SPEAR.fr: l'Epargne Solidaire 'a la Banca Civica' en 'Marque Blanche'

La semaine derniere, je me suis deplace a Paris pour contribuer a la 7eme edition du BarCampBank Paris ou j'ai passe une excellente journee avec pres d'une centaine de passiones de l'innovation bancaire.  
 
A l'occasion de ce deplacement parisien, j'ai filme quelques interviews au Credit Agricole (CAStore et SDK) a la Societe Generale (iPad, twitter), et avec quelques startups innovantes au BarCamp, dont SPEAR.fr.

Si vous etes lecteur regulier du blog Visible Banking, vous comprendrez tout de suite ma comparaison de cette nouvelle plateforme a Caja Navarra (maintenant membre foundateur du groupe 'Banca Civica') l'une des banques les plus transparentes au monde...

Societe Generale Collecte 20,000 Avis en Agence via l'iPad [INTERVIEW]

Le 10 janvier, j'ai poste un article sur 'la strategie ipad' de la Societe Generale dans lequel j'avais presente trois initiatives innovantes impliquant toutes la tablette d'Apple.  
 
 
La semaine derniere, la veille du BarCampBank Paris 7, j'ai eu le plaisir de passer une heure avec l'une des personnes en charge du projet de bornes ipad en agence visant a capturer la voix du client 'in situ'.
 
Je vous invite a visionner mon interview video filmee a cette occasion a l'agence Societe Generale du siege parisien de la banque.

Societe Generale et l'Ecoute Client sur Twitter en 2012 [INTERVIEW]

Dans le cadre de notre observatoire twitter dans les services financiers (l'equipe Visible Banking suit plus de 1,700 comptes dans 73 pays), nous suivons une centaine de comptes twitter en France, une dizaine appartenant a diverses entites du groupe Societe Generale.
 
En avril 2011, j'avais interviewe la dynamique equipe du, alors nouveau, compte twitter de la Societe Generale dedie a la relation client, @SG_etvous.
 
La veille du 7eme BarCampBank Paris, j'ai eu le plaisir de faire le point avec l'un des deux responsables du compte.  Je vous invite a visionner ma courte interview sur la strategie twitter 2012, particulierement sur les aspect lies a l'ecoute et au support client.

French P2P Lending Pioneer Reopens After Long Quiet Period [INTERVIEW]

In the last couple of years, many P2P lending companies had to shut down temporarily due to pressure from the regulator.  It happened to the leading online communities in the US, Prosper.com and LendingClub, and to the pioneers in social lending this side of the pond too.  
 
FriendsClear.com, the French P2P lending community started a 'quiet period' back in April 2011.  Yesterday, after nine months of hard work behind close doors, they are open for business again.
  
I invite you to watch my video interview with FirendsClear.com's Co-Founder and CEO. 

Le Credit Agricole Championne l'Ouverture Bancaire avec son SDK [INTERVIEW]

La semaine derniere, le Credit Agricole a une fois de plus revolutionne le monde bancaire.  En effet, ces dernieres annees plusieurs caisses regionales se sont montrees tres innovantes sur internet et notamment sur les medias sociaux.  
 
Je vous invite a lire mes articles sur KametLeo et Tookam la 1ere banque au niveau mondial totalement 'integree' aux medias sociaux et lancee par le Credit Agricole Pyrenees Gascogne (CAMPG) et son dirigeant visionnaire (bloggeur et tweep) Jean PHILIPPE.
 
Cette fois-ci, l'innovation vient directement de la Federation Nationale du Credit Agricole (FNCA). Et ici, il n'est pas question d'innovation incrementale, mais bien d'innovation de rupture.  Le Credit Agricole a pris la decision strategique (un exploit en soit) de s'ouvrir au monde des developpeurs et de leur fournir un API et un SDK leur permettant d'acceder aux donnees clients de la banque (la plus grande banque en France avec 20 millions de clients, dont 6 millions d'utilisateurs de la banque en ligne).
  
