from your site?

I'll do my best to let you know what we come up with.