| By Jim Bruene on November 15, 2007 1:07 AM | Comments (5) |
KeyPoint Credit Union is the first financial institution to launch full-fledged account access through Facebook. Using its mobile banking engine powered by mShift, members can view account balances within their Facebook account (see screenshot below).
To view their balance within Facebook, users must add the KeyPoint application to their Facebook account. The first time it's used, users must log in to their Key Point account using their normal username and password. On subsequent visits, balance info is automatically displayed with no login, provided the user is logged into their Facebook account.
In addition to balance info, the KeyPoint application displays content taken from the credit union's homepage.
Analysis
Even though the application is relatively simple, we are giving it our OBR Best of the Web award, the second one this week, and the sixth in 2007 (see previous coverage here). Placing account balance info within Facebook is a great way to demonstrate commitment to social networking members. There are privacy issues with displaying data without a banking login (note 1), but it's reasonable to let your customers decide for themselves if they are comfortable with this setup.
Screenshots
KeyPoint Facebook application prior to first authentication session:
After initial authentication, account balance info is automatically displayed:
Note:
1. Other Facebook users cannot see the balance info, but someone sharing the computer might see it.
That awesome to see a CU be the first to Facebook! I can't wait to see if they actually get adoption. That's the only problem though, is how many of their members are actually on Facebook? Same thing goes for building online access specifically to an iPhone; how many members actually use it?
This is very cool. Incorporating this with the multitude of donation scripts and "wishlist" scripts could allow a Facebook user the ability to ask friends and family to donate to their college funds or buy essential items via an Amazon widget as well as monitor their regular accounts. Basically a financial aggregation service built into Facebook (undeniably the end goal here). Watch out Wesabe and Mint.
Using Facebook only makes sense for companies with a lot of young customers or a lot of techies (this CU is in Silicon Valley). But it does make one think about where people "live" on the web and how to reach them. Will financial institutions now be chasing their customers all over their favorite sites?
I think before everyone jumps onboard with this in the Financial Institution industry, Facebook and it's CEO Mark Zuckerberg should learn how to spell "Financial Institution" correctly. I think everyone should be concerned about financial data when the words aren't even spelled properly. See how under "Manage Institutions" is spelt in Facebook under Profile below.
Please select "Manage Institutions" to select a finicial instution.
Just a huge concern.
I'm not sure I'm ready to give Mr. Z anymore information about myself. H already knows the size of my underwear and shoes, now wants my wallet size?