Banking 2.0 V-News: Focus on Wells Fargo

From my opinion, Wells Fargo is "The" perfect example of how a bank should leverage the web 2.0. Tim Collins, SVP Experiential Marketing, and Ed Terpening, VP Social Media, surely have two of the most exciting jobs in the banking industry!

Back in 2005, Wells Fargo became one of the most innovative banks online when they became the first major bank to have a presence on Second Life.

vSafe: online storage facility
Last week, Wells Fargo announced the launch of v-Safe, another innovative service available online.
 
The service will allow customers to securely store documents such as financial statements, loan and tax documents, wills, passports and birth, marriage and death certificates in an electronically secure centralised location.

In the UK, BT successfully launched its BT Digital Vault service. And O2 is currently extensively promoting its O2 Bluebook service.
WF's goal is surely to increase stickiness, customer retention. Will they also manage to somehow increase the share of wallet of their users?

According to you, is it the role of telcos or banks to help us store our valuable documents?

I welcome another innovative initiative from Wells Fargo, but shouldn't banks focus first on increasing the level of security of online banking? Many customers are still not comfortable with banking online... Are they ready to trust their bank and store non-financial documents online? Won't they see that as another way for banks to profile them?
 
Related articles on Visible Banking
* Wells Fargo 2.0
* Wells Fargo co-Founds "the Blog Council"
* Interview Erik Hauser, Creative Director @ Swivel Media
* CenterStage: Wells Fargo First Consumer-Generated Marketing Program

News on finextra: Wells Fargo's online initiatives
Please note that the list is not exhaustive.

* Wells Fargo unveils online storage service - 20/03/08
* The Blog Council is born with Wells Fargo as co-founder - 10/12/07
* Wells Fargo introduces online workstation for commercial customers - 18/10/07
* Why Wells Fargo left Second Life - 13/06/07
* Wells' Web makeover woos punters and analysts- 25/05/07
* Wells Fargo introduces Webcast series for small businesses - 26/04/07
* Wells Fargo: Adventures in the blogosphere - 30/03/07

Christophe Langlois to live blog at FinovateStartup

Last October, I traveled to New York to cover the excellent first Finovate event organized by Jim Bruene from NetBanker and the Online Banking Report.
 
Jim and his team did an excellent job: twenty of the most innovative startups in the online finance space were presenting. I had a great day. I was extremely busy networking with the presenters and the attendees  as well as shooting 10 interviews with Mint, Prosper, LendingClub, Vancity, Yodlee, CheckFree, Huntington, Billeo, Jwaala and Geezeo.

In 2008, Jim and his team will organize 2 events: FinovateStartup on April 29th in San Francisco, and Finovate 2008 on October 9th in New York.

Live blogging from San Francisco
Jim and I kept in touch, and I am proud to announce that he invited me to be the guest blogger at FinovateStartup!
I will travel to San Francisco from the uk to blog live on NetBanker.

It is a unique opportunity to take part of one of the most exciting online finance conferences of the year. 

Special discount for the Visible Banking readers
I am glad to be able to offer you a special discount worth $100. Please note that this special offer is reserved to the first 5 readers to use the discount code "visiblebanking" during the registration process.

Come and meet with 40 of the most promising startups in online finance
Jim announced the final demo line up last week. The format of Jim's event is sharp and works very well: each company has only 5mn to demo its flagship product. Usually, the Founders of the companies themselves are on stage. They are passionate people, and I strongly recommend to attend the event if you have the chance.

 
Here’s the complete lineup by company type: 

• Checking/savings: Andera, First ROI, SmartyPig, 
• Financial shopping/comparison: Credit Karma, FindABetterBank, SmartHippo 
• Investing/asset management: Boulevard R., Cake Financial,
  CAPS (Motley Fool), SocialPicks, TradeKing, VaultStreet, Vestopia, Zecco 
• Lending/credit: Lending Club, Loanio, Prosper, SimpleTuition, Wonga 
• Mobile banking/payments: Aradiom, ClairMail, Diversinet, Tyfone 
• Personal financial management: Buxfer, Expensr, Jwaala, Mint, Wesabe 
• Security: Authentium, Guard ID, Guardian Analytics, TrustedID, Vidoop 
• Other: IP Commerce, Unified Money, WorkLight and four stealth startups 

It will give me the opportunity to catch up with the Founders I have interviewed last time, as well as a few companies I met in London: Authentium, Wonga and WorkLight.
 
