Chase has great graphic design panache (see previous post here and here). As I was logging in to my account last week to see what the bank had done with a pesky $2 balance remaining from my payoff a month ago (see note 1), I was presented with an eye-catching offer to transfer a balance (see first screenshot below). 

The balance-transfer options weren't quite as enticing as they've been in the past:

• 0.99% for six months plus 3% balance-transfer fee
• 5.99% for a year plus 3% balance-transfer fee

This time last year, the 5.99% offer would have likely been for the life of the balance. However, under new regulations approved by Congress, where monthly payments must be allocated to the highest rates first, it no longer makes financial sense to offer a low rate for the life of the balance.

Note: Chase provided real-time chat support as I considered their balance-transfer offer (see second screenshot below).

Chase Bank's login interstitial (16 June 2009)

Chase offered online chat via a popup window

Notes:
1. Kudos to the bank for automatically eliminating the $2 in extra interest accrued between the day I paid my balance in full online (at the Chase site) and when the payment posted. When I logged in I was afraid I might see a $39 late fee on the $2 remnant balance. 

2. For more info on post-login marketing, see our recent Online Banking Report on Selling Behind the Login.

For many years PayPal has deposited users on its shopping portal when they log out of their PayPal account. This afternoon I saw something different at logout for the first time in recent memory, a pitch for the PayPal Plus MasterCard (screenshot below).

Although the company has marketed this card to me dozens of times immediately after logging in, it's the first time I remember seeing it after logging out. The hook is the card's new personalized photo option.

But a funny thing happened when I clicked on the Get Started button: I was dropped on to PayPal's homepage where an error message explained:

You must log in before you can access this page.

A very odd requirement for an offer made after logging out. I followed the instructions and logged in, but there was no mention of the credit card. I just ended up at the regular account management page.

I guess it was PayPal's turn for a programming glitch (see yesterday's post on Rudder). Luckily, this problem doesn't impact anything but PayPal's online marketing results (see note 1). When I logged out this time, I was shown the usual PayPal shopping portal (see third screenshot). 

PayPal pitched its PayPal Plus MasterCard at logout
(21 May 2009, 3:30 PM Pacific)

 Error message after clicking "Get Started" on offer page
(21 May 2009)

 PayPal logout offer a few minutes later (21 May 2009)

Note:
1. For more info, see our most recent Online Banking Report: Selling Behind the Password

We just posted our latest Online Banking Report.
It will be mailed to subscribers tomorrow. It's also available online here. There's no charge for current subscribers; others may access it immediately
for US$395.

---------------------------------------------------------

Selling Behind the Password
Unlocking the marketing potential within
online banking

48 pages (published 21 April, 2009)

In this report (abstract), we go behind the login screen and report on the marketing and cross-selling practices of 15 financial institutions and card issuers.

Even among large banks, there's a huge disparity in the amount of cross-selling efforts within online banking. Wells Fargo is the most prolific, with nine marketing messages and product placements alone on its main account-management page. The bank also uses login and logoff activities to display promotions (see screenshot below). On the other hand, US Bank has just a single link to an "offers page" buried below the fold. Most FIs fall somewhere in between.

We looked at the opportunities within six different areas:

• Interstitial pages (splash screen) inserted after performing any online activity, especially after the initial login.
• Banner and keyword promotions within the secure online banking area
• Product placement within online banking and bill pay
• Transactional upgrades
• Page displayed after an online banking session has concluded (either through logout or inactivity)
• Product/shopping/discount portals and third-party ads

The following financial companies were analyzed by logging in to actual accounts and documenting their sales and marketing efforts:

• American Express business gold
• Bank of America online banking
• Chase credit card
• Citibank business card
• Citibank online banking
• Discover Card
• Everbank
• First Tech Credit Union
• ING Direct
• Jwaala (demo only)
• Mint
• Netflix (non-financial)
• PayPal
• Revolution Money
• US Bank
• WaMu
• Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo promotion displayed after logging out from online banking
(27 March 2009)

Today's American Banker tells of AmEx's plans to force electronic statements on an undisclosed portion of its corporate cardholder base, said to number more than 7 million accounts worldwide (note 1). This is probably a bit of an exaggeration, as it's more likely that paper statements are being eliminated as a standard account benefit and must be negotiated separately for an additional fee. The company admitted there would be exceptions for those without Internet access or those that still required paper for customer billings.

But it's still a watershed moment. Today, paper statements are a standard feature of most banking and credit card relationships. In a study last year (note 2), Javelin Research found that only 15% of customers had given up paper statements entirely on their primary credit card.

Currently, the burden falls on the financial institutions to beg, trick, incent, or "green" their customers into giving up paper (see inset above from Texans Credit Union). For example, Citibank frequently uses an interstitial (splash screen) after login that encourages estatements (screenshot below). See our previous posts on those efforts.

The tables are about to turn. With severe profit pressure on most big banks and card issuers, most (all?) will soon adopt the American Express approach and offer electronic statements free of charge, with paper available for an extra charge. This is how checking-account pricing has evolved over the past two decades as banks migrated customers to check truncation as the standard, with paper checks returned for an extra fee (note 3).

Interstitial displayed after logging in to Citibank's online banking
(9 April 2009, note 4)

Notes:
1. This decision will impact less than 10% of American Express cardholders, which number 92 million worldwide as of 31 March 2009, up 4% from 88 million cards a year ago.
2. Javelin survey of 2,500 consumer head of households in 2008.
3. For no valid reason any more, checks are still returned on my U.S. Bank "free" small business checking account for a $10 monthly fee.
4. Example from our latest Online Banking Report: Selling Behind the Password.

I've mostly just observed the Twitter phenomenon, following a few people and seeing how banks and credit unions are using it (see my previous post for financial institutions on Twitter). However, I'd not fully embraced Twitter either as a publishing device or research source. The 300 or so RSS feeds, emails and news items that cross my desk each day seemed like plenty of intelligence to sift through.

But now, I'm reconsidering my priorities after learning about an interesting new alt-payment company BillMyParents from Twitter activity (see notes 1, 2).

How it works: BillMyParents is a new service from IdeaEdge's Socialwise (press release). The service is primarily designed for kids to shop online. They select what they want, then at checkout, redirect the bill to their parents via an email alert to PC or mobile phone. Parents login and complete the payment process at their convenience using MasterCard, Visa, Discover Card (no American Express; see third screenshot below). Card info can be stored for one-click future approvals.

The company charges a $0.50 transaction fee for each purchase. But like PayPal, the real money will be made when the company pushes purchase transactions through the ACH system.  

Currently, BillMyParents is selling prepaid gift cards from its site as a proof-of-concept. I tested it yesterday and everything seemed to work as described (see second screenshot below).

The opportunity: The service reminds me of the unmet need that PayPal filled nine years ago. Purchasing at eBay was a major hassle due to the lack of online payment capabilities. Kids have similar problems when trying to buy things online.

The service could also be adapted to other situations where one party does the shopping but wants someone else to authorize payment such as small businesses, nannies, or even spouses. It could also be used for extra security when the shopping is done in a non-secure environment such as public terminal and payment is redirected to a more secure device, such as your mobile phone.

Like any alternative payment, BillMyParents requires the merchant to add the option to its ecommerce platform and consumers to set up accounts. Both of those are time-consuming and face the chicken-and-egg dilemma, i.e., it's hard to attract merchants without a substantial user base while its difficult to add users without merchants.

Bottom line: This is a winning idea. The massive discretionary purchasing power of teens and pre-teens is a tempting target in this difficult retail environment. And financial institutions, or their payment partners (e.g. Visa, MasterCard), looking to differentiate themselves with the youth market, could jumpstart the program. Or more likely, PayPal and/or Amazon will dive in, either acquiring BillMyParents outright, or building their own version(s).  

BillMyParents homepage after setting up an account (26 March 2009)
Note: Split login screen for kids (left) and parents (right)

Proof-of-concept: Gift card purchase (26 March 2009)

Parent's approval screen (26 March 2009)

Notes:
1.  Thanks to Frederic Baud (@fredericbaud) who was the first in my network to Tweet about BillMyParents; and to Glenbrook's Scott Loftesness (@sjl) who's retweet is actually what caught my eye.

2. BillMyParents appears to have grabbed its Twitter page name (@billmyparents), but it's not yet active.

Yesterday, I looked at a list of free services likely to come under pressure as banks work on the Herculean task of returning to normal profitability. One area that's likely to remain free for the foreseeable future is online and mobile banking, at least the core account-access portion of it.

But we continue to believe that financial institutions are missing a revenue opportunity to provide premium fee-based services to certain segments.

If American Express can command $2500 per year for its black Centurion Card and Barclays $495 per year (see note 1) for its slightly more pedestrian Black Card launched in December (see note 2), why can't banks get $10/mo for a similar premium version of online and mobile banking? The short answer: They haven't tried.

Just for the sake of discussion, here's a "gold online banking" service for which I'd pay $15 per month without a moment's hesitation:

• High-end website and iPhone app
• Long-term (7+ years) online storage of images, transactions, statements
• On-demand credit score like Credit Karma 
• Credit bureau alerts when negative items hit
• Account aggregation with weekly summaries like Mint
• Email customer service with 30-minute or less turnaround time
• VIP phone and tech support with no phone tree
• No overdraft/NSF charges (within limits of course)
• Travel rewards/sweepstakes on electronic transactions
• Pre-filled one-click credit application
• Extra security options
• SMS balance inquiry
• Iron-clad, no-fine-print security guarantee with 100% immediate reimbursement and emergency credit line

For more elaboration on these benefits, see our Online Banking Report on Pricing Online Services.

Visa Black Card homepage (15 Feb. 2009)
Includes one-page online application

Note:
1. The benefits of the Visa Black Card are similar to those from many gold/platinum cards. One of the biggest differentiators is free limited membership to Priority Pass which gets cardholders into 500 airport lounges in 250 cities. However, according to the FAQs, Black Card holders are limited to two complimentary visits per year, so this would cost $154 annually if purchased directly from Priority Pass. In fact, for $349 annually, you could get unlimited access to airport lounges. 
2. The Visa Black Card has been advertised with full-page ads in the New York Times, the latest on 10 Feb. 2009 on p. A5 (national edition).

For card issuers, the latest online application activity is is either good news, bad news, or neither since Compete tracks only applications submitted, not approvals. This following chart was presented in its webinar today. You can request the entire deck at the bottom of its blog post.

According to Compete, there were more than 12 million credit card shoppers in the U.S. in December, up 6% from November and down 11% since a year ago. Of the shoppers, about 20%, or 2.4 million submitted an application. That was an 8% increase from Nov., but a 23% decline from a year ago. 

But Compete has no way to measure whether the card applications it tracks are approved. Recent data from Lending Club shows that less than 10% of its online consumer loan applications were approved in Q4. The big credit card issuers probably do a bit better by driving creditworthy borrowers to their sites via direct mail and online advertising.

Assuming approval rates of 20%, the 2.4 million credit apps in December resulted in about a half-million new accounts.  

Source: Compete, 29 Jan. 2009

Firethorn (owned by Qualcomm) has a new iPhone app called Mobile Banking for AT&T Customers. The app is currently ranked number eight in the finance category of the Apple iTunes App Store (see screenshot below). Of the transactional services, only PayPal and BofA's Mobile Banking are higher.

The application can be used to access online banking at any of the ten financial institution holding companies, and their subsidiaries, currently supported by Firethorn:

• 1st Bank (Colorado)
• America First Credit Union
• Arvest
• BancorpSouth
• Caroline First
• Mercantile Bank
• Suntrust
• Synovus
• USAA
• Wachovia (now owned by Wells Fargo)

The Firethorn application has 27 reviews so far and has scored a 4-star average (out of 5), much better than the typical finance app (see previous coverage here). The main complaint is lack of coverage for the user's bank, which is not the fault of the app.  In comparison, Bank of America's app garnered 434 reviews and a 2.5-star rating.

I downloaded the application today and, unfortunately, I don't have an account at any of the financial institutions; however, that will change next week if they hit the dates contained in the Featured Providers page.

Here are coming-soon financial institutions:

• Citi Cards (Citibank) "coming Nov. 1" (previous press release here)
• Chase Bank "coming soon"
• Regions Bank "beginning this fall"

Providing free credit scores in exchange for viewing a credit card offer seems like a reasonable value exchange (see note 1). That's why we gave Credit Karma our OBR Best of the Web award in August and why it is on stage next week at Finovate (see previous coverage here, video at Finovate Startup here). 

It's also no surprise that others would try the same model. Credit crisis or not, credit-worthy borrowers are still a valuable commodity. Case in point, Bankaholic's recent acquisition by BankRate for a reported $15 million, or $50 per unique visitor (Mashable post here).

The latest entry in free-credit-score lead generation is KnowBeforeYouApply (KBYA) from Centrro, a financial-search company founded in 2006 by Ike Eze and Tuyen Vo. Eze was a founder of QSpace, an OBR Best of the Web winner in 1997 when it became the first company to make credit reports available online (archived OBR article here). QSpace was acquired by Experian several years later.

KnowBeforeYouApply launched on Sept. 3, but was put on the map with Mr. Eze's post today in The Huffington Post entitled, "Stay Away from Me, Credit Card Crisis" (see note 2). The article discusses the value of tracking your credit score and using that knowledge to find the best credit offers. Eze mentions his company along with Credit Karma, Quizzle from Quicken Loans, two other Finovate presenters, Mint and BillShrink.

Using KnowBeforeYouApply.com
It would be difficult to make the site any easier to use. Customers type in their name, address, email address, and last four digits of their social security number. Apparently, that's all that's needed to access your credit file and return a letter grade of A through F.

The whole process takes about 30 seconds (there is no need to enter an entire social security number), and KBYA steers clear of those pesky out-of-wallet authentication questions. Users can get an update of their credit grade every 90 days. In comparison, Credit Karma, which provides an exact 3-digit credit score, will update it daily if the user so desires.

KBYA also has a simple and intuitive sales platform. Just two offers were highlighted in the main screen, one from Chase and one from American Express (see first screenshot below). However, clicking through to "see all offers" led to 25 pages of credit cards, displayed five to a page (121 total for A-grade credit). A handy index along the sidebar allows users to find various categories that most appeal to them such as "travel rewards" or "0% intro rate" cards (see second screenshot).

KBYA appears to use the API from CardOffers.com to build a portion of its database of card offers. CardOffers.com offers its affiliates up to $20 per application or up to $160 per approved application. KBYA also appears to be an affiliate of Credit.com and Discover Card (see note 3).

The site is focused solely on credit cards for now. But a Home Loan tab is built into the user interface, with a "coming soon" label.

Analysis
All in all, it's a good service. The site needs to beef up its FAQs, About Us, and other educational materials so users can better understand who is behind the service and what exactly the credit grade means. But as a month-old beta service, it's presumably coming.

While I prefer the precision and peace of mind of seeing my actual credit score, a letter grade every 90 days will be sufficient for many users and should help keep costs down. And the speed of the application process and lack of social security number are real benefits.

Financial institution opportunities
Banks, credit unions, and card issuers should consider offering similar functionality both inside online banking, where private info would already be known, and on the outside where prospective loan customers could use it. With info about the customer's credit grade, lenders could deliver tailored offers that could lead to increased application volume and approval rates. See our recent Online Banking Report for more info on lead generation sites (note 1). 

