According to the Wall Street Journal, scooter sales in the U.S. are up 25% compared to last year (article here). While still relatively rare in U.S. cities, I have a feeling that 10 years from now, after a steady diet of $5/gal gas, American cities will look more like their European counterparts, with scooters zipping about everywhere.

For banks or credit unions, this might be the ideal time to jump on the scooter bandwagon by helping customers buy the energy-efficient vehicles. Not only would it be great way to grab a little PR boost during the slow summer news cycle, with some models selling for $4,000 or more, you could boost vehicle loan outstandings by a measurable amount.

A brief Google search located two financial institutions pushing scooter loans, both appropriately with "green" in their name: South Burlington, VT-based Green Mountain Credit Union and Neenah, WI-based Evergreen Credit Union (see screenshots below).

Evergreen is promoting a special one-day 3.99% scooter loan on its homepage (see screenshot below and note 1). The Saturday morning event, conducted in partnership with a local scooter dealer, included test rides, free hot dogs, and prize drawings. The CU also gave away a scooter earlier this month as part of its 50th anniversary special.

Benefits/Opportunities

• Incremental loan originations: If you are a good relationship lender, the $4,000 scooter loan today could lead to many $25,000 car loans in the future. 
• Search-engine marketing: Currently, there are no direct ads running on the keywords "scooter loans," although you will compete with several advertisers displaying against the generic "loan" in the search term. There are also few organic results for the term, so there's a good chance an SEO optimized landing page would rate highly in Google results.
• Leverage branch parking: One of the problems with urban scooter use is lack of available parking. Branches with parking could turn over one or more spaces for customers with scooters, creating good will, as well as the occasional picture on the 5 PM news.
• Public relations: Anything that saves gas makes for a good story this summer and beyond. It can also be pitched as a "green banking" story, although it's not a pure environmental win. The gas savings are easy to see, but scooter emissions can be significantly more than for the automobiles they replace.
• Starter loan/credit: If you can convince your underwriting staff to accept applicants with limited or no credit history, the scooter loan could be a great way for young adults to build a credit file and improve their credit score (thanks Andrea for the idea)
• Customer acquisition: Scooter loans could be a great way to introduce younger consumers to your financial institution.
• Trendy icon: At least for urban customers, the scooter, especially the classic Vespa look, makes for an attractive graphical image, conjuring up memories of trips to Italy, or at least movies shot on location there. Your scooter program could make for good website content, eye-catching outdoor (great bus ad!), and or a nice flourish for other media efforts.
• Strike a deal with Scooter Financial: The number one result at Google for "scooter loans" is Scooter Financial, which does exactly what you'd expect, make loans to buy scooters. Given their name and Google pagerank, they could be an ideal company to partner with.

Cons/Potential Problems

• It's an asset easily hid from the repossession agent, so it's harder to use the threat of repossession to enforce the outstanding debt. 
• The accidental death rate for scooter owners is about 65% higher than that for cars; so you might want to be careful how much you push it as an "automobile alternative." But the news isn't all bad; scooter owners are much less likely to perish than motorcycle owners. 
• Most gas-powered scooters release significantly more pollutants than most automobiles.
• The smaller loan sizes may lead to little, if any, profits.
• Not a big market overall.
  

Evergreen Credit Union homepage promotes Saturday "scooter loan" special (21 May 2008)

Green Mountain Credit Union homepage promotes 6.49% scooter loans
(21 May 2008)

Note:

1. Unfortunately, the Evergreen special was this PAST Saturday.

While you don't want to overdo it and look like a hypocrite (see note 1), there's nothing like a little green to spruce up your marketing this time of year. BankServ lets users see just how much they can save by uploading checks to the bank over the Net instead of hightailing over to the branch in their Hummer (note 2).

In my case, I'm only going to save a half barrel of oil per year by forgoing those branch visits. Less, if it ever stops raining and I can get back to biking to the branch. It sounds more impressive in terms of CO2 emissions saved: 200 pounds.

It's a nice tool. Financial institutions could also use similar calculators to show the green benefits of paying bills online, receiving electronic statements, or anything else that cuts down on waste.

Note the URL: http://www.bankserv.com/greenbanking/

Note:

1. The term is new to me, but my friends over at Javelin Strategy blogged about greenwashing this week. In short, it means misleading consumers about the extent of your eco-friendly practices.

