What's all this about BarCampBanks? From a North American premiere in Seattle almost a year ago, we've witnessed two more in the last few months, and eight more are either scheduled, or in the planning process.

Well, maybe not exactly "planned." BarCampBanks emerge more than they are planned.

What's a BarCampBank?
It emerged from the BarCamp movement, which according to barcamp.org, is defined as...

...an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from participants.

It started as a technology summit, an un-conference where developers and technology geeks could share exploits, connect, and find like-minded companions to extol the virtue of open-source and emerging technologies over pizza and wine.

And then someone decided that this forum would be a perfect place to talk about banking and finance. Weird. And yet it works.

It started in Seattle
I was fortunate to learn about BarCampBankSeattle, the first North American BarCampBank soon after it was announced by the prescient organizer Jesse Robbins. I can't quite call it a decision to attend - it was more a compulsion. Somehow I knew I had to be there.

Probably some of you reading this will feel that way, too. And if so, I urge you to get yourself to one of the BarCampBanks spawning like saplings everywhere bank-geeks gather. The conversations initiated, the innovations surfaced, and the relationships developed at these organic and loose events are truly inspirational and energizing. It really is something to be experienced, and at a cost of $20-35, it's a fraction of the cost of a typical talking-head conference.

After BarCampBankSeattle in July of 2007, there was a long dry BCB spell, which wasn't broken until the last few months when BarCampBankSanFrancisco and BarCampBankNewEngland emerged. Some dedicated BCB-heads even attended both in a cross-country banking-frenzy (you know who you are, my friends).

Coming soon, in Dallas
If you've read this far and feel the need to dive in right away, your first opportunity is BarCampBankDallas planned by my co-participant in Seattle, Brad Garland. It'll take place 21-22 June at the American Bank of Texas Building in Frisco, Texas. Brad is excited about the attendees who have signed up on the wiki (each BarCampBank hosts) where people can add what they wish to contribute to make the event their own. They have people coming from in and out of the country, from banks, credit unions, and even companies like Microsoft. It should be a great conversation.

BarCamping in London
If you'll be in London this summer, you can check out BarCampBankLondon on 5 July at Sun Microsystems' offices on King William Street. London is being planned by the great blogger James Gardner, the head of innovation at Lloyds TSB. In his entry on the event's wiki, James mentions that he is interested in talking "about innovation programmes and the economic reasons why *not* to give them too much money." Intriguing.

July in Charleston
After London, look out for BarCampBankCharleston, taking place on 26-27 July at the First Federal Corporate Center in North Charleston. George Pasley is organizing, and it should prove to be a great, inaugural Southern event.

BarCampBankBC, just too many Bs and Cs
If you're on the West Coast and want to save the planet from the carbon emissions of travel to London or Charleston, come to BarCampBankBC, 20-21 September, at the British Columbia Institute of Technology in downtown Vancouver (originally called BarCampBankVancouver, who could then resist the acronym BCBBC?). I am organizing this event, along with Gene Blishen and Tim McAlpine. I am humbled and excited by the diversity of the attendee list so far.

Coming to Charlotte?
But what if you work at Bank of America or Wachovia? With the credit crunch, you may not be able to get your supervisors to pony up cash for an event with the flaky name of BarCampBank. Well, fear not, BarCampBankCharlotte is in the concept stage, and you can help make it a reality. Click through to the wiki and lend Josh Street a hand in organizing.

Stay tuned for more BarCampBanks
The other two in the nascent stage are another BarCampBankSanFrancisco, hoping to coincide with MacWorld in January 2009; BarCampBankMadison, being planned by Christopher Morris from the National Credit Union Foundation; and BarCampBankChicago, 16 July, in conjunction with the FDIC's Interagency Minority Depository Institutions National Conference. 

With all the changes happening in our industry, the focus on relentless innovation, and so much uncertainty about the economy, it's a good thing that there will soon be a BarCampBank near you.

William Azaroff has been an occasional contributor to NetBanker for the past year. His duties driving Online Strategy & Community Engagement at Vancity, Canada's largest credit union, keep him from writing as often as he'd like. He blogs at azaroff.com/blog

Last week’s Net.Finance conference entitled Online Innovations in Financial Services Marketing brought thought leaders together in New York to examine trends and breakthroughs in the world of banking.

For me, there was one clear take away: The new social tools that allow people to connect with each other online are ushering in a new economy.

We are moving into a social economy, where collaboration and participation between and among consumers will sway their choices more than marketing messages do. Those companies that enable social participation, add value to people’s lives and create authentic experiences for their customers will lead in this new economy. There were other topics discussed, but this theme kept creeping into the presentations and conversations in a way I had never before encountered. I’m going to narrow in on this one theme, which ran throughout the two days of the conference, and I apologize to those companies and speakers I’m not highlighting here.

Jurie Pieterse – ING Direct
Jurie outlined several of the key ways that ING is handling the power of its marketing and messaging to consumers by opening up its brand to customer participation. It is clear from ING’s early experimentation that it has a brand with strong emotional appeal and resonance. The bank opens the doors to people who engage with the brand to create photos, videos and prose about how their relationship with ING helps them manage their money.

Jurie explained that when they delivered the prizes in their user-generated content contests, which ranged from $1,000 to $15,000, most winners said that they entered the contests more from a sense of fun and participation than for the money. After this initial experimenting, ING will begin to examine the data to determine if these contest entrants are more loyal and profitable than less engaged customers. I would bet my Electric Orange account they are.

Chris Larsen – Prosper
It is fascinating to watch Prosper evolve their model. Chris spoke at length about the importance of social capital to improving its default rates. The idea is that people who have peer pressure built into their borrowing habits will pay back at a better rate than they do to traditional financial institutions.

Prosper has found that people who receive at least one of bid from friends or family have significantly lower default rates than those who only borrow from strangers. By leveraging this social capital, the entire community acts more honestly, even if lending to friends and family is a small part of the overall equation.

Jason Knight – Wesabe
Jason sees Wesabe as a community of interest focused on money. By allowing members to tag their financial transactions and share whatever information they choose with the greater community, they create a collective intelligence I find very exciting. I see them as the long tail of financial advice. People discuss better ways to use their money, from smarter investing habits to buying better cuts of meat. All of this collective intelligence fuels a social economy where people rule their situation by having a much healthier relationship to the way they spend their money.

Shari Storm – Verity Credit Union
Shari oversaw the creation of the first “bank” blog, which Verity started in 2004. She has strong information and advice to other FIs considering jumping into the world of blogging. It is clear that the blog is an excellent way to humanize the company and engage with their community in an honest and transparent way.