Know Before You Apply main page after login (7 Oct 2008)

KnowBeforeYouApply all-offers page (7 Oct 2008)

Notes:
1. For a thorough discussion of the topic, see our August 2008 Online Banking Report on New Models for Lead Generation.

2. Strangely, the article doesn't specifically disclose Mr. Eze's affiliation with Know Before You Apply, although clicking on his name does show he's CEO of Centrro. However, it's left to the reader to discover on their own that Centrro is the parent of Know Before You Apply. Hopefully, that oversight will be corrected.

3. The affiliate relationships are inferred from the redirects that take place when clicking on the Apply Now arrow.

4. This is one of the ten online finance companies that launched in Sept. (post here).

Visa today put a stake in the ground to be viewed as the innovation leader, a position that American Express has claimed for some time with its chip cards, social media efforts, and even an online lab site. At today's "innovation briefing" in NYC, Visa announced several pilots and upcoming initiatives.

Mobile person-to-person transfers
The most far-reaching announcement was the ability for Visa cardholders to transfer funds from one card to another via mobile device. So far, just one bank is participating in the pilot. US Bank says it will make the service available to a few thousand cardholders as a test later this year. PaymentsNews has more details here.

It sounds good, but as always the devil is in the details. For instance:

• Through what hoops will cardholders have to jump to enable their card and phone for the service?
• Will the transfers be treated as cash advances triggering fees and finance charges?
• Will it be available to all cardholders using any mobile phones? 

Visa jumps on the android bandwagon
A more immediate innovation is a location-and-alert-based service built for Google's android platform, a new mobile system launching in late October. Visa's new service, to be rolled out initially by Chase Bank (no time frame given), promises some important new developments:

• "Near real-time" purchase alerts (see note 1) so you can see immediately whether your server added an extra digit in front of your tip on that bar tab. The real-time alert pilot was announced a month ago (here) involving several thousand accounts at PNC Bank, SunTrust Bank, US Bank, Wachovia, Wells Fargo, Royal Bank of Canada, TD Bank, and Vancity.
• Visa merchant finder based on your location-based/GPS technology  (nice!) with targeted marketing offers (hmmm??). The merchant locations will be integrated with Google Maps.

Again, PaymentsNews has the entire press release here.

Notes:
1. Visa says that the alerts will arrive "typically before (the consumer) leaves the store."

2. For more information, see our Online Banking Report on Mobile Money & Payments.

In addition to the 51 companies chosen in advance to demo at TechCrunch's annual conference, 120 more companies (note 1) are in the DemoPit. The DemoPit is an area outside the main hall where the companies that didn't make the final cut to be on stage have a table where they can showcase their companies to attendees. And one lucky company, the one that collects the most tokens from attendees, will appear as company number 52 on stage in the last session tomorrow.

There were several financial services companies in the DemoPit Monday including Billeo, Expensify, and LoanKrunch. Today, there was just one, Rate Surfer from My Best Interest. Although the service will not go live until its debut at Finovate next month, the company today showed it to the public for the first time. It also added a downloadable demo program to its website if you want a sneak peek (note 2).

What it does
Rate Surfer is a credit card manager. It uses account-aggregation technology to import balance and rate data from all your credit cards. It then uses that data to help users initiate and track credit card balance transfers across their credit cards. Although not without rough edges still to work out, it could potentially save users hundreds of dollars in interest every year by helping them take advantage of transfer opportunities.

Main Rate Surfer page from its demo software (9 Sep 2008) 

Notes:
1. There are 120 total companies, but each gets just a 12-hour day in the DemoPit, so there are 40 companies each day. Although, the Monday companies were given an extra day due to a wifi outage that plagued the hall much of Monday. In addition to these companies, there were 33 exhibitor tables and 22 TechCrunch alumni with tables, including Cake Financial and last year's winner Mint.

2. It's a 67MB download.

Since the July opening of Apple's App Store, we've been tracking the apps in the Finance category (see previous coverage here). But there are also several apps in the Productivity category of interest to financial institutions: the eWallets.

There are two wallets available in the U.S. iTunes store:

• eWallet from Ilium Software: #46 in popularity in Productivity with a cost of $9.95 and rated 3.5 stars (out of 5) across 143 reviews (see inset)
• Memengo Wallet: #48 in Productivity with a $0.99 cost and rated 4 stars across 43 reviews (website)

Web-based eWallets never took off because of security concerns and because they provided only marginal improvements in desktop productivity. However, a mobile version has more utility owing to sticky notes with password reminders and credit card info, helpful to users away from their desks.

How it works
Storage of usernames and passwords for websites is the primary use of eWallet, but it also has a Finance category (see inset above) where users can store credit card numbers and contact info (see screenshots below).

That info is helpful when using a card to make a purchase online or through the mobile phone. It's also a great place to store the info in case the card itself is lost or stolen.

Financial institution opportunities
While these apps haven't gained an overwhelming following, a financial institution could offer a free version that highlights its own card offerings while providing storage space for other card numbers. That way, you get your logo on the iPhone instead of Mint, Wesabe, or some other financial institution. 

The bank-branded eWallet could also include a financial calculator and direct connection to online banking.

 Note:
1. For more info see our Online Banking Repot on Mobile Money & Payments.

Even though I have credit cards from Citibank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, American Express and Chase, I have never been offered the opportunity to add contactless payment capability to my card, so I still have no firsthand experience of that particular wave of the future. 

And it hasn't been too high on my list of things to try, since it still requires carrying a piece of plastic or an additional device such as keychain fob (inset). I don't see much benefit to tapping a piece of plastic compared to swiping it.

However, I do look forward to NFC-enabled mobile phones. But given the hurdles for adoption among carriers, payment processors, and issuing banks, I wasn't expecting that much before the next summer Olympics.

But now an interim workaround is being tested around the world: the contactless payment sticker. It's a quarter-sized sticker you plop on the back of your mobile phone making it instantly payment-enabled.

That allows consumers to leave their wallets at home, a nice benefit for outdoor enthusiasts, club goers, or anyone who doesn't want to worry about losing their wallet while on the go. Of course, we'll need a few million more contactless-enabled merchants before the wallet-free world is realistic for most, but widespread use of stickers could move that along (see note 1).

Who has it?
There are several rollouts under way around the world. For example:

• Turkish banking giant GarantiBank recently won an industry-innovation award for its RFID sticker (press release). The sticker is produced by On Track Innovations. The bank began a pilot a year ago with several thousand Turkish customers.
• Silicon Valley-based Blaze Mobile says it will be delivering a Blaze Debit MasterCard with PayPass payment sticker to subscribers to its $4.99/mo Blaze Wallet this month.
• Though not yet connected to a major credit card, Malvern, PA-based USA Technologies launched its Pay Dot contactless sticker this spring (press release).

Note:
1. There are about 110,000 PayPass merchants worldwide, less than 1% of the 25 million locations that accept regular MasterCard cards. 

Last week, the Puget Sound Business Journal reported on a Pacific Northwest stealth startup that's receiving a lot of attention from Silicon Valley, at least measured in dollars. The $10 million round for Finsphere is an impressive endorsement, especially given the apparent involvement of prominent VC Mohr Davidow.

There's not a lot we know about the company other than the founders are out of the wireless industry, and the company's services are described as "location-based transaction verification services." That sounds like using the GPS-based or triangulated location of mobile phone users to authenticate card transactions and/or online banking logins. Armed with the GPS reading, card companies would know that you (or at least your mobile phone) are where your credit card activity says you are, e.g., buying a tank of gas in Washington D.C.

With GPS capabilities coming to the iPhone next month, this could be a very large market indeed. If we are right about the product, we'll try to convince the company to demo at one of our Finovate conferences. 

Given how many times I've had to tell clerks, "no, I really don't care to save $18 on my purchase today" (by adding yet another revolving credit product to my life), the come-on at checkout must work pretty well. Amazon has used this approach at online checkout for years, offering up to $30 in savings if approved for its co-branded credit card.

eBay recently began pitching its eBay MasterCard to bidders in its online auctions. As you can see below, a small "up to $25 back" is presented to users as they consider what bid amount to enter. The card is issued by GE Money and requires a PayPal account. Customers can opt to display their eBay userid on the no-annual-fee card.

Analysis
I also received an email offer last night (7:34 PM Pacific) for the card (see screenshot below). It's an attractive holiday-themed message with the slightly misleading email subject line, "Get 10% off eBay purchases through Dec. 15." I clicked on it wondering why eBay would offer me, a frequent buyer, such a substantial savings. It turns out to only apply to the first $250 spent, for a $25 savings, not so rich compared to other credit card offers I typically receive in the mail. But with the tight integration and 30-second loan application, it should provide a reasonable flow of new applications.  

The online application is simple and fast with pre-populated personal info and a 30-second approval promise. All I had to do on the first page (note 1) was decide whether to put my eBay ID on the plastic and enter my birthdate (see screenshot below). However, the process is marred by the upsell of credit insurance disguised under the seemingly innocuous heading (see closeup below):

Yes, enroll me in the Account Security program.

Granted, the cost is clearly disclosed, however, many applicants will check the box thinking they are protecting themselves from fraud, and only later find out they are paying an extra 1.5% per month (that's $900 per year on a $5,000 balance) for an insurance product they probably don't need. With all the problems its had with phishing and fraud, eBay should NOT trick customers into signing on for credit insurance under the guise of "security." 

Email solicitation from eBay (19 November 2007)

Landing page for email solicitation of eBay MasterCard (19 November 2007) 

Note:

1. I did not proceed past the first page because I could not tell if hitting "continue" at that point would trigger a credit application. They may ask income and employment questions on the next page.  

As promised in its teaser print buy, American Express delivered my Plum Card invitation in the wee hours Monday morning (2:06 AM Pacific time, see screenshot below). The message, with my first and last name in the salutation, was short and sweet and directed me back to the main website to apply at <plumcard.com>.

It's all first class work, but the generic call-to-action surprised me a bit since I'd put my name on the "wait list" last week (see post here). I expected a more personalized invitation and link. The website doesn't appear to recognize me either (see screenshot below).

Email Invitation (1 Nov 2007)

Plum Card homepage (5 Nov. 2007)

As a financial services junkie, I've long been a fan of American Express (see note 1). During the past 20 years, as credit cards increasingly became a commodity with no annual fees, loss-leader teaser rates, and look-alike marketing, AmEx has done a superb job maintaining a premium image and pricing. I keep my Gold Card in my travel bag and use it once every year or so when I don't want to expose the numbers of my business MasterCard. But I would never cancel it, despite the $75 annual fee, or I'd lose my "member since 1989" status. That, my friends, is what brand loyalty is all about.

The latest product designed for small businesses, those with "6- or 7-figure revenues," is the Plum Card. I learned about it in a 2/3-page full-color burgundy ad in yesterday's Wall Street Journal (Oct. 31, p. A11). An identical ad appears today (Nov. 1, p. A10). Its standard teaser fare tells readers that the "application releases in 5 days" (today, 4). The bottom of the ad contains a special URL, <PlumCard.com> where prospective customers can get more info. The card was originally announced at an INC 5000 event Sep. 7 (see coverage here).

After seeing the print ads, I and another 100,000 people headed to Google to see what was going on. Wisely, the company purchased not only the top spot on Google for "plum card," but also supported the print buy with an additional twist, "Who's getting a Plum Card? Initial release of 10,000 cards." The novelty of a new financial services product with limited availability, a technique AmEx has used for years with Platinum/Black, should attract click-throughs.   

The landing page (here) continues the theme of anticipation and exclusivity, with get this, a WAIT LIST, to be one of the first 10,000 to receive the card. A countdown timer in the upper right lets me know exactly how much time I have to wait, in this case 3 days, 11 hours and 6 minutes. If I'm not mistaken, that's Sunday night at midnight Eastern time.  

I'm on the wait list, so I'll let you know what I learn on Monday when I receive my application.

Plum Card pricing
There's no argument the marketing is first class, but what about the card itself? Is there anything that AmEx or anyone can do to distinguish themselves in the crowded field of business charge cards?

Time will tell, but it has a unique cash flow and discount plan that could be very appealing to business customers. Users that pay their bill within 10 days receive the industry standard "net less 2%" discount (see note 1). Alternatively, users can pay just 10% of the total due and defer the balance for two months interest free. At that time, the balance is due in full. There is no information in the terms and conditions about an annual fee, but I'd expect one.    

Notes:

1. If my wife would have been willing to move to NYC, I'd have tried very hard to get a job there after completing my obligatory MBA. 
2. The 2% discount applies on spending of $5,000 or more; otherwise, the net-10 discount is 1%.

I don't know how I missed this one, but Advanta, a major credit card issuer with 1.2 million small business customers, launched a new Web 2.0 microsite on Sept. 24 at the high-tech DEMOfall conference (press release here). Just being there amongst the digerati was a coup for the card issuer, but they did much better, managing to come home with a coveted DemoGod Peoples Choice trophy at the conference.

The Web 2.0-laden site is called ideablob, and it's a place where entrepreneurs, inventors, and anyone else can post their business idea and compete for the monthly $10,000 prizes (contest rules here).

One month after launch, the site is generating a fair amount of activity. The eight October finalists showcased on the homepage (see below) have received the following: 

• 691 total votes (must be registered to vote, can vote on more than one idea)
• 216 total comments (must be registered to comment)
• 10,300 total views (anyone can view the idea)

Traffic to the site should grow rapidly once word of the $10k prize circulates. That's a large incentive for the millions of Internet users who think they have a better idea. 

Advanta, which uses fairly subdued branding on the site (see small "inspired by Advanta" under the main ideablob logo), is positioned to gain in three ways:

• By associating its brand with innovation, social networks, and a Web 2.0 attitude
• Assuming a good viral kick, and $10k/mo should do it, the site could generate leads more cost effectively than through other channels
• Publicity in blogs and traditional media

Bank of America launched a good business networking site recently, but without the fun of the $10,000 in prize money (see previous coverage here).

Advanta's ideablob main page (25 Oct 2007)

An idea page

In terms of website design, I find most Citibank pages to be somewhat busy. But overall, the pages usually work well due to the eye-catching graphics, appropriate use of colors, and good copywriting.  

I've had a Citibank Business AAdvantage credit card for at least a decade. Even though I don't visit the site often, maybe once every few months, I find that it's generally easy to find what I'm looking for. 

As you can see in the business card example below, the bank uses purple and green "buttons" to catch your eye, then inserts important key words within them to drive action:

1. The purple, "Fraud is not your fault" reinforces that customers are not liable for unauthorized transactions, something most people are still concerned about, even though their liability is minimal. The button leads to a page that discusses advanced fraud fighting tools such as virtual account numbers and a picture card.
2. The navy, "How much have I spent lately?" allows users to quickly drill down into a key area of concern for most card users. Although not as powerful as Wells Fargo's My Spending Report (previous coverage here), it's still a good starting point for many users.
3. Finally, the bright green, "Help prevent an identity crisis" pitches the bank's credit monitoring solutions (note 1).
   

Citibank Business Credit Card main account overview page (22 Sep 2007)

Note:

1. For more information on bank and credit union opportunities selling credit report monitoring see our most recent Online Banking Report.