In many ways, hybrid vehicles are the perfect antidote for guilt about our 21st century high-consumption lifestyle. Buy a Prius, and instantly feel better coasting around the city on self-generated battery power. Yet you still get to motor about in a relatively large, well-appointed and air-conditioned steel box (note 1).  

That's why politicians have jumped on this bandwagon in droves. And why it makes a great marketing statement to support energy-saving and/or low-emission alternatives with loan discounts. Not only does it position you as caring about the larger environment, there is a very real environmental education benefit to the efforts.

The most recent example—Star One Credit Union <starone.org>, a $3 billion (assets), 71,000 member CU based in Sunnyvale, California—has a link on its homepage to its hybrid offer. Customers financing a new or used hybrid vehicle save 0.25% on their loan rate. On a $20,000 5-year loan, $139 is saved, enough to fill the tank three, maybe four times. The offer is spelled out here (screenshot below).  

Other financial institutions offering hybrid car loans:

• UCB Bank (Miami, FL): no payments for 3 months offer here
• Deedham Savings (Deedham, MA): offer here
• Sound Credit Union (Tacoma, WA): 0.50% discount offer here
• Tech CU (San Jose, CA): 0.25% discount offer here
• Vancity (Vancouver, BC, Canada): Prime rate for low-emission vehicles here
  

Note:

(1) I'm not trying to be cynical here. As a former engineer, I think hybrid technology is fantastic. Using waste energy to fuel the car is both elegant and efficient, and I look forward to driving one soon.

Looking for an eye-catching grand prize for your fall sweepstakes? You can't beat the new Smart fortwo car hitting to hit our shores in six months. According to today's Wall Street Journal (here), more than 20,000 (make that 20,001) have already plopped down $99 for a "reservation" for the Smart fortwo (here).

Not only is this a sexy sweeps prize, it has green appeal as a less resource-intensive vehicle compared to larger gas cars. While hybrids will still be more fuel efficient for in-city driving, the $12,000 base price makes it much more affordable that the $20,000+ Prius.

With the perfect storm of higher gas prices, the rebirth of environmental awareness, and America's obsession with cars, the Smart micro is almost guaranteed to be a hit, at least in urban markets. Anyone who's been in Europe in the last 10 years knows how popular these cars already are.

Financial Institution Opportunities
There's hundreds of ways to use a coveted, and potentially rationed, consumer product in your marketing efforts. For example:

• At $10,000 less than the Mini Cooper, this is the cost-conscious choice for a sweeps grand prize
• Use the car to reinforce your smart banking choices such as paperless banking, auto bill pay, and so forth
• Smart loans that include a preapproved auto loan along with a reservation for the car
• Use the car's "CO 2 champion status" (see inset) to reinforce your green banking efforts
• Paint the car with your brand and provide smart rides around town...include a form on your website for requesting a ride; for extra credit offer text message reservations
• Work with Smart USA dealers in your area to offer joint promotions

And you already know we have a weakness for the car; so as an added benefit, any banking promotion involving it has a great chance of making it to the pages of Netbanker. Just give me a heads-up here. 

For the next 18 months, partly because it's an issue that deserves attention and partly because of the inevitable hype politically-correct issues get during the U.S. presidential election process, climate change will be in the news more and more. And expect politicians to join musicians on the green bandwagon, buying carbon offsets so they can call their campaigns "carbon neutral." 

While it's hard to determine yet whether purchasing carbon offsets will ultimately help the planet, we do know that being a good "environmental citizen" has great marketing appeal.* So much, that it even has its own name, "green marketing" with 340,000 online mentions according to Google. Credit unions and bank, large and small, have joined in, some making billion-dollar commitments (see previous coverage here).

Whatever your motivations, if you are looking to join the carbon offset trend, a company you should look at is Toronto's Zerofootprint, a non-profit information clearinghouse and source of carbon credits (see it's "carbon store" here).  The company, who's website drips "Web 2.0," helps users figure out what their carbon "debt" is and to buy their way into the neutral zone (or you could go even go "carbon negative," if you bought more credits than your energy-consuming debits required). A consultancy in the field is The CarbonNeutral Company.