Thomas A. Desmond – TradeKing
I was blown away by TradeKing, a company I had not heard of before. Their marriage of social tools inseparable from their trading platform is perhaps the very best example of social media being used strategically by a company that I have seen.

They have baked community aspects into everything that happens on their site, so, if traders opt in to the community, they can learn from each other based on their actual trading results (similar to Zecco.com, below)

Asheesh Advani – Virgin Money
It took me a minute to wrap my head around Virgin Money’s model, but once I got it, I was hooked. Many people who buy houses get side loans from friends and family to make a bigger downpayment. Same with student loans, or with unsecured personal or business loans. Virgin creates a model around this kind of lending, so both sides can take advantage of the tax benefits available via a documented lending relationship. It creates excellent flexibility, because if a borrower needs to skip payments, the lender can adjust the loan accordingly. The loan can always be turned into a gift at a later date. This takes a part of the social economy which was underground and unseen, and brings it above board, recognizing it as an important part of the overall economy.

Gabriel Dalporto – Zecco.com
Zecco and TradeKing's models have many similarities (one exception being that Zecco offers 10 free trades each month). Community features are built right into the tools making it easy to track individual investors within the community. That allows the higher performers to gain a following and for newcomers to learn from the veterans. Like TradeKing, Zecco allows community menbers to see the actual trading results and portfolio holding of members (that have opted in), adding an enormous amount of credibilty to discussions about individual stocks and trading strategies.

Summary
It feels more and more to me that we’re at a turning point. I admit that these innovations are small, just barely bubbling up to the surface. But I believe these examples of companies quietly tapping into unmet needs provide a model of the future.

Anyone working at a financial institution who wants to understand the potential opportunities and threats coming our way should watch these companies and understand their models. If my experience is any indication, the social economy will begin to trickle into your FI's strategies and executive discussions and those who best understand these concepts can help inform, influence and shape the outcome.

William Azaroff is the Interactive Marketing & Channel Manager at Vancity where he develops interactive marketing initiatives, and pioneered ChangeEverything.ca, the groundbreaking change-themed online community. William builds on a decade of experience at digital agencies in Vancouver, Seattle and Los Angeles driving strategy, extending brands to the Web and building relationships for companies in several verticals, including Honda, Disney, Intuit Canada and the Government of BC. He discusses trends and noteworthy achievements in social media at his blog: azaroff.com/blog.

Ed Terpening, VP Social Media Marketing at Wells Fargo, invited me on a virtual tour of Stagecoach Island. SI is a  Second Life spinoff where users immerse themselves in a virtual world created by Wells Fargo (see previous coverage here).

Wells Fargo launched Stagecoach Island in 2006, originally within Second Life, and then spun it off on its own. It's a chance for Wells to give users a truly interactive experience with their brand and increase their relevance to Millenials, who may feel that banks don't understand them. 

They are doing some key things very well:

• Pioneering new ways to extend their brand using social media
• Reaching a youthful demographic most banks can't reach
• Harnessing new technologies to redefine marketing

Here are some screenshots from the tour:

We're all gathered at the Wells Fargo ATM near the entrace of Stagecoach Island, including fellow NetBanker blogger Ron Shevlin.

The ATM interface, where you can open an account, get a credit card or a mortgage.

The Stagecoach Island Career Center where interested job seekers can learn about virtual careers in SI.

A place to buy things for your SI avatar, using your virtual Wells Fargo credit card.

Yours truly on the slopes, ready to snowboard.

My Take

I believe that creating a virtual world that combines elements of fun and whimsy with financial education is a great way for a bank to start a conversation with tomorrow's bankers about the role of money and credit in their lives. Although Wells is currently doing many things well, I also noticed some opportunities for them to consider as SI evolves:

• The "fun" and "financial" elements didn't come together as much as I had hoped. It could be improved with an SI-wide games and challenges requiring users to acquire and spend money and use credit to solve puzzles and attain things they need to complete the game. 
• Currently, the ATM is very text heavy and somewhat non-intuitive. Wells is missing an opportunity to make the ATM into an amazing interactive experience. And, there could be ATMs throughout SI, which could be part of a larger game.
  
• It would be great to have real Wells Fargo job openings in the SI Career Center, like TD does in their Facebook group.
  

Also, where was the stagecoach? It had to be there somewhere, I probably just missed it.

In the end, Ed and his team deserve much credit for paving the way. There is great potential left in this idea, and it will be fascinating to see how it continues to evolve. Thanks for inviting me on the tour.

William Azaroff is the Interactive Marketing & Channel Manager at Vancity where he develops interactive marketing initiatives, and pioneered ChangeEverything.ca, the groundbreaking change-themed online community. William builds on a decade of experience at digital agencies in Vancouver, Seattle and Los Angeles driving strategy, extending brands to the Web and building relationships for companies in several verticals, including Honda, Disney, Intuit Canada and the Government of BC. He discusses trends and noteworthy achievements in social media at his blog: azaroff.com/blog.

My wrapup from Finovate identifies those companies doing things that have particular resonance for me. I don't mean to slight anyone by exclusion—all presentations were well done—but I wanted to focus on the products that held relevance for me as someone with a keen interest in social media and credit unions.

Ginny asked in a comment during my live blogging: William, what's your take on the products you described? Which ones will credit union members want to start using right away?

Good question. For credit unions there are a few companies that jump out at me.

ClairMail offers a solution that makes it easier for people to detect fraud quickly, as well as to gain access to their finances from anywhere. I like that their system is not only about consumers getting alerts to warn them about activity on their account, but also makes it possible for them to approve transactions, reducing the embarrassment of having a card declined. For instance, instead of declining a credit card at the time of sale because the purchase seems fishy or is abnormally large, a bank customer will receive a text message to their pre-registered cell phone and can approve that the purchase is, in fact, theirs. It gives consumers greater control over their finances, which is a big plus.

I also liked Identity Theft 911 because it focuses so much on education. Their service is a great fit for credit unions to help members better understand identity theft and protect themselves, in addition to dealing with and resolving a security breach should it occur.

Mobile banking is very exciting for me, but I don't know enough about it to know the differences among the excellent presentations I saw. Some people say consumers still aren't ready to transition from online banking to mobile banking, while others feel that mobile banking will eclipse the usage of online banking within a few years because of the ubiquitous penetration of cell phones in our lives, and the 'always with you' aspect of cell phone technology, which makes it more convenient, especially at the moment of purchase. It seems like for any company looking at moving to mobile banking contacting the various companies at Finovate would be an outstanding place to start. For more information on Mobile Banking, please look at Brandon McGee's excellent posts about the event.

In the States, I think Mortgage Marvel from MortgageBot is amazing at aggregating lots of mortgage information and presenting it without collecting superfluous information from consumers. It is very customer-centric and gives excellent information in response to queries.