I will stay in San Francisco from Saturday 26th April to Friday 2nd May. My goal is to meet as many innovative companies as possible and shoot short and insightful video interviews.

If you are a startup, a bank, or a major vendor in the online finance space, please do not hesitate to send me an email (cm_langlois[AT]yahoo[DOT]co[DOT]uk) to organize a meeting!
 
Related articles on Visible-Banking.com
* Coverage of Finovate 2007
* Interview John Sharp, CEO of Authentium

Another web 2.0 initiative "behind the firewall": Scotiabank launches a social network for staff

Most large organizations, banks included, struggle to share information and leverage the breadth of knowledge available internally. Most of them still work in silos.

Expensive Knowledge Management or Human Capital Management systems are available, but now I am glad to see more and more banks leveraging web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis and social networks.

Yesterday, Canada's Scotiabank announced the launch of their internal web 2.0 platform. The "social networking" platform is based on Microsoft's Office SharePoint Server 2007.

MS SharePoint is an excellent collaborative platform, but I wouldn't describe its out-of-the-box version as "a social networking" platform. Yes, You can create your profile on your MySite section. But the bank still has a lot of customization to do such as adding new "lists" (fields) and improving the layout...

I have spotted an interesting fact in the article: "As part of the programme, the bank is creating online user profiles for staff members."

Does it simply mean that the bank will create their employees MySite on their behalf? Or are they going to pre-fill the profiles with basic information only or extra info available on their cvs?

Every social network's top 2 challenges are to increase its member base, and the quality of their profiles. There is no point having a profile on Linkedin if people can't find you!

Whatever the platform, engaging with your employees is the real challenge
With "behind the firewall" projects, I believe the challenge lies in educating people, convincing them, urging them to contribute. The platform needs to be simple to use and intuitive, period.

You can roll out "the best" social networking platform, but the success of your initiative will mainly rely on the quality of profiles, the adoption of the platform from your employees, and their (valuable) contribution.

Related articles on Visible-Banking.com
* Banking 2.0 V-News: the 4 kinds of social media projects
* Wetpac Enterprise 2.0: unleash the potential of web 2.0 "behind the firewall"

Wells Fargo co-founds "the Blog Council"

I found about this interesting news last week on Chris Skinner's blog.
 

Well Fargo 2.0

As far as I am concerned, Wells Fargo is the best example of how to leverage social media/web 2.0 in the banking industry. I invite you to check:

* my post "Wells Fargo 2.0", and

* my two slides on Wells Fargo during my recent speaking engagement in Barcelona.

   
Wells Fargo even have a team dedicated to experiential marketing and social media. Earlier this year I met Tim Collins, SVP Experiential Marketing, in London at a financial services club event, and I communicate regularly with their VP Social Media (how cool is that!), Ed Terpening.

 
Recently, they launched the upgraded version of their successful initiative in virtual worlds, StageCoach Island (initially launched on Second Life, back in 2005).

They launched their first blog back in March 2006. Now they have 4 corporate blogs, the Student LoanDown being extremely popular in the student community.
 

The Blog Council

Last week, Wells Fargo confirmed their involvment in web 2.0 and especially corporate blogging. Indeed, they are one of the co-founders of "the Blog Council". Well Fargo is the only institution representing the banking industry.
 

I welcome this initiative which, I hope, will urge more banks to launch a blog, hence improve the way we communicate and engage with our customers. This initiative is a step in the right direction, but it is very much US centric, and I look forward to seeing the same kind of initiative in Europe soon.

Please find below the mission statement of the Blog Council:

"The Blog Council is a community for official corporate blogs and bloggers that represent major global corporations.

Our mission is to address the unique needs of blogging in a corporate environment.

The Blog Council exists as a forum for executives to meet, share tactics and advice, and develop best practices. The organization teaches responsible, ethics-based corporate blogging."

They will organize their first event in the US in January 2008, "the Blog Council Member Off-Site and Unconference #1".