To see how businesses can work with Zerofootprint, check out the co-branded calculator accessible through the Air Canada website (hosted by Zerofootprint here). Travelers can determine the exact carbon cost of their trip and purchase offsets immediately with the button at the bottom of the calculator (see screenshot below).  

Financial Institution Opportunities

• Allow customers the option of going "carbon neutral" with their banking: Banks could follow the Air Canada example, and allow customers to go offset the carbon costs of their banking activity. Customers would enter their average number of trips to the bank, what type of car they drove, distance, and so forth. Customers with estatements would have to purchase less than those that had them delivered. So "carbon neutral banking" would be a great reinforcement of banking online. For extra credit, configure your calculator to show the gasoline cost of the trips to the bank.
• Go carbon neutral with online banking: Using Zerofootprint or other carbon exchanges, purchase enough credits to make your online banking service carbon neutral. You could also do the same thing to designate certain branches, divisions, or the entire company "carbon neutral."
• Use carbon credits as an incentive to bank online, sign up for estatements, use self-service, and so on. For example, you could offer to offset 1 tonne of carbon for everyone that signs up for estatements (cost is about US$9 through Zerofootprint).

----

*I do not mean to sound cynical here. I personally like the idea of carbon offsets and am buying them through Zerofootprint.

Until this week, we hadn't seen much worth writing about on MySpace, other than Cassie's page, an avatar from Wells Fargo's Stagecoach Island (here). A few dozen credit unions have posted pages that range from tolerable to atrocious using the same free tools that 16-year-olds favor. A clear recipe for mediocrity. 

But last week, UK's Co-operative Bank <co-operativebank.co.uk> posted an excellent page that reinforces its reputation as a good corporate citizen (screenshot below). There's an interactive poll about automobile taxes, a CO 2 emissions calculator, some videos, wallpaper downloads, and the usual MySpace stuff. And to drum up friends, an important measure of success on MySpace, the bank will donate 20p to The Children's Society for everyone who signs on. So far its raised about US$20 with 48 friends. But the number is growing quickly; in the last 12 hours growing more than 50%, from 31 friends to 48.

The MySpace URL uses the company's tagline:  <www.myspace.com/goodwithmoney>. The bank chose Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi as its background music, an appropriate selection. 

It's quite likely that energy consumption and environmental issues will grow in importance over the remainder of this decade and well into the next one. Financial institutions can play a positive role in promoting environmental causes both by their actions, such as Vancity's pledge to be carbon neutral by 2010, and by offering products that reduce paper consumption, such as eStatements and electronic payments (note 1). 

Seattle's Verity Credit Union <veritycu.com> demonstrates another approach: offering an environmentally friendly premium for home equity applicants. The free compact fluorescent light bulbs are relatively low-cost but have a lasting value to the customer. Finally, the credit union wraps it all up neatly with a tie-in to the upcoming Earth Day (see homepage screenshot below and note 2).

Notes:

1. Because saving paper also saves the bank money, be just a bit careful that you don't come off as overly self-serving when promoting estatement options. Passing on some of the savings to the end-user and/or donating a portion of the savings to a good cause, could ease any criticism you might get.

2. The Earth Day promotion was one of five promotions offered in the main ad box, accessed via a Seattle IP address at 4 PM April 20, 2007.   

A few days after our recent post on pro-environment banking programs (here), we were greeted with this headline in yesterday's Seattle P-I:

The tide has definitely turned in media perceptions of online banking. Here's a short history of the mass media view of online banking:

1994 to 1997: Sounds good, but what is it?

1998 to 1999: All things online are great

2000 to 2002: All things online are over-hyped

2003 to 2006: Is it really secure?

2007 to ???: Protecting the earth and yourself 

Naturally, I think online banking is great, but I never expected to see it elevated to motherhood-and-apple-pie status. The PI article (here) uses recent NACHA and Javelin numbers to recommend online banking both for its paper-saving and identity-theft prevention benefits. Time Magazine (April 9 issue) also listed "paying your bills online" as one of 51 things consumers can do now to help the environment (here).

However, Time might need to beef up the math skills on its fact-checking team. The article says paying all bills online would save 1.6 billion tons of paper. That would be more than 2,000 pounds every month for every U.S. household, even I don't get that much junk mail. I'm guessing they meant 1.6 billion pounds not tons, which would be about 15 pounds of bills per year per household.