Similar to Mobile Banking, I liked a lot of the Personal Financial Management solutions I saw, but I can't say I could pick out a favorite. Lots of good thinking and solutions.

With PFM, I struggle between two opposing viewpoints: the PFM solution should exist at the FI because it makes it easier for the lazy, who are the ones most in need of the help the solution provides. On the other hand, the magic happens when consumers aggregate information from multiple sources and the advice provided isn't tainted by coming from a single FI, which may be perceived to have ulterior motives. For me, I come down in favor of third-party social personal finance like Wesabe, Mint and Geezeo. In the end, only they can truly have the end consumer's best interest in mind; no way a single FI can beat that.

I also like the social lending space a lot, and it was great to see LendingClub, and how they harness the existing relationships people have on Facebook to suggest good lender/borrower matches. I was also happy to hear from Prosper.com. I hadn't seen them since April when they presented at Net.Finance, and I liked the new features unveiled, such as tools to help lenders make better decisions and avoid loans that may not make them a decent return (although these warnings can be easily ignored if other reasons compell to fulfill the loan such as family connections, alma mater, or an attraction to the borrower's story). Another new feature allows users to create a simple portfolio made up of various loans instantly, based on pre-stated risk tolerance.

For me, social personal finance and social lending tap into the exact same desires that led to the creation of so many credit unions several decades ago. It's exciting to watch the current fluidity of the industry and try to guess where it's all heading. I think it's interesting that the winners of the Finovate Best in Show, made up of voting from attendees, was Mint, Prosper.com and Mortgage Marvel. All three reallocate power away from FIs and give it to consumers.

William Azaroff is the Interactive Marketing & Channel Manager at Vancity where he develops interactive marketing initiatives, and pioneered ChangeEverything.ca, the groundbreaking change-themed online community. William builds on a decade of experience at digital agencies in Vancouver, Seattle and Los Angeles driving strategy, extending brands to the Web and building relationships for companies in several verticals, including Honda, Disney, Intuit Canada and the Government of BC. He discusses trends and noteworthy achievements in social media at his blog: azaroff.com/blog.

The afternoon session will follow the format of the morning session.

The lineup includes:

    Firethorn
    Kyle Cochran, Product Manager

    Monitise
    John Tantum, Business Development Director

    ClairMail
    Joe Salesky, President & CEO

    MShift
    Awele Ndili, Founder & CEO

    mFoundry
    Drew Sievers, CEO & Co-Founder

    Prosper
    Chris Larsen, CEO & Co-Founder
    Andrew Martinez-Fonts, Head of Product Management

    Jwaala
    Andrew Taylor, CTO

    iPay Technologies
    James Hyde, SVP Strategic Alliances

    Digital Insight, an Intuit company
    Paul Rosenfeld, VP & GM Small Business

    Mint
    Aaron Patzer, Founder & CEO

UPDATE: 1:02 PM
Jim introduces the afternoon lineup.

UPDATE: 1:04 PM - Firethorn
Mobile payments and accounts. Allows you to see your account and balance via cell phone. Shows all transaction details so consumers know what's happening via their account all the time. They call it a consumer wallet.

A one-time password allows multiple FI relationships via mobile device, once set up.

The FI can push information down to the user once transactions are complete.

People can transfer from one account to another. More modules can be dropped in as FIs are ready.

There's an offline mode in case you have no signal; system will show you a recent balance, which is better than not being able to get a balance when you're out of range.

Consumers download the application to their mobile device when their FIs sign up for the service. They are partnering with mobile makers so download will be required.

UPDATE: 1:11 PM - Monetise
Software with switch infrastructure so FIs can enable mobile banking.

As you enter application, which is downloaded to a cell phone, you are prompted for a PIN. After that you can see your accounts, credit cards, prepaid cards (like Starbucks) or international money transfer.

Can change settings, personalizing the service from your phone, such as when you get text alerts. Can set a weekly balance alert or a limit alert when your account reaches an upper or lower limit.

Works on very low-end phones, like those many people get for free from their carriers.

On high-end phones, can use as a mobile wallet. Check your balance in your M Account, and can top up from a checking account whenever you want. If a retailer is set up at point of sale to allow mobile transactions, you can drop your phone on their reader and allow instantaneous transactions.

UPDATE: 1:20 PM - ClairMail
Mobile alerting.

Can approve that transactions happening on the account are real, instead of FIs stopping the transactions or calling the customer to verify that the purchase is theirs.

Not just about checking balances but about the bank checking in with you to make sure fraud isn't happening.

The phone acts as a reminder instead of needing to remember to pay bills. Can text to account through a short code to retrieve balances. Can also transfer via text so you have the money in the account where you need it. Once money is transfered, you can pay bills via text messaging.

Ads can be presented to users for other products and services the FI offers. Includes an opt-in via text messaging for the bank's promotions, and the bank can call you back to fulfill.

The platform is SMS, mobile web and native client. All three.

As a mobile banking platform, dynamic links are sent to user upon request to allow for logging in to mobile banking. More secure than online banking because it starts with a request for access and a link being sent dynamically to the user.

Native client is also supported. People are using their phones as an alarm clock when they travel, but it can send other alarms and wake you up for other activities.

UPDATE: 1:31 PM - MSHIFT
Mobile banking provider. More than 45 different mobile banking deployments in the United States.

Wide compatibility for all devices. More than 9,000 compatible with MSHIFT.

Can browse an alternate version of the FI website to find information about the company, find a branch or ATM, log in to online banking all via mobile.

Multi-factor authentication is handled just like online banking, and you can register the phone to reduce the security questions needed to log in.

UPDATE 1:41 PM - mFoundry
Created citi Mobile. Works like an iPod, with scrolling right to left through menus.

Platform is flexible, so navigation can be customized to preferences of FI. From Branch lookup, you can get hours, train or bus directions, plus click to call that branch.

Platform allows the application to be updated, without requiring the user to download a new application and reinstall. Loading screen allows promotions to be shown.

UPDATE: 1:49 PM - Prosper.com
Social lending platform, the eBay of banks. In just over a year, 430,000 members lent $91 million. The community is active, giving feedback. Plus, data flows through the activity on the site.

Users can see credit details of borrowers: previous lending history, need description, endorsements. Social capital is needed, so if endorsers have bid, you can see that.

Will be able to see what similar Prosper loans are doing, to help users understand what to bid on a loan. If you bid on a loan that has a greater potential for low ROI, the system warns you before proceeding.

Portfolio Plans show loans at different levels of risk, so people can put together the right combination of loans for the best return. You can decide how much to bid in total, with a certain threshold for risk; Prosper's engine recommends the right balance of loans to get you where you want to go.