I received an email from American Express late last night after resetting my password earlier in the day (see screenshot below). I can never remember my AmEx password, because I can't use my usual one due to the company's surprisingly short field of just 8 characters that also doesn't support special characters. I have it written down somewhere, but I can never find that either.

I went online late Friday afternoon to pay my overdue bill at AmericanExpress.com. I was pretty sure it was one of three possibilities, but after two unsuccessful attempts, and with the website warning me the third attempt would cause a lockout (note 1), I decided to go through the online reset process instead. 

That was easy. I just needed the card number, the code on the front of the card, and the answer to a security question. At that point, AmEx displayed my username and let me reset the password. It's one of the easier reset processes I've tested. That's a benefit to customers and helps cut customer service costs for AmEx. 

But the thing I liked most was the email message sent later that night informing me of the password reset (screenshot below). But I don't understand why it was sent more than six hours later. Why not send it right away? That would be way more impressive to customers, and would help reduce any potential fraud or privacy violations. Better yet, send a text message right to the customer's mobile, so they have real-time knowledge of the account changes.

Email Critique
Personalization: The company uses two pieces of personalization, cardmember name and the last five digits of the account number, to differentiate this message from the average phish. Excellent.  

Subject line: Your American Express Forgotten User ID is good and right to the point

From: "American Express" using an American Express email address. Good.  

Headline: Verify Your Account Transaction is a little confusing. All I did was reset my password. I'm not sure that average person views that as a "transaction."

Copy: The copy is short and to the point, but it could use a little editing for clarity. The third sentence, "If you did contact us...." seems unnecessary. And "If you did not complete the retrieval...." is not very user friendly language.

Design & Layout: Excellent.

Overall Grade: A- for the message, B- for timeliness

Note:

1. We recommend allowing more than three attempts before lockout. It's pretty easy to forget a digit or make a typing mistake. See our Online Banking Report on Security (#119) for more information.  

The folks at Chase Bank were on the ball today. Less than an hour after I wrote about Whitney Bank joining the long-term statement archive club (here), I received an email from a subscriber* at Chase letting me know they offer six years of online statements for credit cards. 

Below is the bank's announcement to cardholders. It's nicely designed with a green touch. And it reminds cardholders they will receive an email both when the statement is ready and when payment is due. And note the call to action: "TRY" paperless. That lets customers know they can always go back. Now that's the way to get fired up about saving trees, and the bank's cash. The only thing missing: a simple guarantee.

Grade: We score it an "A" 

Chase has been working hard to move customers out of paper. So far this year, the bank has run a $35,000 sweeps to go paperless (see post here) and they currently have a popup on the credit card homepage pitching estatements (see screenshot below).

January 2007 email to Chase credit card customers

Popup at credit card site

*He earns a Starbucks card for his responsiveness. Anyone else have five or more years of statements online? Add your comments or email me.

I never understood the fight against Wal-Mart's limited-purpose banking charter. I say let it "enjoy" all the benefits of being a bank: CRA statements, regulatory audits, compliance committees, and endless questions about trigger terms and the alphabet soup of regulations. Maybe a banking charter would have distracted it from going ahead and providing pretty much the same thing, but as a non-regulated retail partner instead of a bank.   

Take Kroger for example. They are entering the financial services arena through their retail grocery stores with a menu of financial products outsourced from other companies (link here; also see note 1 and screenshot below).

According to a story Monday in the Lexington (KY) Herald-Leader (here), the grocer began quietly rolling out the services to its 2400 stores in February. Most of the  services are sourced through various Royal Bank of Scotland units.

Other than deposits, it's a full-service offering including:

• Credit card issued by RBS National Bank (a unit of Royal Bank)
• Mortgages through a joint venture with CCO Mortgage (a unit of Royal Bank)
• Home equity loans through Charter Bank (a unit of Royal Bank)
• Gift cards issued by Charter Bank
• Pet insurance through PetFirst Healthcare
• Identity theft services through Trilegiant's PrivacyGuard

Analysis
Kroger's product offering seems reasonable and no doubt will have good visibility in the company's stores. But few of these items are impulse buys and much of the success will hinge on whether the Royal Bank phone sales agents can close the deals. The item that has the best chance of earning its keep: pet insurance, a surprisingly popular search term (see Online Banking Report, #95) and one that can be cross-sold effectively with other pet items. 

Will Kroger Personal Finance be be a success? With low fixed costs, it might turn a nice profit, but probably not nearly as much as the rent that bank clients pay for in-store branches (a core Wal-Mart strategy). But will it impact the industry? Highly unlikely.

I'm sure Wal-Mart will be following this rollout closely. If they find it's working at Kroger, you can bet they'll be doing the same thing within a few years, and probably at much lower prices. So, if you think you've dodged the Wal-Mart Bank bullet, think again. 

Note:

1. The homepage of Kroger's personal finance site <krogerpersonalfinance.com>, is dominated by a pitch for its MasterCard rewards card. The only link so far to the broader offering is the "new products" link hidden on the right leading to the following page <krogerpersonalfinance.com/Max/KPFhome.htm>.

If you've been reading this blog for long, you know I'm going through a "mobile" phase. There's two reasons for that:

1. It's an interesting and important extension to online banking, our core area of expertise.

2. I am in the process of writing two extensive reports on the subject, the first was published a few weeks ago on mobile banking (link here) and the second is due out by the end of the month on mobile payments.

So I had to laugh when I opened by Wells Fargo credit card bill today, not at the size of the bill which was not at all funny, but at the insert that fell out pitching, "cellular phone protection at no cost" (see front of insert right, back of insert below).  

This is a different type of "mobile payment" than what I've been thinking about lately. But, this Wells Fargo program is brilliant, and has a much better business case, at least in the short term.

Here's what Wells Fargo is proposing:

1. Put your mobile phone bill on automatic payment via your Wells credit card.

2. In the event your phone is damaged or stolen, you will be reimbursed for up to $100 in damages, after a $50 deductible (see note 1).

Analysis
The business case for this program looks fabulous. Assuming an average mobile phone bill of $60/mo x 12 months x 1.5% ROA = about $10 per year in revenue. While the cost should be just a few pennies per year in insurance payouts, given the difficulty in filing a claim. 

Even though the bank will pay out benefits to cardholders who had their cellphone charged to Wells even without the incentive, the bank should earn 10x to 20x the cost of the program each year. Maybe Wells can put some of that windfall into a new mobile access to online banking and credit card info. 

Note:

1. To keep costs down, the maximum number of claims is two per 12-month period, $200 in total. And the claim procedure is  cumbersome, especially for a maximum payout of $100. You'll need copy of receipts, statements, other insurance coverage, police reports, and so on. The full details of the fine print are online here.   

There is no doubt consumers love debit cards. Despite cloudier fraud protections, no free float, and the confusion of "signature vs. PIN," growth continues at a 20% annual clip, with total U.S. transactions surpassing credit 15 to 18 months ago (see numbers here).

But continued negative press coverage could slow the growth. For instance, today's lead article in the Wall Street Journal's Personal Journal section, How to Protect Your Plastic, focused on recent debit card skimming incidents. 

What can a financial institution do to counteract the negative press?

1. Educate customers on their limited liability

2. Provide clear and understandable zero-liability fraud protection guarantees

3. Provide tools for monitoring checking accounts, such as transaction and security alerts

But once you have those "best practices" in place, you can still boost usage, and differentiate your debit card and checking accounts by integrating actionable text-message alerts (see ClairMail example above). 

While the industry-standard email alerts are helpful, the phishing epidemic, spam filling up the in-box, and  the time lag for reading and responding to bank emails, make them less and less effective for time-sensitive communications such as fraud alerts.

Enter the mobile phone. Most banking customers now keep a mobile device with "three rings" of their person much of the day, and almost always when out of the house. Therefore, a real-time text message each and every time a debit cards is used, will go a long way towards making users comfortable that their card has not been comprised. And in the event their is a fraudulent transaction, a quick text message back to the issuer can lock the debit card down, avoiding any additional unauthorized transactions.

This is about as win-win as you can get in banking. The user is happier with his debit card leading to increased loyalty and more debit transactions, boosting both short- and long-term revenues for the bank, credit union, or card issuer.

For more information see our latest Online Banking Report, Mobile Banking & Payments 2.0 (OBR 138/139).

Advertising-monitoring firm, Mintel Comperemedia reported last week that nearly 9 out of 10 credit card solicitations in 2006 directed recipients to the Web, up sharply from 56% in 2003 (see note 1, 2). Several big mailers, namely American Express, still seem reluctant to use website response as an option, at least in the mailers we see at our house.

American Express tests must show a drop in response by offering too many choices. But if you don't have the budget of American Express, which can afford to drop a mail piece in every credit-worthy household every two or three weeks, you should add website options to your direct mail creative. That way, you can at least capture a lead at your website, even if they don't ultimately accept your credit offer. 

Total mailing volume for 2006 was 9.2 billion pieces (see note 1), or about 3 per week per credit-worthy household. Two of those were from the five largest mailers listed below which accounted for more than 60% of the volume, according to Comperemedia. JPMorgan Chase accounted for 18% on its own. 

In another data slice from Comperemedia, cited by Capital One in a Feb. 2006 investor presentation (PDF here), response rates have fallen from 1.4% in 1995 to 0.3% in 2004 (see note 3).

Here's a breakdown of the billion-piece club, and their percent change compared to 2005:  

1. Chase >>> 1.7 billion (down 4%)

2. Capital One >>> 1.2 billion (up 13%)

3. American Express >>> 1 billion

4. Citibank >>> 980 million (down 2%)

5. Bank of America/MBNA >>> 920 million (down 17%)

Other top-10 mailers: HSBC (up 25%); Discover (up 29%); Barclays Bank (190 million, up 70%)

Note:

1. Comperemedia tracks mailing volume for more than 150 large financial institutions. So the figures here do not include mailings from thousands of smaller banks and credit unions. In total, those probably account for less than 5% of the total from the top-150. 

2. Comperemedia press release is here. Interview of Comperemedia director Jenny Roock by MediaPost is here.

3. Credit card response rate slide from Capital One's investor presentation (PDF) at the Debt & Equity Conference, Feb. 2006; data from Comperemedia.

In a multi-page look at mobile banking (here), BankRate.com reporter Laura Bruce quotes Citibank's Rob Julavits as saying the bank will be:

...testing (mobile banking) in March and allowing customers to enroll in April, with a broad launch expected before midyear

That's a few months later than originally expected. The bank sent Citi Mobile disclosures to checking account customers in January indicating the service would be live in February (see article here). Citibank already provides mobile access to its credit cards in Japan (link here).

Here's a timely email from Bank of America, inviting its credit card customers to start the year off with a 3.99% balance-transfer offer. But the savings won't last long, since the rate resets after August 2007.

Here are the specs:

• Subject: Use your Bank of America® credit card today.
• From: Bank of America [BankofAmerica@loyaltyemail.bankofamerica.com]
• To: jim@netbanker.com
• Product type: Credit card balance transfer
• Offer: 3.99% through August 2007 (cash advance fee NOT waived)
• Customer type: Mailed to current credit card customers
• Personalization: Full name and last 4 digits of account number

Screenshots:

Email body

Landing page

Who'd have guessed banks would become a popular source of holiday gifts, other than good old-fashioned greenbacks of course?

Now that niche audiences can be targeted with online promotions during the holidays, many financial institutions are marketing financial products packaged as gifts. Prepaid Visa/MasterCards are the hottest item, but there's also potential in other areas. 

Gift cards
The second most popular gift item this year, after apparel, is expected to be prepaid cash cards. While the majority of the $20+ billion purchased will be direct from retailers, hundreds of banks and credit unions, such as Boeing Employees Credit Union (BECU) have joined the fray (see email below). If marketed right, financial institutions could gain a significant share of total sales. See our previous post here about integrating gift cards into online banking for more information.

Credit reports
Equifax is taking advantage of the giving season to market credit reports and/or FICO score gift certificates. The cost is $20 for a three-bureau credit report, $15 for the FICO score and explanation, or $30 for both (see email below). An even better gift would be a year of credit monitoring.

Investment accounts
For years, ShareBuilder has marketed "the gift of stock" during the holidays. This year, many of its partners, such as National City Bank, are offering a $50 gift card as a bonus for new accounts (see screenshot below). That way grandma and grandpa can give junior something that's good for him, an investment account for the future AND something he'll actually like, $50 to spend at the mall.

Piggy bank 2.0
For the younger set, ING Direct has for a year been selling The Savings Machine, a toy bank/calculator/ATM machine. And judging from the note on its website,* it's proving to be a popular Deal of the Month with a lower $17.95 price tag which includes free shipping (see inset). Several years ago, ING Direct reported nearly a million dollars in sales from its online merchandise store <shop.ingdirect.com>, an inexpensive way to get its name on the street.

*Note by the "Savings Machine" product page today: All orders placed from 4 Dec to 11 Dec will be shipped out the week of 11 Dec due to the large amount of backorders.

Boeing Employees Credit Union <becu.org> starts the holiday shopping season off with an email pitch for its prepaid MasterCard gift card. At $2.50 each, they are a bit less expensive than one hanging in Safeway for $4.95. However, the CU neglected to disclose dormant account fees, a significant issue with consumer advocates.

It's too bad you can't order the cards online. Ideally, members should be able to order with a single click (or two) right from within the online banking function. Maybe next year.

Screenshot (click to enlarge)

Classification

Type: Marketing email for prepaid debit
Product: Prepaid debit cash card (MasterCard)
Offer: None (cost is $2.50 plus the cash value)
Customer Type: Sent to nonmembers
Personalization: None
Links: None
Call to action: Toll-free phone, branch

Header

Date received: Tues 11/28/2006 6:08 AM
From: BECU [reply27974@enews.becu.org]
To: Jim Bruene
Subject: BECU Gift Cards Make the Perfect Holiday Gift

Comments

• Even if gift cards cannot be ordered online, the credit union should include a link or URL for more information. Since many email recipients will automatically go to BECU's website to purchase, it would be helpful to specifically mention the cards cannot be ordered online, and why.
• The opt-out and CAN-SPAM disclosures could be better designed.
• Add disclosures for any monthly fees that kick in if the value is not used by a certain date.

More than 70% of business-email users view most or all of their email messages in the preview pane.* Depending on screen size, resolution, and window sizing, the real estate available in the preview pane can be relatively small.

When designing messages, be sure to put the most important information in the upper-left corner to maximize visibility in the preview pane.

Here is a poorly designed email Chase sent to confirm posting of a credit card payment. It requires users to scroll right to view Chase's logo and log-in button. Here's how it looks on my 12-inch laptop screen running at 1024 x 768:

What not to do from Chase:

Better design from Bank of America graphics flush left:

(Note: BofA shows the last four digits of your account number; we changed them to xxxx in the screenshot above.)

Action Items
Even though it's just a routing email message, the poor layout makes it look like a phishing message. Chase could clean this up with just a few minutes of programming work. While they are at it, they should add a personal greeting and additional text disclosures to make it look less phishy. 

*For more information, read our Online Banking Report #129/139, Email Marketing for Financial Services.

At 8:30 AM today, we heard an unusual advertisement on classic rock radio for the Bank of America Alaska Airlines affinity card.

It wasn't the ad itself that was so spectacular, although it's not every day that you hear credit cards being pitched on radio. And it wasn't the offer that made the ad stand out, although 20,000 bonus miles is a pretty good perk.