Je vous invite a visionner mon interview avec Michel Goutorbe le Directeur General Adjoint en charge du projet a la FNCA.

Etes-Vous Pret a 'Lever le Secret Bancaire au Profit de Fortuneo'? [BUDGET]

Le theme de la gestion de budget, Personal Finance Management (PFM) en anglais, est l'un des themes les plus presents dans les conversations liees aux medias sociaux et a l'innovation dans l'industrie bancaire.  

Mais peut-on reellement parler d'innovation?  Peut-etre en France, certainement pas aux US.

BarCampBank Paris: 80+ Crowd Shapes the Future of Banking [COVERAGE]

As mentioned in a previous article, I was in Paris on Saturday to participate to the 7th edition of the BarCampBank Paris.  The event was extremely well attended with over 80 energized participants, all willing to engage in (occasionally heated) conversations on the broad topic of innovation in banking.
 
A big thank you to the organizers for putting together such a successful 'un-conference': Christophe Ducamp (la Maison Ducamp), Kristell Le Nadan (Pole Finance Innovation), Emmanuel Papadacci (Credit Agricole) and Nicolas Debock (XAnge).  I hope I am not forgetting anyone.
  
Now, I invite you to check my coverage of the event which includes about 60 pictures and video interviews.

Three Applications that Prove the iPad is Strategic to Societe Generale

2011 has been a busy year for mobile banking with the tremendous growth of smartphone penetration and the increasing consumer interest for tablets. In the last twelve months, we saw litteraly dozens and dozens of new mobile banking and mobile payment apps (mainly on iphone, ipad, android).
 
But most apps only offer basic features. Few are transactional. Fewer are innovative.

There was a few exceptions with the likes of Citi's ipad app or the Standard Chartered Breeze offering including an innovative wishlist service 'a la Smartypig'. In this post, I won't insist too much on crowdsourcing, but if you are interested I invite you to read my coverage of two initiatives from European banks focused on Apple's almighty iPad: Danske Bank's Ideabank on facebook and Webank's wepad project whose delivery was somewhat underwhelming.

Credit Agricole Launches Another Social Media Bank: 'Kam&Leo', Distributing Responsible Investment Funds

Only six months after launching TooKam.com, the first bank totally integrated with social media (customer support on twitter and facebook via secure chat, 3D internet, blogging...), Jean Philippe - the CEO of Credit Agricole Pyrenees Gascogne innovates again with the launch of 'Kam&Leo' (pronounced like 'chameleon' in France, or '(Too)Kam-eleon').
    
Jean Philippe is unarguably the most forward thinking CEO in the worldwide banking industry.  In the last three years, under Jean's leadership, Credit Agricole Pyerenees Gascogne, a major French regional bank, became The most experimental bank in the social media space. 
 
Like a few dozens other banking and insurance Senior Executives Jean is actively using twitter.  He is also on facebook, and last but not least, he's shared his views in a very transparent and honest way on his blog for years.  At the end of September, Jean organized a number of events in his region to meet, respond to the questions, and re-assure his customers and the local communities.  This is another great example of Jean's committment to be approachable, and Credit Agricole Pyrenees Gascogne to be a different bank, genuinely focused on supporting the local economy and building a customer centric business.  

Please note that Jean's views of the role of the CEO, and the importance of being visible and know personally, is fundamentally different to other banking CEOs like Mark Mullen, CEO of first direct...  I invite you to watch the video I recorded with Mark last week.

BNP Paribas Invites You to Open a Bank Account in just One Tweet

Tweet



This afternoon, I had a productive meeting in Paris with one of the largest banking groups in France. And I'm confident we will deliver a few social media projects for this financial institution within the next couple of months. One of their hottest topics is if and how a bank can generate business on social media channels such as facebook or twitter.
 