A member of the community can create and publish a portfolio plan and others can follow that person's decisions.

UPDATE: 1:57 PM - Jwaala
A software company, built MoneyTracker, which is a PFM solution for banks and credit unions.

FIs can configure MoneyTracker to look and feel like their brand. Can see your net worth by adding other accounts, credit cards and assets. Can search transactions to see purchases from a single vendor from the last two months for around $100.

Can get alerts when activity occurs by turning any search into an alert.

Has integrated RSS feeds, so you can see your financial data pushed to you wherever you want.

Can add notes to any transaction. Can see spending patterns instantly, and see reports of spending over time. Can send alerts based on budgets and patterns.

Introducing a new iPhone view of Jwaala with a custom view.

RSS OFX allows custom RSS readers to get Mac widgets and Vista widgets to get better sense of finances.

UPDATE: 2:06 PM - iPay Technologies
Mobile Shortcut. Get an alert telling you a bill is due. It includes a short code for that payee, and basic information. Can pay the bill via SMS response and then receive a confirmation before paying to make sure you didn't make a mistake.

Mobile messages are just as secure as online transactions.

Non Mobile applications:
Their bill-payment engine learns which bills you pay when and for how much, and prefills your bill-payment screens accordingly.

Person-to-person payment allows you to pay any other person electronically via email.

Can pay charities via online banking.

Can send a gift check to anyone.

UPDATE: 2:145 PM - Digital Insight
Aggregates financial data and automatically categorizes entries. Uses Intuit (parent company) and their history to help make it happen.

Easy to pay bills as part of the PFM. Can see bills, see patterns, determine future cash flow based on patterns. Forecasting helps people from going into overdraft. Can ask people to apply for overdraft as part of the process, in the moment of need.

Can pay bills with one click; it takes the appropriate money from a pre-specified account to the right payee.

Can "write a check" to anyone. The system knows the next check number, and instantly adjusts the balance. 

Can separate business and personal in online banking. Great for home and small businesses. Can categorize spending instead of keeping a book of receipts.

UPDATE: 2:25 PM - Mint

Web-based PFM. Shows you cash and debt. Uses Yodlee to connect to many FIs and credit cards. Can get alerts via email and text messaging based on high spending, bank fees, thresholds, etc.

Four patents pending or being filed on technology.

Automatically categorizes and classifies transactional activity.

Mint helps you save money. Shows you that it found savings personalized to user. Compares your sales activity to alternate spending platforms which would save you money. For instance, it might show that if you use a different credit card or switch banks, you could spend less or earn better interest.

Can find bundles based on spending, such as phone, cable and Internet with an alternate provider.

The only ads you see are ads that make you money. Very personsonalized. Everything is quantified, shows you exactly how much will be saved, with great precision. 

Here we are at The American Conference Center in New York City. The presenters are getting ready, people are arriving, and the caffeine is kicking in (hey, it's barely 5 AM my time - I arrived last night).

Finovate is about to begin.

I'll be updating this blog post throughout the morning with new updates, timestamped, letting you know the latest from our presenters. I will do my best to catch spelling mistakes, but bear with me as I try to keep up with the 7-minute demos each company presents to show off their product or service. I'll continue with a new blog post this afternoon. If you have questions, please leave comments, and I'll try to address your question as soon as I can.

This morning, the lineup will consist of:

    Geezeo
    Shawn Ward, Co-Founder

    Metavante
    Chris Burfield, Product Line Manager, E-    Payments

    Lending Club
    John Donovan, COO

    Andera
    Charlie Kroll, CEO

    CheckFree
    Bob Homer, VP Product Management
    Milind Pandit, Director Product Management

    Mortgagebot
    Scott Happ, President & CEO

    Billeo
    Murali Subbarao, Founder & CEO

    Online Resources
    Bill Kinnelly, SVP Product & Marketing
    Mike Martell, Business Development Exec.

    Identity Theft 911
    Adam Levin, Chairman

    Yodlee
    Peter Hazlehurst, SVP Product Development

The updates will be starting at 9 AM Eastern Time. Watch this space, hit refresh now and then, and keep scrolling down to read about the latest scoop.

UPDATE: 8:56 AM

As 9 AM approaches, people are taking their seats.

UPDATE: 9:06 AM
Jim Bruene is welcoming the crowd, outlining the format, setting the stage.

UPDATE: 9:10 AM - Geezeo
Shawn Ward is explaining his service as a next-generation Quicken. Eight people in the company. Log in to all your online accounts, including investments, bank accounts. All balances and all transactions. Aggregates all activity real time, with text-messaging access.

Looking at transactions, auto-categorized (tags). Tags are customizeable. See how you're spending, how your money is growing. Tag cloud shows goals of community of users. Can easily surface those with similar patterns, goals, etc. 

With investment aggregation, can show positions within your portfolio. Partner with Motley Fool. Historical look at trades.

Groups allow discussion on topics. Advice given and gained.

Facebook app called iWant.

UPDATE 9:17 AM - Metavante
Expedited payments. Consumers who use online bill payment still use other methods to pay bills. Speed of posting is main thing consumers look for. Take the transactions that are occuring outside of the bank today and allow the bank to aggregate them

Shows all payees in Metavante's system that allow expedited payments.

Shows historical context on last payments. Allows expedited payments for all payees, including the gardener down the street.

There is an extra charge for expedited payments. Payment via credit card is free.

All records are now consolidated, because all payments go through a single provider.

Changes game from free bill-pay to fee-based, expedited bill payment. 

UPDATE: 9:25 AM - LendingClub
Integration with Facebook via their app. Pulls all connections and networks within Facebook to their network.

Facebook users have done $1 million in loans.

Internet provides a more efficient platform to allow people to lend and invest.

LendingMatch is their technology. Assesses credit risk, existing social connections, and financing needs. User identifies amount needed along with individual risk tolerance. LendingMatch sources other users likely to be a good match. May find a connection through the borrowers alma mater.

Lender sees credit rating of borrower, how much time is left on bidding, how many bidders, but no personaly identifiable information.  Anonymity is part of the process.

Leverages power of connection.

UPDATE: 9:32 AM - Andera
Online account opening. Simple solution for consumers as complexity is behind the scenes.

User selects account they want to open, offers options such as eStatements, sign off on terms and then gets an electronic signature.

Shopping-cart approach.

Verification process to ensure users are who they say. Third party ensures home address is real, verifies SSN is not a newly issued number, and asks user multiple choice questions based on credit report history and public records. Past residences are an example of these questions.

Integrates with third-party credit-check provider, whichever the bank wants.