What made it memorable was the call to action, "visit myalaskacard.com." They didn't even bother to throw an 800 number into the spot.

It's hard to say whether a radio spot will prove cost effective, but using a memorable URL should help. It's far easier to remember than a telephone number, and prospective applicants can be immediately greeted with an effective sales pitch reinforcing the product benefits and bonus offer.

Analysis
However, once again BofA stumbles with its search engine support (see previous article). Searching on Google for "my Alaska card" brings up a single ad for a Web-based portal site, CreditStep.com (click on inset for closeup).

In fact, we tested every variation of "my" + "alaska" + "airlines" + "credit" + "card" and BofA was nowhere to be seen UNLESS we dropped "my" from the search query. Interestingly, Chase was an aggressive advertiser on several of the search terms offering a competing airline card with 15,000 bonus miles. BofA showed up as an advertiser only when we dropped the "my" from the search query.

The lack of advertising against "my alaska card" is especially damaging because the first few organic search results do not link to BofA or Alaska Airlines. Also, if you type a similar URL, such as www.alaskacard.com or www.alaskaairlinescard.com you either end up at a generic link site or an error page. At this point, potential prospects will either apply at the wrong place or give up on the search. 

If you correctly input the exact URL, you end up at the following landing page. It's OK, but should reinforce the impressive benefits of applying now, a free ticket right away and a $50 companion ticket every year on renewal (see screenshot below).

Action Items
Here's what you should do to ensure better search-engine support for your offline advertising:

1. Advertise at search engines on likely search terms that would be used by consumers responding to your advertising
2. Create a memorable URL that is not easily mistyped
3. Register or purchase domains similar to the advertised URL (including common misspellings), or pay the owner to refer traffic to your landing page
4. Design a landing page that boldly supports the benefits in your advertising and includes a prominent "Apply" button

PayPal is advertising its PayPal Plus card with this box located in the upper-right of the main account start-page within the secure area (click screenshot below for a closeup).

With the falloff in response to traditional direct mail raising acquisition costs to $200 or more, a pitch delivered within an online banking session can be far less expensive. And with online banking users typically wanting to get in and out quickly, the 30-second response shows that the company is sensitive to the time constraints of its customers (notice they did NOT say that it was a 30-second process).

The PayPal card is issued by GE Money Bank, the same company behind PayPal Buyers Credit used by sellers to offer longer-term financing of major eBay purchases. The Plus card includes a free rewards program offering 1 point per dollar purchased. The current rewards structure includes three levels:

• 1,000 points – Free shipping up to $7 on a PayPal purchase
• 2,500 points – $25 voucher (for merchandise at most PayPal merchants)
• 9,500 points – $100 voucher (for merchandise at most PayPal merchants)

The card carries a variable rate from 14.24% to 24.24% and has no annual fee.

Here's the main account page displayed after login:

Here's the landing page displayed after clicking on the apply button:

In direct mail, sometimes "big & ugly" beats "short & sweet." But when it comes to preapproved credit card applications, we're pretty sure the 8-screen form posted by Bank of America's FIA Card Services (formerly MBNA) isn't going to help improve response rates (see the full form by clicking the continue link below).

My wife received a preapproved, direct-mail offer from Fidelity Investments where she has an investment account. The solicitation included the usual one-third sheet mail-back "acceptance form." Recipients could also either call a toll-free number, or go online to www.ibscredit.com.

Those that went online were greeted with this almost-blank screen operating under a different URL www.applyforcreditnow.com and had no reassuring message or graphics to assure users they had not arrived at a phishing site.

After entering the 6-digit code from the mailing, prospective cardholders are transported to this boring form, which surprisingly includes MORE fields than its paper-based counterpart (click on inset for closeup; click on continuation below to see the full 800 x 5200 screenshot). For example, it contains a section to be completed by students, who are unlikely to be receiving this particular Fidelity Investments WorldPoints Visa card with no preset spending limits.

Not only are the layout and design dull, but also two major design flaws are readily apparent:

1. No reinforcement of product benefits above the fold, especially the "0% through Nov. 2007" offer
2. No division into smaller segments, the first of which should gather the email address

See Online Banking Report #104 for more on application design.

--- JB

Endnote: Full online application (820 x 5200)

We were impressed with Citibank’s full-page ad in Sunday’s New York Times travel section offering 25,000 miles to take a new American Airlines co-branded credit card. As usual, we looked for a link to the Web-based application and were pleased to find a large, reverse-type URL along the bottom of the ad. Unfortunately, Citi did not follow the usual convention for printed landing-page URLs, creating potential problems for applicants.

Typically, offline advertisements use a special filename after the normal domain name, such as <www.yourbank.com/special>. This allows users to go directly to the landing page explaining the special offer (see landing page below).

Instead, Citibank used the unique server name "miles5" as in: <www.miles5.citicards.com>. There are several problems with this approach. First, it’s long and not easily recalled. But the biggest problem is its non-standard format. Internet users do not expect to see an extra period in the middle of a bank's URL. So many users, myself included, may read this as a unique domain name, <miles5citicards.com>.

Normally, that would be okay. But in this case Citibank neglected to register that domain name. An identity thief could easily have registered that domain, and then taken “applications” for days or weeks before anyone caught on, possibly leaving hundreds of applicants vulnerable to identity theft after entering their personal info, including social security number, in the application.

By mid-day on Monday, almost two days after the ad first appeared in print, the domain was still unregistered. We went ahead and registered it to prove the point, and keep it safe.

Implications
The moral of this story: If you live in a glass house, make sure any transparencies are covered. Register your domain name. Citibank, which has spent millions on its anti-identity theft campaign, left itself and its customers vulnerable for the price of an $8.95 domain name. Make sure you register the domain name of any cute URLs you put out there for marketing campaigns. While you are at it, spend $60 and lock it up for 10 years. 

Memo to Citibank’s legal team: We have no commerical interest in the domain and will happily transfer it to your ownership. All we ask is reimbursement of our 9 bucks.

--JB

Score:
     Tom Brown -- 1
     Citibank -- 0

How many times have you been frustrated by your experience at a call center? Well, if you were a multi-millionaire hedge fund manager with his own blog, you could get back at the company, and then some.

Read today's extremely thorough account (transcribed verbatim from a tape recording) of Second Curve's Tom Brown as he attempts to add a PayPass contactless debit card to his Citibank account <bankstocks.com>.

A couple lessons here:

1. Flag Tom Brown, and other influential VIPs, in your customer database so they get topnotch phone service
2. Be careful with geographic-based product rollouts to avoid irritating customers
3. Simplify call center scripts

--JB

Although they've been around for years, with relatively little success, the time may be right for disposable card numbers. However, this time, the emphasis should be on debit, the payment of choice for many younger consumers.

A compelling case can be made for disposable debit which:

• is the favored payment vehicle for the under-30 crowd, and often the ONLY payment option for high school and college students
• differentiates your checking account from 16,000 other U.S. providers
• encourages more debit card usage
• cements account relationships
• adds value to online banking archives
• provides excellent PR (customer advocacy) and branding benefits

But while great strides have been made in educating consumers about credit card fraud protection, the issue is murkier on the debit side.

Consumer appeal
We were reminded of the appeal of disposable card numbers when reviewing Cambrian House <cambrianhouse.com>, a Web-based venture attempting to "open-source" the business-startup process. While we don't see that taking off, the company does maintain an interesting database of user-submitted business ideas. Of the 433 ideas listed, the most popular according to site visitors is:

Self-destructing credit cards submitted by Rohan Pinto

Essentially what Mr. Pinto is proposing is the one-time-use credit card number offered since the late 1990s by Citibank, American Express, and, more recently, Discover Card (see inset). The main difference is the name, which actually is pretty good, if it hasn't been trademarked yet (we couldn't find any business using the term in a quick Google).

--JB

How does a small bank rate a WSJ-bylined story when it ups its credit card reward percentage by 15 basis points? Sure, it helps to be headquartered in NYC, home to much of the country's financial media. But you also need a compelling story line.

What could be better than a small player eating the big guys' lunch? Layer in the online-only factor, a strategy that had been declared dead by many analysts after botched attempts by Bank One (Wingspan Bank), Citibank (eciti), and Benchmark Capital (Juniper Bank). Finally, top it all off with a 150-year old company all of a sudden making like a Bay-area startup, and you have a story with real legs.

EmigrantDirect, the direct-banking unit of Emigrant Savings Bank, once again landed in the media (WSJ Mar. 28), with a relatively small change to its credit card launched earlier this year. It's the second time this month, and sixth this year, that the bank has been mentioned in personal finance articles in The Wall Street Journal.

This time the story highlighted EmigrantDirect's credit card, touted on its website as America's Highest Cash Back Card, that now pays a cash rebate of 1.4% on all retail purchases, up from 1.25% earlier (see note 1). The fine print on the claim says that other cards may pay a higher percentage, but they require minimum purchase levels before the higher rebate kicks in (see note 2).

Analysis
Since the launch of EmigrantDirect a little over a year ago, the bank has raked in $6 billion in deposits and 225,000 accounts for an average balance of about $27,000. The direct-banking unit's success essentially doubled the deposit base of the bank in a single year, halting a gradual decline in total deposits over the previous decade.

It will be interesting to see how Emigrant reacts as more banks enter the market such as Washington Mutual (NetBanker Nov. 18, 2005) and Puerto Rico-based Popular that is planning to go after U.S. deposits under its own name and that of its well-established E-Loan brand. For more information, refer to last fall's report, Lessons from the High-Rate Marketers (OBR 120/121).

--JB

Notes:
1. Interestingly, the higher rebate is retroactive to Jan. 2006, an unusual bit of financial services generosity.
2. Another bit of crucial fine print: The EmigrantDirect card requires a $10,000 average deposit balance FOR THE PAST SIX MONTHS in order to earn the rebate.

Do you ever wonder why American Express, with fewer merchant outlets and higher prices, continues to command a 17% share of all U.S. debit and credit card volume (see note 1)?

Sure, the company's powerful brand supported by vast and memorable advertising is a factor, but it's also the product it delivers, optimized for business users and other big spenders. And the company never rests on its laurels. Even though I'm a light user, in 11 years of card ownership, I've received on average one card, letter, or email message every week, for a total of more than 500. The company does not let you forget about them.

American Express also continually improves their product. For example, the latest innovation, announced in an email today (click on inset left), is a minor new twist in online delivery. Cardmembers can go online and easily print receipts, one page per transaction, to be used to match up with other paper records, invoices, expense-reimbursement requests, and the like.

Simple instructions in the email message explain how to use the new option, one of three choices in the Print Options box (see inset upper left) located in the upper-right corner of the main Summary of Accounts page, the default shown after login (click on screenshot below for a closeup of the Summary page).

Will handy, printable receipts win American Express any awards? Hardly. It barely rates a bullet point in a brochure. But these little things all add up when cardmembers make the decision as to which piece of plastic to pull out of their wallet or purse. 

--JB

Note:
1. Market share of all purchase volume on MasterCard, Visa, Discover and American Express credit and debit cards during first half of 2005 (Source: The Nilson Report, Aug. 2005, #840)

Bank of America is making it super easy for online banking customers to accept a new business platinum credit card. The preapproved offer is displayed after logging out from an online banking session. In this example, we had just finished paying our Bank of America credit card bill and were greeted with well-crafted page shown here (click on inset left for a closer view).

Analysis
Using the log-off screen is a great way to get your preapproved offers in front of users at just the time they are thinking about their finances. We also recommend offering a link to the offer within the online banking area. That way, if a user is running a bit low on cash, for example, while paying bills, he or she could click on the offer to obtain additional cash.

--JB

Last week, Visa USA redesigned its direct bill-pay area using Billeo's technology to power biller search and facilitate direct payments via credit card. It is a major coup for the fledgling direct bill-pay solutions provider Billeo, which earned an Online Banking Report Best of the Web last year for its innovative bill-pay toolbar (OBR 116/117).

The implementation at Visa bears careful review. It wisely uses biller search to engage users (see inset), then prompts them to save their personal biller list using Billeo. After registering, users download and install the toolbar directly into their browser, then input credit card information to facilitate payments. After the initial setup, users can pay select bills directly from the toolbar using the saved credit card and biller info.

Next week, we'll look at Visa's implementation in more detail and share insights from our conversation with Billeo founder, Murali Subbarao. In the meantime, you might want to give it a spin yourself at Visa's bill-pay site, <usa.visa.com/personal/using_visa/pay_bills_with_visa/> (click on screenshot right for a closer look).

Previous articles:

• NetBanker posts on Billeo
• Online Banking Report #85, Grabbing Desktop Mindshare: Private-branded browser extensions can make online services easier to use

-JB

Although we have concerns about the underlying program (see NetBanker Oct. 5, 2005), you have to tip your hat to the marketing execution of Bank of America's Keep the Change campaign. Today a small but distinctive postage-stamp ad on MSN's homepage, tied in with MSN Money headlines (see inset), invites readers to "Open a Checking Account and Keep the Change."

It's an intriguing headline and likely does well prompting clickthroughs. The landing page (click on inset right for a closeup) is also well done. A graphical explanation of the keep-the-change rebate is shown on the right, which helps alleviate the need for prospects to wade through the 479 words of fine print on the bottom of the landing page.

Another landing-page graphical element that you should immediately consider adopting: pictures of the three key banking products being pitched with simple checkboxes for selection (see below). However, in this case it's used in a backwards fashion. Users are supposed to tell the bank which accounts they already have, rather than the ones they want to buy. This is counter-intuitive and should be redesigned.

After selecting the BofA accounts already owned, users arrive on a secure Checking & Savings Account Application page that does a good job reinforcing benefits and referencing the original "Keep the Change" hook (click on inset left). A pop-up box offers live chat with a Deposit Specialist if desired.

Summary
The bank scores high for great online copywriting, superb graphics, and good ad positioning at MSN. We also like how Bank of America reinforces the benefits of automated savings. However, the offer is complicated and smacks of a gimmick that will do little to engender long-term loyalty or create a real savings ethic. Finally, the low 0.50 percent rate paid on the underlying savings account damages the program's credibility and makes it less likely the account will be used to amass meaningful deposit balances.

Grades:
A+ for online advertising and sales (banner, landing page, application)
B+ for encouraging savings
C- for the debit card rewards program

This should be a watershed year for payments cards. The approaching MasterCard IPO, and Visa's likely response, will likely reform the sector's fundamental business structure. Meanwhile, First Data Corp. is undergoing profound changes, and it's unlikely that either Discover or American Express will be twiddling their thumbs while the future of the card associations is decided.

The MasterCard IPO will likely have the greatest impact on the space, thinks David Evans, founder of Market Platform Dynamics. "It will force them to become a much more entrepreneurial and different organization than it's been in the past, partly because of changes in the marketplace, but also because of organizational changes that will change the dynamic of that entity," because of the need to satisfy its new investors, he says.

Continue reading "Payment Cards Watershed - MasterCard IPO" »

In the coming year, low-value payments and prepaid cards will be increasingly mentioned in the same breath, especially in conjunction with off-line, contactless methods, says Gwenn Bezard, partner in Aite Group.