So what a perfect timing when, not even two hours later, I received a youtube update via email notifying me of a new video uploaded onto the BNP Paribas channel (32k views since June 2006). The name of the video definitely caught my interest: "Publicité BNP Paribas la NET Agence - Ouvrez un compte en 1 tweet" ("Advertisement BNP Paribas the Net Agence - Open a bank account in 1 tweet").


Basically, tweeps just have to send a tweet to @BNPParibas_Net and the team will reach out to them and guide them all along the account opening process in order to make it as easy and smooth as possible and provide the best user experience to their future new clients.
 
My take
This video is another example of BNP Paribas' clever marketing and communications machine. With this genuine 'marketing coup' (basically here BNPP simply invites people to tweet them without even using a special hashtag, or guaranteeing some kind of super tight SLA - close-to-real time response, or any kind of innovative communications "a la Best Buy's Twelpe force" on the 200m-user mico-blogging service). But a bit like modern art, there is a premium to be the 1st to come up with such an announcement, and I'm confident BNP Paribas will create a decent amount of coverage and drive Word-of-Mouth.
 
I've always wondered how a proactive bank reaching out to tweeps looking for a financial product would be perceived? Surely intrusive, don't you think? Here, we have one good work-around for unsollicited sales / promotional tweets. With this approach, Frank and his team totally tapped into Seth Godin's permission marketing concept: let people confirm their interest, then reach out to them, help then and eventually turn them into customers.
 
Over the last few years, I've buit an excellent relationship with Frank Desvignes - Director Internet & Mobile at BNP Paribas Retail Banking France (please check my video interview with Frank) and his team.
 
 
 
Since Frank joined BNPP a decade ago, day after day he's demonstrated (and implemented) BNP Paribas' willingness to constantly innovate in the online and the mobile channels:
* back in September 2009, Frank's team launched one of the first corporate facebook pages in France to reach over 100k fans (built by giving away cinema tickets),
* BNP Paribas became the first major French bank to launch an ipad app (even though the initial release wasn't a fully native ipad app and didn't offer the fantastic experience provided by the best ipad apps),
* back in September 2010, BNP Paribas became the 1st bank in France, and one of the first in Europe, to launch a twitter account dedicated to customer support (the volume of questions and requests is still low, but the bank could easily scale up and fully leverage its team of 5 custome care reps trained to twitter),
* more recently, BNP Paribas launched a couple of innovative iphone apps focused on travels and cars.
 
BNP Paribas Net is #1 on facebook and #3 on twitter in France and the facebook page is in the Top 30 most liked pages globally.
 
 
 
This is not Frank's first try at leveraging their social media communities to generate business and drive account openings. His team tried to drive account openings on facebook via three wall posts and a trackable reward system focused on cinema with a special voucher code to track the online sales back to facebook. The amount of activity on those post was quite limited but many people complained that there was no promo for existing clients...
 
Nowadays people are looking for intuitive and easy ways to find the best financial product(s) for their own needs and go through the compulsory administrative paperwork as quickly as possible. This marketing announcement seems to be 'lacking substance', but it reminds people the BNP Paribas team is on twitter too, and how convenient this alternative service could be. It totally fits the bill.

In the next few days and weeks, I am sure most of BNP Paribas' competitors will challenge its value or labelled it another marketing coup (as I called it myself a few lines above). Yes it is another marketing coup, but I guarantee you that behind close doors, many banks will be wondering why and how come they hadn't thought about it first...
 
Working Together
We at Visible Banking would be delighted to help you and your team better UNDERSTAND and LEVERAGE social media in a strategic yet pragmatic way. So please don't hesitate to call me, send me an email or DM me (@Visible_Banking) to book a meeting and talk about twitter, facebook, crowdsourcing, customer reviews, social media & social commerce in banking, financial services and insurance.

Related articles on Visible-Banking.com
* All my posts related to Twitter
* All my posts related to Facebook
* Visible Banking Directory: Social Media in Financial Services
* Visible Banking Social Media Watch Series (Twitter, Facebook, Blogs)