May upsell a credit card and electronic bank transfer. The latter allows you to instantly transfer from another account and fund the account online. Asks for log-in credentials for other bank to bring in money via Yodlee (who will be presenting later today).

Instantly moves money, gives a confirmation number, and an email. Now they are a part of the bank, verifiable via any channel (branch, call center).

UPDATE: 9:40 AM - CheckFree
Electronic bill payment and billing. System calls cell phone and asks an identification number to complete log in. Cell rings and asks for your PIN. Only then can you log in. 

When people pay bills, relevant information is shown, such as last bill amount and date paid. When a large bill payment is made, a security question is asked before payment is submitted. Consumers say how large a bill has to be before a question comes in. Totally consumer-configurable.

User-experience enhancements. Drag and drop: Drag a payee onto the account you want to pay from. The amounts are pre-filled based on previous activity. Or, you can drag the account onto the payee. Checks are in place to prevent duplicate bill payments.

UPDATE: 9:48 AM - MortgageBot
Mortgage Marvel is their new product. Instant and accurate mortgage comparisons. Asks loan amount, property value, and zipcode. Over 250 lenders participate. No personal data is asked before search is activated. Shows FI, kind of mortgage, APR, closing costs, payments. User can sort via any column, so users can find lower APR, closing cost, monthly payment, whatever is most important to them.

Price comparisons are seen without entering any personal data.

Advanced quote function allows a deeper dive into specific situations. Also gives information on specific kinds of loans and some helpful information to educate.

Can see lenders own websites to see more about them.

Users can apply for mortgages instantly on their site.

UPDATE: 9:56 AM - Billeo
Bill Pay Assistant and Electronic File Cabinet.

Install Billeo onto your computer: it has a Firefox extension.

Flags you on bills coming due. See a payment-summary page for historical bill payment information. Billeo takes user to bill-payee website and logs in. Can pay bill via vendor website. Billeo extension can prefill vendor-website's bill-payment form. Can drag information from Billeo sidebar to the vendor website. Shows you rewards earned when paying by credit card.

When you are done, the receipt/confirmation is saved within Billeo and captured within Firefox app.

Can view previous transactions at any time, to view receipts.

User display in Electronic File Cabinet is very intuitive and atrractive. Users can easily see history.

UPDATE: 10:05 AM - Online Resources
Virtual Collection Agent. Non-confrontational online service to pay debt, promise to pay or work out payment plan.

Can take collection information from FIs and can staff up to meet demand.

Allows people to cure their delinquency ills, reduces cost for companies to collect, and controls the experience visitors have based on corporate strategies.

UPDATE: 10:12 AM - Identity Theft 911
Educate on issues related to identity theft, as well as resolve situations when security theft occurs. Partners with FIs to help inform about and fix issues.

Will not market directly to bank customers.

Concept of an identity portfolio, which needs to be managed. Consumers must see the whole picture, based on their holdings, purchases, legal information, everything tells your story.

Banks can pass calls to them when customers need assistance or have questions. They neither own your customer, nor ask for their account information.

UPDATE: 10:21 AM - Yodlee
Persional finance. Shows you your net worth and our account holdings. How you spend your money. Nearly 3 million users. Can split transactions between different categories.

Everything is available on a mobile browser or via text messaging.

Can make bill payments directly through system.

Can see a calendar view of bill payments, due and transfers. Can see everything in one place.

Can roll up your view to see all your accounts. Can see all types of accounts, and supports largest FIs in US. Starting to partner with smaller FIs, too.

UPDATE: See continuation here. 

More banks and credit unions are planning to devote a part of their 2008 marketing budgets to social media experiments. If your executive team has bought into the reputation economy (see note 1) and is ready to commit money for a social media test, read on.

If you know you want to venture into this new arena, where do you spend your first dime to ensure successful community participation and executive support?

I wish I could say that you start with 'A', follow up with 'B', and then end at 'Z', but it isn't that straight-forward. Engaging people with social media is no different than engaging community in real life. Each of your banks and credit unions support the communities you serve in different ways such as supporting local charities through a race sponsorship or committing branch staff to help in community clean-up days.

You may be scratching your head, wondering where to allocate your first dime. My advice: begin in an area in which your company is already effectively engaging community. That way you'll have a good foundation for brainstorming, you'll find ample project volunteers from within your company, and in the end you'll produce an outcome with the greatest relevance to your financial institution.

For example: 

• If your FI is particularly adept at serving small businesses, launch a wiki for small business owners in your area to get advice and pool resources
  
• If your company sponsors a local charity, such as a cancer foundation, start a blog about your work with them
• If your bank is engaged in environmental initiatives, such as becoming carbon neutral, develop a Facebook app to help people identify and reduce their own ecological footprint

So long as your social media strategy supports existing real-world initiatives, you’ll almost hear a ‘click’ as your project finds a perfect fit with your company and the community.

Note:

1. Wired Magazine had an outstanding article on this a few months back.

William Azaroff is the Interactive Marketing & Channel Manager at Vancity where he develops interactive marketing initiatives, and pioneered ChangeEverything.ca, the groundbreaking change-themed online community. William builds on a decade of experience at digital agencies in Vancouver, Seattle and Los Angeles driving strategy, extending brands to the web and building relationships for companies in several verticals, including Honda, Disney, Intuit Canada and the Government of BC. He discusses trends and noteworthy achievements in social media at his blog: azaroff.com/blog.

Note: Read part 1 and part 2.

Many articles and blog posts will tell you that the cost to enter into the world of blogs, wikis, RSS, podcasts, social networking (Facebook or MySpace), social bookmarking (del.icio.us or ma.gnolia), or  Application Programming Interfaces (or APIs) mean that you can start a blog or social media project for your bank or credit union at a total cost of zero. Right?

Well, sort of.

One of the critical, but often unsung factors of success of a social media project is the resourcing. If you're going to invite the public to play, make sure you have someone who can help create the kind of community you want.

As we planned ChangeEverything.ca at Vancity we had many discussions about how to create a vibrant and postive community. We have all seen online bulletin boards, discussion forums and blogs degenerate into the kind of name-calling no one wants associated with their brand. This was one of our worst fears. Since then, we've learned a great deal about community building.

In my first part of this post, I mentioned nine success factors for a social media project. An important one is hiring someone who knows how to nurture and grow an online community. Here's why.

Whether or not hard dollars are spent launching a social media project, someone needs to manage the initiative and ensure that it achieves its goals. This is a very specific skill-set with the following requirements:

• Someone who can inspire visitors to come back, readers to register, and registered users to add good content.
  
• Someone who knows when to get involved in discussions and threads that are degenerating, going off topic, or just going nowhere.
  