Pilots, and even some deployments of contactless payment cards, will be making a significant appearance, if only because banks are pushing them. The main sticking point from the merchant perspective, Bezard says, will be the cost of interchange, but he expects some banks to offer breaks on fees, if only to give the venue a running start. He is optimistic that big merchants will follow Starbucks’ model and offer rechargeable, merchant-specific stored-value cards as a means of gaining market share and promoting customer loyalty.

Continue reading "Low Value Payments & Stored Value Cards" »

Despite intense competition from MasterCard and Visa issuers, American Express has been able to maintain a substantial share of the high-end market for credit/charge cards. For the twenty years we've followed the company, its marketing has consistently conveyed an upscale image.

Case in point: The email we received today asking us to upgrade from our existing Gold Card to an American Express Platinum (click on inset for a closeup look).

The subject line said it all:

     Upgrade to a card with premium service

The benefits cited included:
* Complimentary airline ticket on any of the 18 participating airline partners
* Airport club access (Continental, Delta, Northwest Airlines)
* Hotels & resort special privileges
* Free Membership Rewards program
* By Invitation Only (privileged access and tickets to events that, in many cases, can't be purchased through any other source)

Analysis
The American Express solicitation is heavily oriented towards travel and entertainment benefits which plays to the company's strengths. A bank could do the same by concentrating more on the "premium service" aspect. For example:

• Front-of-the-line service: Your service request, whether by email or phone, always goes to the front of the queue
• Branch manager access: If you ever need to go direct to the top for any reason, just call (212) 555-1212 or email branchmanager@yourbank.com
• Preferred access to product specialists: If you ever have an unusual problem, whether it be accessing your online banking account from your laptop, or how to fund your Roth IRA, we will connect you with a specialist with state-of-the-art knowledge in that area
• Ft. Knox security: You need not worry about the safety and security of your bank accounts with our upgraded security and authentication algorithms

For more ideas, see "E-Service 2.0" (OBR 105/106).

Credit card companies have been poaching revolving balances from each other for years primarily through direct mail. It helped boost the share of early movers, such as Capital One. But once the tactic was widely copied, it dragged margins down for all.

The same technique has been used online with dedicated balance-transfer microsites posted by Bank of America and others beginning in 2003. The online balance transfer is better than paper because it can be interactive, prompting the user to make additional transfers, or to correct errors in the information input. However, it still requires the user to make a trip to the website to make the transfer.

Enter E*Trade's new Mileage Maximizer program, launched with a page-dominating color ad in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal. With the Mileage Maximizer, the bank encourages users to make purchases on their existing non-E*Trade rewards card, then have the balances AUTOMATICALLY swept to an E*Trade 8.9% APR line of credit each month. The bank's website is used to initiate and maintain the transfer process. But like recurring bill payments, once the sweep is established, it will occur each month with no interaction by the user.

E*Trade may well be the most innovative online financial services company. Here are some of the industry firsts they've logged over the years:

• 2001: MyLoanTeam from E*Trade Mortgage (OBR 73)
• 2003: Real-time funds transfers (OBR 96/97)
• 2005: 7-year online transacation archives (OBR 118)
• 2005 (March): First U.S. bank offering security tokens for online access (NetBanker 2 March 2005)
• 2005 (December): First virtual rewards card, Mileage Maximizer

--JB

Editor's Note: Mileage Mazimizer was awarded an "OBR Best of the Web" in our report on online lending published Jan. 31, 2006 (OBR 126).

On the front page of today's American Banker and on the cover of its Retail Delivery pullout section (see inset), there is an eye-catching EBANK logo presented in eBay's distinctive font. It's an intriguing lead-in to an otherwise predictable story on eBay's PayPal unit and the extent to which it competes with banks. (Note: For American Banker, the cover graphic gave it more "street appeal" so that the paper was more likely to be picked up by the thousands of attendees at BAI's big technology conference in Orlando.)

This is an old story. PayPal has offered a suite of consumer banking services for more than four years (click on table below) including debit cards, bill payment, credit card (issuer), consumer finance loans, credit card processing, ACH processing, money market mutual funds, international payments, interbank transfers, fraud protection, and insurance for funds on deposit. The only new service this year is the credit card payments gateway business it purchased from VeriSign earlier this year; though that is more of a line extension than a new business.

Analysis
Yes, PayPal competes with bank, primarily in merchant processing, an area most banks got out of more than a decade ago. And we'll see more ecommerce players, such as domain registration services company GoDaddy, offering integrated PayPal payment options (see inset). However, none of PayPal's other financial service offerings have a measurable market share, and are unlikely to be causing any lost sleep by execs at Bank of America, Citi, or any other financial institution.

The American Banker article speculated on eBay's interest in moving further into banking by buying a charter and opening a full-service Internet bank. But no evidence was presented for either side of that argument, nor did the author find any industry analysts to comment.

It reminds me of the "controversy" in the mid-90s about Microsoft competing against banks. Although it was mostly fodder for the trade press, we debunked the notion In the very first issue of Online Banking Report (April 1995). There was no way that a successful software company, accustomed to 50%+ margins, would invite the regulatory scrutiny and compliance hassles of the relatively low-margin banking business.

Although eBay has done some strange things, such as jumping into the telecom business via its recent Skype acquisition, we seriously doubt that the auction giant has any plans to open or even lend its name to a full-service Internet bank. It doesn't need those regulatory and compliance headaches.

However, the company will continue to exploit areas of ecommerce, like auction payments and auction purchase financing, that are not well-served by existing players. But if you've put together a franchise that can hold its own against BofA/MBNA, ING Direct, and Schwab, you have little to fear from eBay or Microsoft. In fact, there are opportunities to leverage these trusted brand names to INCREASE your revenues. For example, PayPal provides developer tools that would allow a bank to integrate with the online payments provider to facilitate financing for bank customers.

Previous articles:

• Online Banking Report #113, PayPal Offers Preapproved Credit Lines to Users, Dec. 16, 2004
• Glenbrook Partners, Beware the Doves: Reflections on the PayPal/GE Consumer Finance Alliance, by Scott Loftesness, June 2004

--JB

As we searched Google today for debit card info, we noticed E*Trade on top of the paid search results with an AdWords listing entitled Platinum Visa Debit Card (it was the first "banner" on the top of the search results).

Interestingly, clicking on the link takes you not to a single-product pitch for a debit card, but to the broker's E*Trade Complete product which combines brokerage, banking, and lending into a single offering (click on inset for landing page screenshot).

Note: The graphic image appearing in the middle of E*Trade's landing page features a check, debit card, and security token overlaid on a screenshot of its online banking area.

Analysis
Showcasing its Complete product on debit card searches shows good mastery of search engine marketing by E*Trade. The online giant figures the type of person searching on debit cards will be intrigued by the total control promised by the package account. The out-of-scale security token also adds a reassuring touch to the image (see inset). 

-- JB

For years it’s been a matter of when, not if, the number of debit card transactions would surpass credit cards for purchases in the United States. Depending on who's doing the counting and how you define the market, debit surpassed credit:

a) in 2000
b) in late 2004
c) not yet, but by early 2006

Sources:
a) Dove Consulting as announced in its Oct. 25 news release with The American Bankers Association; includes volume of purchases made in-store only; projections built on research with 3000 consumers
b) The Nilson Report, Sept. 2005 (#842); includes any purchase transaction, in-store, phone, or online; projections built on industry data, much of it provided by the major card brands; credit totals include card purchases made with proprietary cards, such as oil or department stores; debit totals include signature- and PIN-based traditional debit card and prepaid cards
c) SourceMedia's Cards & Payments, Oct. 2005 citing data from its sister publication, ATM & Debit News; projections built on industry data and like Nilson includes proprietary store cards in the credit totals and signature- and PIN-based transactions in debit

The Numbers
The Nilson Report had debit ending the year with 19.7 billion transactions, 600 million more than the 19.1 billion credit card transactions (see note 1). Market share was 51% for debit, 49% for credit. Whereas ATM & Debit News showed credit transactions still running ahead of debit, with 22.1 billion for credit and 17.5 billion for debit (see note 2). For 2005, they project 23.5 billion for credit and 21 billion for debit. Extrapolating from the growth rates, debit should surpass credit in late 2006.

The total dollar volume of charges will continue to be dominated by credit. With more than double the average transaction size, $84 vs. $37 for debit, the share of total dollars spent was nearly 69% for credit vs. 31% for debit, according to Nilson.

It’s helpful to look at these huge numbers on a per household basis. Across all 108 million U.S. households, the average annual number of debit and credit card transactions is 360 per year, or 30 per month.

Looking at debit only, the average across all households is 180 transactions per month. But considering that only about 60% of the country is an active debit user, the average per active household is closer to 300 per year, or almost 1 per day. Unlike credit transactions which are divied up among the 12 cards carried by the average customer, many of the debit transactions occur with plastic from the customer's primary financial institution. This creates a rich data stream for online banking statements and analytics.

Opportunities
As good as this debit data stream is, it's only half the picture without the credit card transactions, especially since the larger purchases still tend to go on a credit card. This is one of the places where account aggregation could play a key role by offering a simple way to aggregate all card transactions into one online storage facility. The full picture, incorporating all plastic volume, will create an information stream that is highly valued and difficult for competitors to match. And by knowing you customers card habits, you can make successful pitches to steal the receivables from competitors.

• Debit rewards: Although debit card spending is not as lucrative as credit cards, especially with the downward trend in debit interchange, major players are still looking to reward spending. Yesterday we looked at Citibank’s ThankYou Points program that offers 1 point for every $2 of spending on signature debit and 1 point for every $3 spent on PIN-based debit. Assuming that two-thirds of debit spending goes to signature, the average customer would earn about 3000 points per year, valued at $25 if redeemed for a gift certificate or $50 if saved and used towards a $400 coach ticket (25,000 points required).
• Credit line cross-selling: How do you make debit cards as profitable as credit cards? Attaching a line of credit to the account. Overdraft credit lines are extremely popular and are even more desirable with heavy debit users who increased transaction levels increase the chances of overdrafting the account. The increased outstandings could help fund a rewards program, therefore improving retention and increasing interest income at the same time.
• Alerts and other messages: If you are a typical debit user, racking up 25 transactions per month, and with no 25-day grace period like credit card users, you will have a great appreciation for a bank that keeps you informed of your debit transaction flow. Transaction confirmations are the simplest and most valuable message. But there is also demand for more advanced alerts that would inform users when a debit card transaction appears out of character (possible fraud) or if holds from hotels or gas companies may significantly impact checking account balances. These value-added alerts could be packaged with rewards and lifetime statement archives into a premium online banking program priced from $3.95 to $9.95/mo (or $39 to $99 per year).

For more information:
Online Banking Report #96/97, Account Aggregation v3.0
Online Banking Report #118: Lifetime Statement Archives
Online Banking Report #109: Pricing (premium products)
The Nilson Report, #842, September 2005
Cards & Payments, Debit Card Report, Oct. 2005, pp. 22-26

Notes:
1. The Nilson Report credit card volume includes Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, proprietary store cards, and gas station cards. It does not include proprietary T&E cards such as Diners Club, Universal Air Travel Plan, car rental cards, or phone cards
2. SourceMedia's debit cards include Visa, MasterCard, and cards issued by financial institution and used through EFT networks.

-- JB

David Spade's "no guy" has helped make Capital One's No Hassle credit card customer service parody one of the most-recognized consumer advertising campaigns of the year. According to the company, the commercials have helped lift the Capital One's name recognition to 98% (see note 1).

Along the same lines,
American Express is test marketing a no-fee automatic-rewards card called Clear. The card, which is available through its website (click on inset for closeup), features no fees (late, overlimit, annual) and an automatic rewards fulfillment, a $25 cash card every time you spend $2500 on the card. Cardmembers also receive a free credit report and credit score each year.

Finally, Citibank is about to jump on the back-to-basics movement with its no-late-fee Simplicity card expected to debut this week at an event in New York City (note 2). The card will come in three flavors: plain, cash-back, and rewards. The bank's website does not contain information on the card yet, but there is a separate customer service number listed that features a "press 0" option to be immediately connected to a live service rep.

Analysis
Although many consumers put up with penalty fees, there is always a point where they just won't take it anymore, especially if lower-cost options are readily available. That's why Blockbuster, faced with increasing competition from NetFlix, eBay, and WalMart, took a significant revenue hit when it eliminated late fees in its core movie rental business.

Citibank and the others are looking to win back consumers that have migrated to debit cards and/or credit unions to avoid penalty fees and interest charges. The cards also appeal to those with a strong aversion to fees either because they've had problems in the past or because they simply cannot stomach bank fees of any type.

--JB

Notes:
1. USA Today, 13 March 2005
2. Citi Simplicty was launched 14 October 2005
    - read the press release
    - see the website, www.citisimplicity.com

We're not sure whether this is incredibly brilliant or insanely stupid, but Bank of America gets high marks for creativity with its latest debit card enhancement. The bank's "Keep the Change" program allows debit card users to round up their purchase transactions to the nearest dollar, with the difference added to a savings account automatically.

To give it a bit more excitement, BofA will add a 5% bonus to each savings deposit. Since the average round-up amount is 50 cents, the bonus costs the bank just 2.5 cents per transaction, a very cost effective incentive program, if it works.

To kick things off, Bank of America will match the round-up amount 100% for the first 3 months. That will be like giving everyone a 50-cent discount on each transaction. That should spur signups for the program. 

Analysis
The overall concept of automatic or forced savings is excellent. The bank's press release tosses out stats on the recent negative savings rate and quotes David Bach, the relatively well-known author of "The Automatic Millionaire," a best-selling book that espouses automated investing.

The webpage touting the program is attractive and well written. There are few items in the fine print that users will find potentially disturbing:

1. You must visit a branch to enroll (ouch!)
2. The savings account pays just 0.50% and will likely have a service charge unless a minimum balance is maintained (e.g., $300 minimum for Regular Savings)
3. The savings account has a $100 minimum opening balance requirement
4. The bank's contribution will be made annually, and only if you keep your account open for a year

But despite the fine print landmines, we like how "Keep the Change" introduces consumers to the concept of automatic savings and helps them store away a few bucks a month. However, most people need more than nickels and dimes going into their savings account. To be more effective, this program needs an easy way for consumers to add to their savings amount beyond the monthly debit card cash.

For example, a month-end email detailing the total debit card change deposited could include a mechanism that allows users to designate an additional amount to be transferred into their savings account.

We don't expect anyone else to copy this program, so it gives BofA a unique selling point for their checking accounts and debit cards. It should make a little money for the bank from increased debit usage and savings account growth, and it will give users a few extra dollars at the end of the year, so what's the harm. But if you are truly interested in spurring automatic savings among your customers, there are more straightforward approaches that should be equally effective and far less complicated (see Online Banking Report, 120/121 for more on automatic savings).

Ref: Screenshot of Bank of America's Keep the Change page on 5 Oct 2005

--JB

Financial institutions have done amazing things with their websites since Bank of America launched the first major commercial banking site 11 years ago (Sept. 1994). However, other than single-market credit unions and community banks, there hasn't been much attention paid to localizing the content to appeal to more narrow geographic segments, for example the customers in a single city or neighborhood.

Beginning a year ago, American Express began a campaign to bring specialized city-based cards to major metro areas. The cards are intended for the 25-to-35 year-old hip urbanites. The card design, marketing, and rewards all cater to the dining out, clubbing, and museum-going single scene.