Tech Tour 07: Interview with Matt Colebourne, CEO cocomment

I met Matt Colebourne at the European Tech Tour Web and Communities Summit in November 07. His company, cocomment, was one of the 25 finalists.

Interview with Matt Colebourne

 

Visible Banking: interview with Chris Skinner, Founder at Balatro

I initially came across Chris Skinner four years ago, when I was working in the payment and the anti-money laundering industries. Chris is well-known in the UK banking industry.

Chris is a busy man: he owns Balatro, his own consultancy firm, he is the Chairman of the financial services club in London, an active blogger on finextra, as well as the author of several books...

Chris is passionate about new/emerging technologies and their impact on the banking industry. Chris is a regular on the speaking circuit and he travels the world to share his vision on the future of banking, the convergence of media, and topics such as Social Networking, Virtual Worlds, Social Media and Web 2.0.

Yesterday, I spent an hour with Chris at the Institute of Insurers in London. During the interview, we talked about the future of banking, social media in the uk banking market and Chris's workshops at the BAI Retail Delivery Conference in Las Vegas in November 2007.

Interview with Chris Skinner

 

Finovate 07: interview with William Azaroff, Interactive Marketing & Channel Manager at Vancity

I first got in touch with William Azaroff a few months ago, via our blogs azaroff.com/blog and visible-banking.

William is the interactive marketing manager at Vancity, Canada's largest credit union. William has been blogging for over 4 years now. He is also a guest blogger on Jim Bruene's NetBanker.
 
I was extremely pleased to meet him at Finovate in New York. William covered the event in real time on NetBanker. I invite you to check William's posts on NetBanker.

William is very knowledgeable and passionate about Social Media, Online Communities and Web 2.0. He pioneered ChangeEverything.ca, the groundbreaking change-themed online community, which was named as an Offical Honoree at this year's Webby Awards

During our interview, we talked about blogging, user generated content, social networtking and the challenges faced by a bank or a credit union.

Interview with William Azaroff

 

Finovate 07: interview with Brandon McGee, VP & Senior Product Manager Mobile Banking at Huntington

Brandon first contacted me back in July 20007, when he started blogging about Mobile Banking. Brandon's blog is a great resource and if you share an interest in Mobile Banking I highly recommend you subscribe to his feed.

Brandon McGee is VP and Senior Product Manager at Huntington. He is also a guest blogger on Jim Bruene's Mobile Money & Banking.

Brandon covered the Finovate event on Jim's blog. After the conference, we spent a couple of minutes together. During the interview, Brandon shared his expertise and his vision on the US Mobile Banking market.

Interview with Brandon McGee

adtech London 07: interview with Mark Rogers, CEO of Market Sentinel

I met Mark Rogers after the session about Monitoring Consumer Conversations Online. Market Sentinel helped Avis, the leading car rental company in the UK, to launch their blog WeTryHarder in January 2007. 

Avi's main goal for the blog is to engage with its customers and provide the best customer service.

There is a similarity with the heavily regulated banking industry, and the risk of brand damage. Indeed, the car rental industry has been subject to bad press in the last couple of years. Xavier Vallee, Head of Marketing at Avis UK, proudly admitted that Avis put themselves in the line of fire.

Avis wanted to give their customers the chance to express themselves, they wanted to create a dialog. Xavier and his team make sure they respond to every comment, positive and negative.
Being sincere, honest and showing that you listen can help you not only win back an angry customer but turn to a brand ambassador.
 
Avis approach, with the help of Market Sentinel, is excellent: not only they make sure to respond to every comment on their blog (they have over 300 comments to date) but they also engage with influential industry bloggers, and they proactively browse forums. They surely got inspired by Dell or Sony.

Avis even won an award with their blog: SOCAP Award for innovation in Customer Service.

Mark's advice on how to implement a successful blogging strategy
A blog is an excellent medium to engage with your customers, as long as you make sure you respond to your customer comments.
But how do you show you understand your customers? How can you respond? How can you measure success?

adtech London 07: interview with Fergus Hampton, CEO of Millward Brown Precis

Before executing a Web 2.0 project, it is important to clarify your objectives. What is your goal? Does it really make sens to launch a blog, a social network, or an island in Second Life?