• Someone who can elevate good material to the homepage so it will hook like-minded people, as well as delete remarks you don't want on the site.
  
• Someone with good taste.
  
• Someone who understands the business goals of the site and can act appropriately and decisively.

Recently I have seen a few interesting posts speaking to the issue of good online community moderation. One was on Jeremiah Owyang's excellent web-strategist.com: For the Community Managers. I also saw a very good piece on Seth Godin's blog: Jobs of the future, #1: Online Community Organizer. So it seems that more and more people are catching on that this free revolution has some resourcing costs built in if you want to achieve success.

Here are three examples of financial institutions that blog and how they manage their resourcing.

Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo has a total of four blogs, the most for any financial institution. According to their VP of Social Media, the amazing Ed Terpening:

Although we have an Experiential Marketing group dedicated to social media activities for Wells Fargo, all of our bloggers are team members who have other full time jobs. They add blogging - writing, posting, reading, replying - on top of those jobs, and our lead bloggers take a more active role than others. The culture of blogging is unique and we strive to connect with that culture through many different voices at Wells Fargo. Finding the person with the right passion + knowledge is our goal, whether they have a professional communications role or not (most do not).

Verity Credit Union



Verity was the first financial institutions to blog, beginning in late 2004. It recently received an excellent facelift and functional overhaul. It's a highly usable and readable blog. According to their CMO and VP Shari Storm, they staff their blog with volunteer employees from around the credit union. Employees who want to blog go through a quick 10-15 minute training on the dos and don'ts of blogging, and they are allowed to spend no more than an hour a month blogging so their managers won't get upset with the project. This is a nice way to save money on resources. Until their recent overhaul, their blog was even hosted for free at Blogger. Says Storm, "One of the unexpected successes of our blog is how much employees like writing for the forum. We’ve heard from employees that it provides extra job satisfaction and a sense of employee pride."

Vancity



One of the key success factors of ChangeEverything.ca was the investment in a full-time Online Community Moderator, Kate. Kate has been instrumental in nurturing the community, providing them with contests and activities, connecting the site to the press to get earned media exposure, moderating comments and understanding the needs and wants of the site's registered users. Not an easy job, and I always say that Kate is one of the key reasons why the site has grown and excelled in the way it has. She has an amazing balance of clearly knowing the purpose of the site, and also being open to where the community wants to go. She deserves amazing credit and her skillset will only make her more and more valuable. (NOTE: no poaching!)

So, by all means try out social media. There are many low-cost, even free, options. But realize  that for a site to achieve longevity and success as a communications vehicle, branding tool, community platform, or whatever you have planned, you may need to invest in social media management. This means either tapping good people internally to devote time to the project or hiring a community moderator to ensure your project develops to its full potential.

William Azaroff is the Interactive Marketing & Channel Manager at Vancity where he develops interactive marketing initiatives, and pioneered ChangeEverything.ca, the groundbreaking change-themed online community. William also plans strategy for the online channel, with a view to its potential to help Vancity, its members and the community. William brings nine years of experience in Vancouver, Seattle and Los Angeles producing web projects for such clients as Honda, Disney, Intuit Canada and Nike Jordan. He writes about the intersection of online branding, social media and the world of banking on his blog at azaroff.com/blog

While so many FIs are scratching their heads wondering what to do about Facebook, it turns out that TD Canada Trust, one of Canada's biggest banks and the ninth largest bank in North America, is doing all kinds of interesting initiatives there.

What makes their efforts so impressive is that they have clearly tried to figure out the value they add to the demographics of Facebook users. They have managed to strike a balance of being true to their brand, yet not seem like they're pandering to a youthful audience, and offering something of value to the Net Generation.

What first crossed my desk this week was SPLIT IT, an application they created that allows roommates who are on Facebook to manage how they split basic bills.

Welcome to the SPLIT IT by TD Canada Trust application – a no-hassle, budget-sharing tool that enables you to share bills with your roommates. SPLIT IT makes it easy to determine who owes what, view your balances, and keep on top of your payment dates.

The application launched within the past few days. When I first saw it on August 15 it had 44 users. It's grown to 66 a mere 24 hours later. It will be interesting to see where it goes during the  next few weeks. I'm also curious to see how it's promoted. Will TD send information to its youth customers, or will they rely solely on word of mouth?

After seeing SPLIT IT I was mightily impressed. It's not easy to find a way to add value for Facebook users. From SPLIT IT, I linked through to their Money Lounge, and I was floored. They have job postings, videos, offers, all sorts of ways to engage the Facebook audience. Scrolling down, I noticed that they have 1,480 members of their group. Even if many of the group's members are employees, it's still an impressive engagement metric.

So, well done TD Canada Trust! The first bank to build its own Facebook app.

William Azaroff is the interactive marketing & channel manager at Vancity where he develops interactive marketing initiatives, and pioneered ChangeEverything.ca, the groundbreaking change-themed online community. William also plans strategy for the online channel, with a view to its potential to help Vancity, its members and the community. William brings nine years of experience in Vancouver, Seattle and Los Angeles producing Web projects for such clients as Honda, Disney, Intuit Canada and Nike Jordan. He writes about the intersection of online branding, social media and the world of banking on his blog at azaroff.com/blog

Note: Part one of this series can be found here.

On blogs I visit discussing social media, one ongoing debate concerns metrics. Some claim that metrics for social media projects are not meaningful; some claim that new metrics must be developed to gauge social behaviour. Some even claim that metrics aren't needed.

I believe that it is essential to have meaningful key-performance indicators in place for a social media project, as you would for any other project. You must know what success will look like to know if the project is worth repeating or not. Some of these metrics are familiar Web metrics, some are more similar to offline advertising, some are similar to PR metrics, and some are indeed brand new and hard to measure.

For ChangeEverything.ca we measure a few things that are familiar to anyone who runs a website:

• Unique visitors
• Time on site
• Referring URLs
• Natural search results
• Number of registered users
• Number of active users (need to define for yourself)

We also measure "Web 2.0" stuff:

• Our Technorati authority ranking
• The number of RSS subscribers
• Conversions of visitors to contributors (people who make it through the registration or content-creation funnels)

Like offline media, we measure how many people in our geographic region are aware of the site, just like we track awareness of our television campaigns. We also measure how many can link it back to our brand.

Like our PR, we try to measure the earned media the site has garnered for us, which has been significant, with lots of positive coverage on TV, radio and newspapers. We also keep track of what bloggers say about us. We consider a blogger writing positively about ChangeEverything.ca to be an unsolicited third-party endorsement. Happily, almost all blog posts so far have been positive, as have our earned media. It's difficult to criticize this project since most press coverage is about how the site has helped the community in some way. And that leads us to the most interesting metric by far.