The first card, IN:NYC <innyc.com> launched a year ago (30 Sep 2004) and was discussed in a front-page WSJ article today. The company won't disclose any results, but did say that 90% of its customers have not previously owned an American Express card, an important statistic for a company worried about cannibalizing its other products.

The IN:NYC card has its own look, website, and rewards program focusing on unique beyond-the-velvet-rope experiences in local clubs and eateries. In an interesting viral marketing strategy, friends are able to pool points in order to qualify for bigger rewards, such as a VIP table in a hot club.

The key cardmember benefits include:

• 0% Introductory APR for 6 months on purchases and balance transfers
• No annual fee
• Option to carry a balance
• One INSIDE Rewards point for every dollar spent
• INSIDE Double points on City Essentials

The second city card was launched this month (19 Sep 2005) in Chicago. The IN:Chicago website is still a static billboard (see inset). Another card is in the works for Los Angeles, IN:LA, which is expected to launch later this year, although the company has yet to secure the rights to the website, inla.com.

Action Items
Many large banks alter their website content by state. However, the customization generally does not extend beyond minor pricing differences.   

To better compete with local institutions, banks should use their websites to deliver highly-customized geographic content. Event calendars, discounts, and other local event marketing could create better brand recognition and more word-of-mouth advertising opportunities. It would also give local branch staff more ownership of "their" website. Banks could use an easily remembered URL such as <ny.wamu.com> to house their local versions.

--JB

Some bad habits are harder to kick than others. In banking, the preapproved credit card mailing is apparently as addictive as nicotine. How else can you explain the record 1.4 billion solicitations mailed in Q1 2005 according to researcher Synovate? (">see previous article on 2004 mail volumes)

We can't speak for the economics of the recent mailings. On a macro level, things are going pretty well. Other than the sub-prime specialists, most credit card companies have weathered the economic slowdown of the past years admirably. However, we still think the online channel is vastly underused as a credit marketing vehicle.

Analysis
First, we'll crunch some numbers to compare traditional direct mail (DM) to online marketing (OM):

***DM***
1.5 billion pieces times $1 per piece = $1.5 billion in marketing
Fraud = 0.04% x 1.5 billion = 60,000 bad accounts x $2500 = $150 million
Teaser rate = 3% subsidy x $1.2 billion outstanding = $360,000 million
Total cost of program = $2 billion

===> Response = 0.4% times 1.5 billion = 600,000 good accounts

DM acquisition cost = $333 per good account

***OM***
30 million online banking households x $5 for 90-days of online credit offers = $150 million
Teaser rate = none
Fraud = 0.04% x 30 million =  12,000 bad accounts x $2500 = $30 million
Total cost of program = $180 million

===> Response = 30 million x 2% = 600,000 accounts

OM acquisition cost = $30 per good account

Implications
Depending on a multitude of factors, a credit card issuer can still make an account costing $333 profitable over its lifetime, but it's not going to be easy, especially with costly rewards programs demanded by most good customers these days.

Why not divert some of the direct mail budget to online marketing programs that eliminate the paper from the equation?

Every credit-worthy online banking customer should have preapproved credit available to them at all times. And it should be very visible when they are conducting activities that could indicate a potential need for extra cash, such as paying bills.

Alternatively, preapproved offers could be timed to appear at login when account balances dip below historical levels indicating potential cash flow difficulties for the consumer.

The beauty of this approach is that it's more about timing than price. Consumers needing $500 for the orthodontist today will be more concerned about a fast, convenient advance rather than playing the field to bag a 0% teaser rate and/or maximum rewards points.

The twin benefits of online credit marketing:

• lower marketing expenses
• less dependency on teaser rates and rewards programs

For an extended discussion of online credit card and loan originations, see:

• OBR 66, Creating an Open Lending Platform
• OBR 72, Online Lending Gains Momentum
• OBR 73, Best of Web Winners in Online Lending
• OBR 104, Lessons from the Credit Card Marketers

Online Banking Report subscribers will receive updates to these reports this fall. 

-- JB

Our new Visa debit card arrived today from U.S. Bancorp. As we were reaching for the phone to activate it, we noticed a new URL on the holder <usbank.com/activate>.

Curious as to how the bank handled security on the process, we went online for activation. It turns out you must be enrolled for online banking. If so, you simply login, navigate to customer service, choose ATM/debit card options, type in your card number, security code on back, and expiration date (click on the inset to see the full screenshot). .

Analysis
This feature certainly falls into the "nice to have" category rather than "must have." The two-minutes it takes to phone in for ATM card activation once every two years is not on anyone's pet-peeve list. And doing it online doesn't even save much time, if any.

But, the bigger issue is making sure that all the routine customer service issues can be handled online, so customers think to go there first to manage their account. Overall, that behavior will save the bank money and if implemented well, improve customer satisfaction.

--JB

American Express, long one of the savviest financial marketers, recently updated the look of its routine "payment received" email confirmation.

It's a nice change from the typical text-only message. Key features include:
- last 5 digits of card number for verification
- account login
- balance transfer offer
- Blue Cash offer

But the "Dear Cardmember" salutation is a mistake.

With all the hysteria about phishing and email fraud, the opening should be personalized, both to differentiate itself from SPAM and to insulate cardmembers (and itself) from phishing attacks. This is especially important in a communication which includes a built-in login button, an inviting target for phishers.

American Express does provide several unique identifiers: the last 5 digits of the card number, the payment date, and payment amount. But those aren't instantly recognizable to all cardmembers. The combination of account name and the last few digits is much more effective (see Citibank article).

Grades
A  for look & feel
A- for cross sales (two offers might be a bit much)
A for self-service with five links to popular online card management functions
B- for security (last 5 digits included, but no cardholder name, no mention of how to verify the authenticity)
--------------------------
A- overall

--JB

If you'd like to learn more about the bank and financial services email trends, check out Email Marketing in Financial Services: Leveraging the Inbox from our sister publication, the Online Banking Report.

Now that Visa, MasterCard, and American Express and others are actively putting so-called contactless cards into the hands of consumers (Chase's blink for instance), it's not such a far-fetched thought that these radio-frequency (RF) cards could be used as the extra factor for online banking login.

PCs equipped with RF card readers could read the user's plastic, allowing the user to log in securely with just a username/password, or conceivably just a password.

But PC makers aren't going to add card reading technology, no matter how cheap it is, just for online banking. But if merchants began insisting on the RF readers to cut down on card fraud for online purchases, perhaps with the associations agreeing that a purchase made with a PC-based RF reader qualified as a "card present" transaction, then the technology could take off.

Using contactless cards online could be more beneficial than using them for off-line purchases. In the physical world, the contactless card merely saves a few seconds compared to swiping it through a conventional terminal. But online the savings could be more dramatic, potentially allowing the customer to skip typing their card and verification number into a web forms. 

--JB

Synovate reported the results of their annual tracking study of U.S. credit card solicitations. Like the number of branches, the totals just keep growing, despite the inevitable decline in their effectiveness.

In 2004, the U.S. card issuers sent a record 5.25 billion solicitations, to about 75 million households (71% of all U.S. households). It averaged 5.7 offers per month, or 70 annually. And you don't need a degree in economics to predict the results: record low response rate of 0.4%, down 2/3 from as recently as 6 years ago (1.2% response in 1998, see chart above).

Analysis
It's almost surprising that the average household gets less than 6 card offers per month, we've gotten that many in a day. And no one here has responded to an offer since the last century. 

But I digress. The point is that financial services marketing departments all over the country are looking for cost-effective alternatives. If you figure traditional DM costs $1 per piece when you load in all costs, the acquisition cost has increased from $80/acct in 1998 to $250/acct in 2004. 

And thanks to the spam overload and phishing hype, it doesn't seem like email will be the answer anytime soon.

What's left? It's that captive audience called online bankers. Here is a group of customers you know extremely well, thanks to tracking their bill pay activity, and that come to you several times a week on average. Grab some of that DM budget this year and show what kind of sales you can deliver. 

--JB

In 1999, we published a report entitled Virtual Checking Accounts: On the Web it's the plastic that matters (OBR 50/51, July 27, 1999). Our hypothesis was that web-based access, electronic transfers, and a Visa or MasterCard were really the primary transaction tools going forward.

It has happened as fast as we thought it might. Two early proponents of this strategy, WingspanBank and Juniper, really never got off the ground, though Juniper did create an impressive credit card portfolio that was recently sold to Barclays.

Fast-forward to six years, HigherOne is working with 13 college campuses to offer its OneAccount, combing college ID, MasterCard debit, financial aid depository, electronic funding, and of course, website access.

Analysis
It's a trend worth watching. As today's teens and twenty-somethings move through their inevitable financial growth, they are going to think less about the bricks-and-mortar of THEIR BANK, and more about the website and plastic.

If you'd like to learn more about the future of online banking, check out the Online Banking & Bill Pay Forecast: Current, future and historical usage: 1994 to 2016 from our sister publication, The Online Banking Report.

PayPal now marketing Buyer Credit directly to buyers

Ebay’s PayPal unit already offers transaction accounts, interest and non-interest bearing, debit cards, credit cards (through First USA), online bill payment, person-to-person payments, interbank transfers, merchant transaction processing, investment accounts, insurance, and indirect lending. About the only thing missing from their line-up, revolving credit and mortgage lending (see Timeline, Table 4, opposite). Correction, make that just mortgage lending.  This summer the auction payments giant added a revolving credit option called PayPal Buyer Credit (see screenshot below). Until recently, it’s been mostly targeted to sellers who are encouraged to offer it as a financing alternative on their auction listings. Depending on the program sellers pay 0.50% to 3.75% of the selling price to fund the financing. The most common offer on eBay during the pre-holiday rush is no payments/no interest until April 2005 (see screenshot opposite). If the buyer takes advantage of the offer, it will cost the seller 0.50% of the purchase price, and the seller will receive the entire purchase price, less PayPal fees, immediately (see Table 5, for more seller costs).

Users are encouraged to apply for Buyer Credit in advance. Assuming they are approved PayPal users can select Buyers Credit as their funding source when checking out or sending money from PayPal. Buyer Credit can be used to pay anywhere that accepts PayPal, it could even be used to send money to an individual, but they must be a Premier or Business member. Buyer Credit is provided by GE Capital Consumer Card Co. at an annual percentage rate of 20.8%, which increases to 24.75% if the user becomes delinquent (late twice during a six-month period). The rate is variable at prime plus 15.5%, with a 20.8% minimum. Late fees vary from $15 to $35 depending on outstanding balance.

Table 4

Product Timeline

PayPal’s moves into banking

Table 5

Seller’s Cost to Offer Special Financing

Minimum
Cost*     Purchase              Offer

0.50%      $199                     No payments for 3 months and no interest if paid in 3 months

1.75%      $199                     No interest if paid in 6 months

3.75%      $199                     No interest if paid in 12 months

0.60%      $999                     12 fixed monthly payments at 12.9% APR

1.50%      $1999                  24 fixed monthly payments at 12.9% APR

Source: PayPal, 12/13/04             *Percent of purchase price

For more information

• Beware the Doves? Reflections on the PayPal/GE Consumer Finance Alliance, by Scott Loftesness, Glenbrook Partners, June 2004,  http://www.glenbrook.com/opinions/beware-the-doves.html  
• PayPal Buyer Credit info for buyers,  www.pages.ebay.com/paypal/buyercredit/buyer
• PayPal Buyer Credit info for sellers  www.pages.ebay.com/paypal/buyercredit/seller  
• PayPal/Providian Visa card  https://www.paypalcreditcard.com/    

Table 6

Recent PayPal Stats

million unless otherwise stated

Source: Ebay financial statements, Online Banking Report, 11/04

MBNA Egg.com?

The Wall Street Journal today reported that MBNA was considering a purchase of Egg, the UK-based Internet bank and credit card issuer. While the primary purpose of the acquisition would be to pick up the bank's 2.8 million card accounts, MBNA would likely consider expanding the Egg.com Internet banking franchise into the United States.

We think the U.S. market is ready for another innovative Internet banking brand. Look at what ING Direct (USA) has accomplished in under four years: built a successful franchise with more than one million accounts and $16 billion in deposits (year-end 2003).

In part one of our series on website usability, we looked at the all-important homepage. But the best homepage won’t do you much good unless you can convert visitors into paying customers. For that you need an effective sales process capped by an easy-to-use application. Online credit applications have evolved considerably during the past five years and are now relatively painless to complete, usually far superior to their paper counterparts, which are plagued with missing data, illegible markings, not to mention transcription errors in your own back office.

At OBR, we’ve looked at online application-form design on a number of occasions, finding a wide variety in quality (see Table 11, below). This time, we are using a more rigorous approach applying our proprietary OBR WebCheck criteria www.webcheckanalysis.com  and scoring Citibank’s application across 54 criteria. Although the bank’s application is very good, there is still much room for improvement, as witnessed by its sub-50% score.

Citibank credit card application

Card application

Table 12
Citibank Credit Card Application Process

OBR analysis using WebCheck* criteria

Source: Online Banking Report, 2/04 Wt = weight with 5 the highest importance

Without expansive brick-and-mortar operations to generate business, card companies typically devote far more resources to direct marketing and cardholder retention than retail banks. You can learn a lot by watching what the card companies do online.

One

Develop a Killer App

Profitable online originations involve good marketing and a great application. It must be short and sweet and loaded with imbedded help for every term, otherwise only the desperate or dishonest will submit it. Most major credit card applications today are a model of simplicity. For example, Juniper’s online application (below) consists of a single screen posing just seven questions beyond standard identification information (name, address, phone number, etc.).

Two

Screen Out Improper Applications Before Submission

One of the main problems with non-preapproved credit card applications is all the worthless applications received. Not only has time been wasted researching the applicant’s credit report, but also your company must carefully follow regulatory requirements for communicating denials, lest you become a target of class-action litigators. Financial institutions, especially credit card issuers, now start the application process with two or three screener questions to reduce the number of applicants applying for products for which they are completely unqualified. This is a win-win, saving the bank application-processing costs, and helping applicants prevent lowering of credit scores due to application denial. Juniper uses a popup to deliver the screener questions (below).

Three

Segment Your Base with Regular, Gold, Platinum, and So On

We believe that premium channels will be the next big thing in online banking. That’s why we selected Money HQ from Online Resources as our top innovation of 2003. A review of the credit card industry provides clues as to how online banking may play out. American Express was a segmentation pioneer, rolling out a Gold Card in 1966, only eight years after the introduction of its standard charge card. After the huge success of the Gold strategy, widely copied by bankcards in the late 80s, the company further segmented its card base with the Platinum in 1984—again, widely copied by bankcards in the mid-to-late 90s. Now American Express operates a half-dozen card lines: Green, Gold, Platinum, Optima, Delta SkyMiles, and Blue, with plenty of sub-segments of each.

We expect to see the same thing happen with online banking. Now that leaders such as BofA, Wells, and Citibank have offered online banking for 15 years or more, and with penetration closing in on 50% of their checking account bases, the companies will begin offering different versions of their online programs. Expect to see differentiation around payment capabilities, credit access, account aggregation, service levels, human attention, and account alerts (see Table 9, below).