Where we need new metrics is on the issue of real-world impact. This was not a metric we had in place prior to launch—honestly, it never occurred to us. But it became necessary because of activities happening in the real world (remember that?) due to the influence of the site. The first time this became obvious was after a bad snowstorm Vancouver in November 2006. The site's amazing community moderator Kate created a post called Got Hats? and asked for people to donate warm clothing and blankets to the homeless. This initiative took off and over the next few days, we estimate that more than 4,000 pieces of clothing, blankets, pillows, and, yes, hats were donated to local shelters, all via communication and organization on the site. The change occurred while snow was still on the ground, while the need was still very real, and even a matter of life and death. It was the first clue that we were onto something truly important.

There are many positive traits the site lends to the Vancity brand. ChangeEverything.ca is more than a bunch of people discussing local issues they want to change. The site has created real impact in the communities Vancity serves. Since the Got Hats? episode, we have seen the impact of the tremendous exposure a woman on the site has received for blogging in depth about her valiant attempt to give up plastics in 2007, the successful implementation of a bike share experiment in Vancouver and now a contest where people can win $1,000 to give to an organization making change for the good (appropriately called ChangeSomething).

Traditional Web metrics can't measure the human terms of this impact, and that's the beauty of social media. It spills over into people's lives, because people are in the driver's seat. We need to expand our view of key performance indicators for social media so they reflect the project's success, which now includes the true impact of these projects on our communities.

I think that explains why those of us who advocate for the appropriate use of social media are so passionate about our work.

Many companies are entering the world of social media but don't really know what success looks like. They want to dabble with this new toolkit, but don't know how to manage expectations.

I believe these projects can be of tremendous value to our industry, which is based heavily on trust. Social media, when executed well, engenders great trust among the users and participants. Somewhere I came across the quote "trust is the killer app," and I like it a lot (I'd like to know who coined that phrase; if you know, please comment).

One year ago, the company I work for, Vancity, launched a social networking website called ChangeEverything.ca. This project is an open online community "for people in Vancouver, Victoria and the Lower Mainland who want to change themselves, their communities or their world." I must admit, one year ago we were fairly naive about what to expect. Now, just past our one-year anniversary, we consider the project a success due to several factors:

• The steady and impressive growth of the registered user base
• Site traffic peaking during times when relevant local issues are being discussed
• Tremendous media exposure in local print, radio and television
• Excellent response to the site from the blogging community (we consider good blog reviews to be unsolicited third-party endorsements)
• Real world impact (more on this in part 2 next week)

The site now acts as a community platform to explore issues of change in and around Vancity's market. It's a unique and wonderful position to be in, with this base of local changemakers associated with our brand.

Lessons from ChangeEverything 

Over the last year, we learned many lessons about what makes a good community project. They include:

1. The first 500 members set the tone
2. Create a set of Community Guidelines
3. Focus more on encouraging good content than eliminating content you're afraid of
4. Ensure you have good moderation capabilities
5. Have patience and persistence
6. Be genuine and authentic
7. Make it part of a campaign to trial
8. Identify your critical success metrics ahead of time
9. Hire an excellent community moderator

Let me explain each point:

1. Typically, in online communities the first 500 members set the tone and mood. If the first 500 people who register and use your forum are yelling, being rude and creating havoc, then those people you do want to participate won't feel welcome. The good news is, the opposite is also true. Handpick the first few users, ask them to pass along the URL to their peers. Start slow and feed the community well, with people who get what you're trying to achieve. By the time the masses get hold of it, the tone will be set and it'll be far easier to monitor and moderate. In fact, you may find that you don't have to moderate comments much at all, which is what we've found with ChangeEverything.ca.

2. Set proper expectations and then link to those guidelines from every place on the site where users can add their own content. It helps to write your guidelines in a very readable way - here are the guidelines for ChangeEverything.ca. Make them humourous and fun, which will make them easier to enforce.

3. Add features and functions that make people want to collaborate. It's too easy to get caught up in being a security guard and forget that you need to be a concierge first. The primary objective is to get people to contribute positively, not to stop people from contributing negatively. Admittedly, this is a hard one to follow through on.

4. Whatever software platform you use, make sure you can moderate content on and off the site easily. The amount of spam blogs get make this doubly essential.

5. Rome wasn't built in a day and communities don't flourish overnight. Keep finding interesting ways to let your initiative take root.

6. One of my absolute favorite quotes is "all social media projects are inherently authentic." The more I think about it, the truer it is. If companies play with social media for the right reason, they will have a greater chance of success.

7. If companies need a safe way to try out social media, they should make it part of a bigger campaign. The ROI (or sometimes lack thereof) is easier to justify to try something different and more innovative.

8. Metrics are crucial and part two of this post will explore the changing world of metrics for social media more fully.

9. Hire someone who knows how to nurture and grow an online community. I'll go into more depth on this topic in part three of this post.

Now for the kicker: In the year of running an online community, where registered users can immediately add comments, with no moderation before those comments go live, we have not had to remove a single comment due to inappropriate behavior. We're extremely proud of this fact, that we were able to build a thriving community focused on positive change. We have removed spam and gibberish, but no one has gone against our community guidelines and posted anything hateful or obscene. Gives me renewed faith in humanity.

This past weekend, NetBanker sponsored an event called BarCampBank in Seattle. It's an unusual name for an unusual event. The name derives from an international network of events, which Wikipedia defines as "open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants." It usually refers to "early-stage Web applications, and related open-source technologies and social protocols." In this case it was a loose, collaborative unconference about "innovation in banking, credit unions, social lending, or finance." It attracted close to 40 people—credit unions, banking experts, consultants and suppliers across the United States and Canada. It was unfortunate that there was no representation from actual banks.

The topics discussed included the use of social media, credit relief for third world countries, branching strategy, expectations of Gen Y and Millennials, mobile banking, and open-source core processors. Over the weekend, as discussions opened and progressed, the ideas were distilled down to a few themes.

• Banks and credit unions don't really know what it means to be customer-centric.
• The disintermediation that the industry has been seeing on the horizon for years seems to be occurring, and financial institutions had better get on board or lose market share.
• Are social media (blogs, social networks, wikis) an effective way to market and promote banks?
• What would a bank look like if one was built from scratch today?

There was a lot of talk that banks and credit unions only look after their own needs and don't pay enough attention to serving their customers effectively. There is a lack of bravery and responsiveness to their customers' needs. To most consumers, banking is a chore like going to the grocery store or the post office (and in the worst examples, the dentist). People want easy access to their money and sound financial advice; in many cases, that is not what they receive.