Table 9
Premium Online Banking Offerings

possible features and benefits

Source: Online Banking Report, 2/04

Four

Use Real-time Payments to Drive Users Online

According to Gartner’s latest research,* in the United States, biller direct payment is used by six million more adults than online bill payment through a bank, 18 million vs. 12 million. However, according to Gartner, respondents prefer bank sites for payment by almost two-to-one, 19 million vs. 10 million, although both options trail preauthorized debit, preferred by 26 million, and snail mail preferred by 116 million.

Banks can tap into the growing popularity of electronic payments by offering simpler bill-payment sites that allow users to make one-time payments or setup preauthorized debits, without a lengthy signup process.
Banks can also win more user by offering more choices, such as paying via credit card.

Table 10
Bill Payment According to Gartner

millions of U.S. adults paying bills online

Source: EBPP Future Blends Direct Bank Aggregation Models, Jan 13, 2004, by Avivah LItan, Gartner, http://www.gartner.com/  $95,
data from survey fielded May 2003
AutoPay =  preauthorized electronic debit
*Can choose more than one option, so the sum is higher than 100%
**Total the still wants to receive bills via snail mail

Five

Cross-sell

Credit card issuers have long been far more aggressive than banks pitching ancillary services, such as credit card registration, credit report monitoring, and credit insurance. They are beginning to take that approach to online marketing. For example, last year, Chase’s credit card group sent me more than 40 sales/service email messages. Issuers have also found profits selling all types of unrelated products and services from flashlights to magazine subscriptions. While, we don’t think banks should start pitching knife sets online, they could be more aggressive in selling related products, especially credit report monitoring, insurance, and value investments.

Six

Use Email for Retention

Credit card issuers are much further along in providing email messages to users. Card companies are using email to remind users of payment due dates, confirming charges and payments, marketing messages, balance transfer offers, line increase notifications, credit card check offers, e-statements, credit report and other ancillary product sales, holiday messages, and other relation-enhancing messages: even early collection efforts have gone electronic. Chase is one of the most prolific emailers. During 2003, we received  at least 70 email messages from the bank about our active credit card account, 46 of the messages (at least the ones we saved), were marketing/service oriented (see example left) and the other 24 had to do with scheduling and confirming payment of the bill (see OBR website for more examples).

Seven

Provide Compelling Online Account Management

Card issuers provide an online experience on par with similarly sized banks; however, some are becoming more creative with their account-management websites. For example, American Express offers its Small Business Dashboard to manage charge card (see screenshot left). One of its distinguishing features is a credit-status bar that graphically shows whether the charge account is approaching its limits (e.g., green means in good standing, yellow means charging privileges at risk, and red is account suspended).

Card issuers are also making online statements interactive with the ability to click through to get more information or dispute a charge, contact the merchant, or re-sort transactions.

Eight

Make Transfers Simple

For several years, companies such as Bank of America www.easybt.com  have provided simple online balance-transfer solutions for cardholders. Banks too should make it simple for users to consolidate deposit and loan balances in a similar manner using account aggregation technology and interbank-funds transfers. Citibank’s new A2A service and Money HQ from Online Resources are on the right track.

Nine

Integrate with Direct Marketing

The latest trend is to provide special URLs and/or application numbers in preapproved snail-mail solicitations so recipients can respond quickly online. For example, Fleet’s www.applybizcard.fleet.com  This is a win-win, giving the customer faster direct access to the special offer and providing an interactive environment for the card issuer to encourage balance transfers or other upsells. This integrated technique will quickly become a standard practice for financial direct marketing.

Ten

Get Rid of the Paper

With ever increasing printing and postage costs, the business case for e-statements continues to grow stronger. Although paper-suppression efforts are still in their infancy, we expect credit card issuers will be the first to successfully wean a critical mass of users off paper. Although it will take years of marketing efforts, for example, we’ve already received eight messages from Chase encouraging us to switch to a
credit card e-statement; the formula for adoption is relatively simple: 

Innovating in online marketing and delivery

Credit cards have always fascinated me. From my first card in 1982, through my stint as a card product manager in the late 80s, I’ve been a student of the industry, watching and learning from the best: American Express, Citibank, First USA, Capital One, and others.

As we entered the Internet era in the mid-to-late 90s, I fully expected the credit card issuers to lead the financial services sector online. For a while, it looked like a good prediction. Many of the early online banking pioneers, NextCard, Providian/GetSmart, Wingspan Bank, C2it, Juniper Financial, had their roots, and business plans, centered on credit cards.

But a funny thing happened as that story was being written. Recession. Whether it was an unseasoned portfolio (NextCard), problems at the parent (Wingspan), or an over reliance on sub-prime (Providian), these pioneers lost their funding and retrenched (Providian, Juniper) or disappeared (NextCard, Wingspan, C2it).

But as card companies recover from the beating they’ve taken during the past three years, we are seeing renewed innovation from the sector. For example, after a decade of struggling to get traction, the card companies have put online bill payment on the map with their convenient card-payment options. As a result, card issuers have some of the largest registered user bases in the financial services arena (Table 1 below):

Table 1

Top 5 Online Cardholder Bases, Year-end 2003
number of online cardholders

Source: Companies, (e) Online Banking Report estimates, +/- 25%, 2/04

We still believe that long-term you are better off wrapping your direct banking efforts around plastic rather than paper ( “Will that be Paper or Plastic?”). If NextCard had been more patient in building its portfolio, they could have been a powerhouse today. So who will take their place as The Internet Credit Card? It’s one of the more intriguing opportunities of the decade.

Table 2

Top 5 Online Cardholder Bases, 2000 to 2003
number of online cardholders

Sources: Companies except, (d) Dove, (e) Online Banking Report estimates, +/-25%, 2/04

Online Card Usage

According to a recent Forrester report,¹ 75% of U.S. credit card customers have online access, and of those 36% (20 million) access their card statements online. More than 60% of those users (12 million) accessed their account regularly. Fisite Research, a company founded by ex-Gomez payments analyst, Paul Jamieson, found even higher usage; with 57% of online cardholders saying they manage some aspect of their card online² (see Table 3, right). Whether the true number is 20 million or 30 million or somewhere in between, we do know that the use of online credit card management has exploded. Three years ago (year-end 2000), fewer than five million households accessed cards online (see full details, Table 5, opposite). Now, at least five individual card issuers have online user bases of five million or more (see Table 2, above).

There is even a greater disparity in estimates of the number of cardholders paying their card bill online. Forrester found that just 36% of online card statement viewers
(7 million HHs) pay their bill online, while Fisite reported 74% of online card managers paid online.² Gartner estimated that 22 million adults pay their card bill online, either directly or through third-party bill pay.³ Based on these estimates and usage numbers from individual card issuers, we estimate 16 and 18 million households pay their card bills online directly at the issuer, up nearly 20-fold since less than one million users at the beginning of 2003.

¹How To Right-Channel Credit Card Customers, by Catherine Graeber, Forrester Research, Jan. 2004, $675, http://www.forrester.com/ , fielded, Q2, 2003
²The TSYS Summer 2003 Executive Online Credit Card Survey, Finite Research, $2495, http://www.fisiteresearch.com/  fielded May/June 2003; the numbers may be higher because respondents included pay-anyone third-party payments in their answers
³EBPP Future Blends Direct Bank Aggregation Models, Jan 13, 2004, by Avivah LItan, Gartner, http://www.gartner.com/  $95, fielded May ‘03

Table 3
U.S. Online Credit Card Usage Estimates

Source: Companies, Online Banking Report, 2/04
*OBR estimates, Fisite reported usage as a percent of cardholders responding
to its online survey fielded summer 2003, household extrapolations by OBR
**Includes online payment direct at card issuer or through third-party bill pay

Table 4
Online Card Evolution

Source: Online Banking Report, 2/04                                                      

Forecast

The convenience and reliability of paying card bills online will continue to drive online credit card growth. For 2004, we project overall growth of five million new online credit card households (range: 4 to 7 million), the same number of newcomers as in 2003. However, the rate of growth will slow slightly to 25% compared to 33% last year. Ten years from now, online credit card penetration is projected to grow to 47 million, 40% of U.S. households, compared to 19% today.

Table 5
Online Credit Card Forecast

U.S. households using online credit cards at year-end*

Source: Online Banking Report projections based on industry data (+/- 30%), 2/04

Table 6a

Consumer Households Using Online Credit Cards: U.S. vs. Worldwide
millions of households actively using online banking and/or online bill payment

Source: Online Banking Report estimates 2/04, accuracy estimated at plus or minus 30% U.S., 40% worldwide

Table 6b

Annual Growth Rate of U.S. Credit Card Households

millions of U.S. households and percent change from previous year

Source: Online Banking Report estimates, 2/04; accuracy estimated at plus or minus 30%

Table 7

OBR Definition: Online Credit Card Household

•         Someone in the household must have done at least ONE of the following during the past 6 months:

•        Viewed balance/available credit or transaction data online¹ for a general purpose² credit or charge card

•        Authorized a card payment at the site of the card issuer (not at a third party such as a bank’s pay-anyone bill-pay service)

Does not include:

•        Online point-of-sale transactions using a credit card

•        Debit or prepaid card account management, application, or purchase

(1) Any connection from home, work, school, or other place where data can be viewed through any device (Web phone, browser, proprietary software, Quicken, Money, etc.)

(2) Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover

Table 8

Gomez Top Card Companies

Q3 2003 Scorecard

Source: Gomez, 1/04

We’ve chronicled the growth of credit card sales over the Web during the past several years. The market didn’t take off until 1998 when NextCard and First USA launched high-profile online applications and marketing programs . Now, researchers estimate that 500,000 or more card accounts are generated online each quarter (Table 2 & 4). NextCard, consistently one of the Web’s largest online advertisers, draws more than 4 million unique visitors to its Web site each month, the highest total for any financial services provider, and more than the next two issuers, Discover Card and First USA combined (Table 1). Although NextCard has only been converting 4 out of every 1,000 visitors into new accounts, its upcoming secured card program will allow far more consumers to be eligible for a NextCard. As for the industry as a whole, Forrester estimates that the online channel will account for 6% of card loans originated in 2000, rising to 16% in 2003 (Table 2).

Table 1

Web Traffic at Top 12 Credit Card Issuers

unique monthly visitors (thousands)

Source:  PC Data Online www.pcdataonline.com ; Gomez Advisors Spring 2000 Credit Card Scorecard, rank among 17 card issuers www.gomez.com , 5/00; n.r.=not rated

¹accountonline.com is Citibank’s consumer statement access site, these figures do not include traffic at www.Citibank.com  or its business card statement access site

Table 2

number of accounts in millions, dollars in billions

Source: Forrester Research, 1999

Table 3

share of cards issued through online marketing, first half 1999

Source: Brittain Associates, 1999

Table 4

Q3 1999

Source: Piper Jaffray, 1/00; company reports

*Piper Jaffray estimates

Table 5

Credit Card Acquisition Costs

Source: R. K. Hammer, Thousand Oaks, CA

Table 6

unique monthly visitors

Source: Cyber Dialogue 12/99, American Internet User Survey of 1,000 Internet users and 1,000 nonusers; part of the Cybercitizen Continuous Advisory Service

Table 7

millions of users

Source: Cyber Dialogue 12/99, American Internet User Survey of 1,000 Internet users and 1,000 nonusers; part of the Cybercitizen Continuous Advisory Service

It’s way too early to write the definitive history of credit cards on the Net,
but here are the leaders in the online movement (so far).

First USA launched an answer to NextCard, e.card, “E-Commerce Services from First USA.”

While E-Loan and NextCard have pioneered Web-based sales and marketing tools and techniques, First USA (Wilmington, DE; $65.2 billion; 60.5 million customers), a division of Bank One (Columbus, OH), through massive marketing expenditures, has captured the lion’s share of business online. The Brittain study found that First USA’s share of online buyers was three times higher than its nearest competitor, MBNA, which is advertising on 500 of the 4,500 Web sites hosted by its affinity partners. MBNA has experienced a 20% approval rate online.

First USA’s online reach is remarkable. One analyst estimates First USA will have more than 1.5 billion online advertising impressions next year. Besides co-branded efforts with Yahoo! launched in Feb. (OBR 2/98 ) and AOL (launched in June 1996; OBR 7/96 ), the card giant has a $90-million, five-year exclusive pact with Microsoft, and will likely be part of parent Bank One’s $125-million deal with Excite.

While the company has primarily relied on co-branded offerings to build its Web-based portfolio, the company has just released its own Net-branded product, the e.card (screenshot above). The card has a great name, although the ecard.com domain is currently owned by Internet Outfitters in Santa Monica (310) 664-4800. The card features a 5% cashback feature from Amazon.com and several other merchants including eToys. Initial rate is 3.9% and normal “go to” rate is 9.9%.

The First USA e.card site www.getecard.com is obviously a work in progress as it only includes three pages: home page (left), online application, and regulatory-required terms and conditions.

NextCard (San Francisco, CA) continues to lead the race to become the first Amazon.com of financial services. Through November, the company has received more than 750,000 applications. According to the company, approval percentages are, “consistent with industry averages.” The company’s animated “2.9%/Apply Now” banners are seemingly everywhere on the Net, not surprising considering the company is now a top-20 banner advertiser and has some 2,000 affiliates pitching its product for a $10 per approved application.

Bottom line, less than 9 months from start-up, NextCard
is pulling in more than 10% of total online credit card applications—a phenomenal performance considering its deep-pocketed competition. As a result, NextCard bagged an immense $38 million round of financing in Nov. from three blue chip Silicon Valley VC firms. The money will be used to continue the company’s aggressive online marketing efforts and capitalize an Internet banking operation. We wouldn’t be surprised if they simplified the process by purchasing an existing bank or thrift.

American Express (New York; 42.7 million cardholders) has clearly been the leader in online card services, first offering online account access in February 1995 via America Online (OBR 5/95 ) and the Web in April 1997. The company’s early 1995 AOL offering also included online card member and merchant account applications. The company was also the first to integrate value-added non-financial info, primarily travel-related, into its online presence (on AOL) in 1995 and on the Web in 1996 and 1997. Finally, and most significantly, industry sources unofficially peg AmEx’s registered online base at one million. 8

Source: Online Banking Report, 11/98

Portal Banner Advertising: 1998 vs. 1997

Abbreviations: AmCent = American Century; AmDebt = AmeriDebt www.mercuryseven.com CCC = Consolidated Credit Counseling Services www.debtfree.com CityLend = City Lending, a division of City National Bank of West Virginia www.citylending.com ConsInfo = ConsumerInfo.com; DataTransAssoc = Data Transfer Association www.evsistore.com MM Int’l = Money Management International www.mmintl.com Mtg Net = MortgageNetwork.com; Mtg Qte = MortgageQuote.com; Nations CC = NationsBank credit cards; Wells = Wells Fargo

Portals, previously referred to as search engines, are used by the majority of Web users (87% in one survey). Financial services companies have been advertising on these sites since they first accepted advertising in 1995. But even as recently as 12 months ago (see table right), less then half of the lending “inventory” was used. The times have changed. This month, we found 95% usage. Of thirteen loan-related search terms across the five largest portals, only three weren’t at least partially sponsored by financial companies (“auto loan on InfoSeek, “credit card” and “personal loan” on HotBot). If you factor in partial sponsorships, financial company share of the loan terms was 86%.

The most interesting result of this research: portal advertising is dominated by non-banks including mortgage brokers, Web-based loan marketplaces, and other specialty lenders. The day we tested, only two traditional financial institutions were advertising: NationsBank was pitching its card under “credit card” on Yahoo and Infoseek; while Wells Fargo was a partial sponsor of various “loan” phrases on HotBot (see table below).

*Number of loan terms with a financial services banner ad appearing
in at least one out of 10 searches of 13 loan terms at five portals
(65 total sponsorship opportunities)

**Taking into account partial (rotating) sponsorships of certain words, the actual financial services share of loan terms is 56.1 of a maximum 65 sponsorship opportunities, or 86%.

If this trend continues, it will have profound implications on Web-based lending. In this new world, it will be necessary to partner with one or more of the new loan marketplaces: The Lending Tree, Get Smart, Quicken Mortgage, iQualify, MortgageAuction.com , eStudentLoan.com , and others.

Above, the busy “Card Offers” page on CardTrak.com from Ram Research offers links to many of the biggest online credit card issuers.

Source: Ram Research, 11/24/98, *corresponds to banner ads left, www.cardweb.com/cardweb/cardweb.html

Two years ago (OBR 9/96 ), we predicted “credit card issuers will take to the Net with vengeance beginning in 1997.” Turns out we were off by a year for a variety of reasons: credit problems, staff turnover, mergers, and Y2K. Credit card issuers may have been slower to the Net than other consumer product companies. But, according to a recent survey from Brittain Associates www.brittainassociates.com , card issuers are making up for lost time.

Brittain found that as of Sept., 10.7 million Americans had applied for a credit card found online with 42% approved, resulting in 4.5 million new accounts. More than three-quarters (77%) of the sample also applied for the card online (Web or AOL), for a total of 8.2 million online applications. Based on this data, we estimate that total online applications are now more than one million per month.

But the action isn’t just in credit cards. Just as many Internet users (15 million) have checked mortgage and/or equity loan rates online. The biggest mortgage referral sites, GetSmart (OBR 5/98 ), Quicken Mortgage (OBR 5/98 ), and Lending Tree (OBR 6/98 ) continue to post impressive volumes. Lending Tree reported $1 billion in application volume
in third quarter (at $200,000 per loan that’s 5,000 loans).

The company also said it closed 20% of loan applications receiving multiple offers (i.e., the good ones). GetSmart is averaging 1.5 million hits per month resulting in to 40,000 to 50,000 loan referrals per month.

And new players continue to come online. Two promising ventures made their debuts during the past 60 days: eStudentLoan.com , on Oct. 7 and MortgageAuction.com on Nov. 17. Participation in these new marketplaces is a strategic decision you cannot ignore much longer.

Source: Online Banking Report, 11/98

Sometime during the past six months it happened. The Net became an accepted way to purchase a credit card—nearly 11 million American adults have already applied (chart below). Maybe we got tired of dealing with all those solications in the mail. Maybe we thought is was cool to click on a banner and save money on a credit card. Maybe we were just curious. Whatever the reason, the Net has arrived and there’s no turning back. During the next decade, we expect the number of new card accounts originated via the Net to surpass those originated through traditional direct marketing.

Online* Credit Activity in U.S.

% of 51 million online adult personal users (left); number of users (right)

Sources: (1) Brittain Associates www.brittainassociates.com (404) 636-6155, telephone survey of 1,200 Internet users in Sept. 98, total projected base, 51 million adults using the Internet from home or work for personal reasons; (2) Of 3.3 million buyers, 2.6 million (77%) bought a mortgage, 0.77 million (23%) an equity loan; (3) Company 11/30/98. *Online includes Web, America Online, or any other PC/modem service

Even if credit cards are not a significant portion of your revenues, you should pay close attention to the rise of card applications online. After all, credit cards first mass marketed by Bank of America in 1958, are the original “alternative delivery” and “electronic payments” product. In just 12 months, more people have applied for a credit card online, than have used online banking in the past 15 years. We expect credit cards to be the lynchpin of a new category of bank account, the virtual transaction account (VTA). VTA’s will be free, work with any bank’s checking account, and exist entirely on the Web. For more information, refer to Creating the Amazon.com of Financial Services (OBR 6/97 ).

NextCard’s elegant main screen downloads fast, uses white space just like they teach you in graphic design 101, and employs just 25 words to convey who they are, why you should buy from them, and how to do it. A perfect 10!

Internet Access Financial Corp.

www.nextcard.com

A couple times each year we run across a product that truly advances the state-of-the-art in online financial services. Nextcard, from Internet Access Financial Corp. (Palo Alto, CA) and issued through Heritage Bank (San Jose, CA; $268 million), is our first such find for 1998.

From top to bottom, this is the best financial services Web site we’ve seen. It’s a textbook example of good design, consumer-friendly copy, and effective selling techniques. It’s that much more impressive considering it’s just a few months post-beta. Here are the five most important attributes:

•  It Sells – You don’t often see a home page that sells. Nextcard posts its four primary benefits where they can’t be missed (see screenshot above). From the moment you enter its site, you know exactly what is going on and what to do next.
•  It Provides Instant Gratification – The instant, interactive credit application provides provisional credit approval in about 60 seconds.
•  Balance Transfers are Integrated with the Credit Application – During the application and approval session, users must complete a balance transfer (assuming they accepted an offer with that condition). NextCard makes it painless by presenting a summary of outstanding revolving credit balances gleaned
  from the credit report. Users simply select which balance(s) to transfer and press enter (see screenshot p. 18).
•  Users Can Easily Review and Sort Transaction Data – NextCard’s Transaction Sorter brings Quicken-like analytics to an easy-to-use Web site (screenshot below).
•  No-Fine-Print Fraud Protection – Finally, a financial institution with an understandable guarantee (see screenshot p. 14).

NextCard’s Transaction Sorter. The power of Quicken in an easy-to-use Web site.

Lessons from NextCard

1. Make your First Screen Sell; but not like a six-panel brochure, more like the cover of a direct mail piece. CEO Jeremy Lent describes the Web as “a new direct marketing arena.” You can see that philosophy played out on the NextCard home page (left) which consists of just 25 words divided into one slogan, one money-saving offer, three icons, three logos, and three choices of what to do next (remember what your speech teacher told you about grouping main points into threes). NextCard effectively demonstrates how “less is more” when engaging users on an entry page.

“The first true Internet Visa” assures users they have come to the right place to be on the leading edge. While this slogan has great appeal to early adopters, it may have to be retooled for the pragmatist mass market who just want to know if the thing works properly. In 2000, the slogan may need to be, “Join the 2 million users of the first true Internet Visa.”

1. NextCard – Cleverly designed with the emphasis on CARD so users know what is being sold.

2. Visa – NextCard wisely leverages the ubiquitous Visa brand not once, but twice in the upper right and lower left areas of the screen.

3. Member FDIC – This all-important logo instantly signals a legitimate banking organization rather than some shady credit repair outfit. Moreover, NextCard doesn’t squander this essential asset by relegating it to the bottom of the screen where users must scroll down to see it. That would be like Microsoft leaving its Windows 95 logo off the box.

NextCard summarizes its main benefits in three animated icons designed with a graphic of the key feature overlaid on rotating text with more details:

1. INSTANT Online Approval – A major benefit for the short attention spans on the Web, plus a major differentiating factor from the hundreds of other credit card applications on the Web.

2. 100% SAFE Online Shopping – Addresses a significant concern while further differentiating the card from the pack.

3. ONLINE Everything – Delightful words for hard-core Web users.

Many Web sites have ten or more choices of where to go from the main page, and rarely is one of them a “buy now” button. That’s an appropriate layout for news and entertainment sites, but as a financial institution your Web site exists for two reasons:
(1) to sell products, and (2) to serve customers.

NextCard addresses those two needs and adds a third: a user feedback button, a function that is often relegated to some far off corner of the site.

1. Apply Now! – There is absolutely no confusion on how to buy the company’s product.

2. Customer Login – Existing customers are given prominent attention with a well-situated login button.

3. Feedback – Wow, a company that really wants to hear from users. It’s a great first impression (even if they never act on it).

In the upper righthand corner of the main screen a “rates as low as 2.9%” teaser (not shown) rotates with the Visa logo (shown). Web users, like most people, like to find a good deal. NextCard promises one with a 2.9% teaser rate (although it lasts only three months).

Web-based credit card statements:
state-of-the-art, circa 2000.

2. Highlight Online Features and Benefits: This might seem obvious, but think about it. By definition, every visitor to your Web site is an Internet user. Do you speak to them in their terms? Do you highlight the benefits of banking with you online? Even if you don’t have the bells and whistles funded by $3.5 million dollars of venture capital, you can emphasize your email responsiveness, self service options on your Web, discounts at online merchants, and so on.

*industry firsts **potential industry first

3. Turn Fraud/Privacy Fears into a Product Feature: There’s an old high-tech adage: “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.” Internet users have expressed fears about entering credit card numbers online. Some established credit card issuers have used consumer hesitancy as an excuse for moving online slowly. Upstarts such as NextCard can use the fear to their advantage by guaranteeing cardholders against liability for fraud. The irony is that Reg. Z mandates fraud protection, except for the first $50, to all U.S. credit card holders.

Other issuers have toyed with fraud protection, most notably AT&T Universal Card, now owned by Citicorp and more recently First USA/Yahoo. NextCard has the most succinct wording (below). Again, less is more with an 18-word no-nonsense guarantee. Read the entire 100% Safe FAQ, a marketing masterpiece at www.nextcard.com/safeonlineshopping.htm

NextCard 100% Safe Shopping Guarantee:
When you use your NextCard Visa to make purchases over the Internet, you are never liable for fraud*
*No conditions. No exceptions. No excuses. Guaranteed.

An understandable credit card fraud guarantee.

Nextcard is advertising on InfoBeat’s popular Closing Bell, an HTML email that reports closing stock prices and news related to stocks in your portfolio.

4. Deal with Security Issues: Sometimes it’s easier to just ignore tricky subjects like security. There are dozens of reasons not to deal with it:

•  We’ll just be making ourselves a more appealing target for hackers.
•  Legal will never approve it.
•  Compliance will never approve it.
•  Who is going to write it?
•  Who is going to keep it up to date?
•  We don’t want to provide any clues on how to crack our system.
•  We don’t want to scare users.

Sorry, these excuses aren’t good enough any more. Users are concerned and looking for answers. A financial institution that doesn’t offer answers and assurances isn’t doing its job and risks losing credibility with customers.

NextCard deals with the issue head on in the best security discussion we have seen at any Web site www.nextcard.com/security.htm The reason: It’s written from the perspective of the user, at their level, addressing their concerns. It even deals with one of the biggest weaknesses of Internet commerce, physical security of the server.

They also name drop: Coopers & Lybrand has reviewed its procedures; Exodus Communications handles physical and network server security. It’s especially important for an unknown company such as NextCard to associate with better known companies to increase credibility.

NextCard’s “Our Commitment to Security” really is.

5. Design the Online Application from the User’s Perspective: All the brilliant marketing would be for naught if the actual credit application was poorly done. It’s a common problem. The marketing department and/or high-flying Web designer creates a killer loan area, but the application itself is just an HTML version of the bank’s 8.5 x 14 inch paper form.

NextCard doesn’t make that mistake (maybe because it starting from scratch without the paper form). Its online application is surprisingly bright, informative and absolutely a breeze to fill out. The places where the user must input information are highlighted in yellow (see screenshots on the next page, or read the remainder of this article on our Web www.onlinebankingreport.com so you can see the screens in color to better appreciate the top-notch design work).

Bright red and blue instructions and arrows assist users in completing the form or finding additional information. For example, in the first screen of the online application (below), users are provided links to the Security page and the company’s Privacy Policy.

The company informs users where they are in the process (e.g., screen 1 of 2) and posts plenty of helpful instructions (though no 800 number). At every step its clear what to do next (e.g., big bright red “continue” button), and there is little, if any, scrolling required.

Pre-application Screen: Links to security and privacy make users feel more comfortable with the process. Unlike paper forms, Web forms need to sell/educate every step of the way since users can bail out at any time. Note: The “continue saved application” button.

NextCard’s Two-Screen Application

Screen #1: Get the easy stuff first:
name, address, and phone number.
Note how the form is placed in reverse highlights.

Screen #2: Now that the applicant is engaged, ask for the sensitive info: social security number, employer, income, mother’s maiden name, and e-mail address. Note the tone, “This is the last page (short, huh).”

6. Make the Approval Process Interactive: We usually don’t submit a live application when testing. But we just couldn’t resist pressing “submit” for the NextCard. And we are glad we did. The real-time balance transfer function was worth whatever hit to our credit rating we’ll get for adding yet another unsecured credit line to our file.

After the on-screen celebration of your approval (confetti falls down the left side of the screen), you are whisked away to the Design Your Own Offer page, an empowering exercise with the makings of a powerful cross-selling tool. Think how you could upsell home equity-secured credit at this point.

However, at least in my case, the “design your own offer” was anticlimactic. I could qualify for the 2.9% teaser rate if I transferred $5,000 to the card, but the credit line was only a puny $6,000. And the promised choice of offers was mostly illusory. The vast majority of users will select the Best Deal because it has both a higher credit line and lower teaser rate than the other three choices. It does require a balance transfer nearly equal to the credit line. The company plans to expand product/price options dramatically later this year, so this portion of the application process will become far more meaningful.

Application Approval-in-Process Screen: You look at this screen for the 30 to 120 seconds it takes to approve your application (57 seconds for mine). The red button on the bottom of the screen pops on when completed.

Approval Screen: Upon approval, you’re greeted with a big congratulation, complete with virtual confetti, and strokes about being part of history. Then you are invited to “design your own card offer.”

Design Your Offer Screen:
Requires users to select one of four offers.

7. Allow Users to Come Back to Applications in Process: Dial-up users experience all kinds of disruptions when using the Internet: call-waiting, crying babies, Windows 95 freeze-ups, dropped connections, and so on. NextCard wisely includes a “Continued Saved Application” function that allows users to re-enter the application process at any step of the way by entering name, social security number and mother’s maiden name. Applications are kept “active” for 72 hours, after that it’s considered a withdrawn application.

Choosing “save application” gives you 72 hours to return and complete the application.

During our test application, we had to reenter the saved application four times over three days before we finally finished the process. It seemed the problems were on NextCard’s end, but in discussions with customer service and later with upper management, I’m convinced my experience was an anomaly.

The agony of defeat. Before I could accept the offer, I was hit with multiple “404 Not Found” error messages. After logging back in several times, I eventually completed the process.

8. Get the Balances Transferred Online: Another marketing tenet: The best time to get someone using a product is right after they’ve bought it. Therefore, NextCard integrated the balance transfer process right into the application. After selecting an offer, a personalized balance transfer form is created by pulling data from the credit report. The form includes creditor name, outstanding balance, suggested balance transfer (equal to outstanding balance), and account number (with last four digits truncated for security). To complete this final step, users enter transfer amounts equal to or greater than the minimum required in the offer selected, and fill in the last four digits of the account number(s). The Javascript form automatically keeps a running total at the bottom of the form.

Balance Transfer Screen: Actual revolving balances are shown. The transfer is completed by entering an amount and filling in the last four digits of the account number.

9. Don’t Leave Applicants Hanging: NextCard’s Web site does a good job of reminding users what they’ve just done and what comes next. F