There were some very interesting and disruptive ideas. One big one that kept coming up was the banking equivalent of local number portability. You get an account number the first time you create a bank account, and you can move it from bank to bank to bank. An amazingly customer-centric idea. You neither have to change your bill-pay info, nor your direct deposit or pre-authorized payments. This is one of the main factors that keep people where they are, and would force the banks to differentiate based on service and product innovation. The pain of switching would be eliminated and people could change banks when they found a better option for them and not wait until they get so frustrated with their existing bank that they overcome their inertia.

Another theme that emerged, which will come as no surprise to NetBanker readers, is the brilliance of Wesabe.com's model. There is real passion in the way the founder and CEO Jason Knight describes the mission of his organization, which helps consumers make better decisions with their money. With a focus on showing consumers where their money can get them the most value, he doesn't see himself competing with banks at all, but offering a complimentary service. I wonder how many banks see the value Wesabe adds, and will work with it to give customers deeper insights into how they spend their money.

The people in the room were keenly aware of the echo-chamber effect created by being surrounded by those who feel similarly about social media. We were mostly proponents of the relevant use of social media to further the goals of a financial institution. But adoption of blogging, social networking tools and Web 2.0 technology by financial institutions is slow at best, and the number of successful implementations of these tools is few and far between. That honesty was refreshing.

There was an overwhelming feeling in the room that banking is ripe for a revolution. Interesting to come back from BarCampBank and see this insightful article on GonzoBanker about the demise of the banking industry as we know it. Many of these same themes were reflected in our dialogue. Money is too crucial in our lives to avoid big shifts ahead in the financial services sector. BarCampBank demonstrated that this is definitely an interesting time to be in banking.

After three years of solo blogging (note 1), it's time that a new, and let's face it, younger and hipper voice, chimes in here from time to time (note 2). And we couldn't be happier that our first guest blogger is none other than William Azaroff, the man behind the curtain, at Vancity's celebrated Change Everything blog. 

William also directs numerous other marketing projects in his role as Interactive Marketing & Channel Director at Canada's Vancity, a financial institution that continues to inspire me each time I visit. Here's a few of the highlights from his impressive official bio lifted from his personal blog <azaroff.com/blog> :

William Azaroff is the Interactive Marketing & Channel Manager at Vancity where he develops interactive marketing initiatives, and pioneered ChangeEverything.ca, the groundbreaking change-themed online community. William also plans strategy for the online channel, with a view to its potential to help Vancity, its members and the community. William brings nine years of experience in Vancouver, Seattle and Los Angeles producing web projects for such clients as Honda, Disney, Intuit Canada and Nike Jordan.

His first post is here and you can always find his posts by clicking on "Azaroff" in our Topic list in the top navigation bar or by searching on "Azaroff" using the site search in the upper left.

Any other gurus are interested in guest blogging at Netbanker? Drop me an email.

Note:

1. We started blogging here in April 2004 (first post here). At that time, the blog was a password-protected resource for our Online Banking Report subscribers. We opened the doors to all earlier this year, and couldn't be happier with the results, 16,000 visitors per month, up from a few hundred a year ago.

2. We should add that the opinions expressed here are solely those of Mr. Azaroff and should not be considered the policy or opinions of Vancity or Netbanker (but we agree with him most of the time!).

One of the questions that I imagine many companies in virtually every industry is asking themselves is: How can we engage in the social web?

A lot of companies, banks and credit unions among them, see the opportunities that currently exist, but can't find their way in. One of my favourite quotes is from Rob Cottingham of Social Signal. He tells audiences who are looking to start a social web project that "before you look in the monitor, you should look in the mirror". It's fun to start a new project, and often people will start planning a way to leverage a new marketing trend such as social networking before they take a good look at themselves to determine if they have the stomach to open themselves up and take the leap.

Maybe it's not a matter of companies opening themselves up, but understanding where their openness already exists. Every company likely has an area where they are doing the kind of work where they can engage an audience in collaboration. It's a matter of taking the essence of a company's brand and brand positioning and marrying that with their philanthropic activities.

Most companies that are looking to the social web are, I suspect, also looking for ways to further leverage their existing community activities. I wonder how many of them put those two challenges together into the same project. Let's look at one good potential example in the banking sector.

Bank of America

Before we begin, I should disclose that I don't know anyone at Bank of America and what follows is my outsider opinion only – some food for thought.

According to bankofamerica.com, they sum up their brand this way:

Bank of America’s brand positioning, “Bank of Opportunity,” is emblematic of what Bank of America has always strived for throughout its history ― to create opportunities for the individuals, businesses and communities we serve throughout the world.

In March, Bank of America announced a $20 Billion environmental sustainability initiative. This is a major investment into changing their business operations and offering new products and services that have a sustainable focus. And yet their website hardly mentions this information. Doing a search on “climate change” on their website only brings up some press releases, a position paper, a speech and some other links to corporate areas of the site. I'm sure they have plans to bring this more front and centre, but what are some good ways to do that online in a way that's meaningful and gains them effective brand differentiation?

This philanthropic work provides an excellent chance to give up a little control in a focused area where they have a clear desire to become a true leader. Based on the amount of money they're planning on investing, this is obviously going to become a key differentiator for their brand, and I imagine they'll find a way to link this back to their brand positioning: Bank of Opportunity. It's not hard to see how that could work, and work well.

As they put money into their first initiatives, they could utilize the social web to engage community to find out first-hand where their money could make the biggest impact, or where their customers think they ought to invest. They could be harnessing the wisdom of crowds to help them create and develop environmentally friendly financial products and services. This could take the form of a social network, they could leverage Facebook, they could start a wiki or a blog. Eventually, when they have some real data about their climate change activities and impacts, they could release that data as an API so people who are passionate about climate change could take the raw data and create mashups that I can't even begin to imagine (but marrying large scale environmental data with Google maps could start to yield some interesting visual possibilities and show how Bank of America is improving America, perhaps even at the neighbourhood level).

By opening up and letting the chips fall where they may, albeit in a calculated way, BofA gets free advice, they attract the input of leaders in this area and they start educating people on their activities. They could introduce this new corporate activity slowly so people understand why they're doing it (perhaps link the concept that America has to be sustainable in order to be prosperous, and that's why a bank is putting money into this kind of work).

This would also help them win over some needed friends and allies in the environmental movement and encourage dialogue about the challenges we face as a society. There are myriad opportunities for them here, and exciting time to be in the marketing and communications departments, I imagine.

I look forward to seeing how they promote this good work. So far, their first initiative of helping a non-profit purchase an old growth forest with private capital is highly impressive, though definitely under-leveraged on their website. I hope they find a way to surface this work so that people learn about it - I think the social web could be the answer.