Online Social Savings Leader Smartypig Becomes SaaS with GoalSaver

Last night, I exchanged a few emails with Jon Gaskell - Co-Founder of Smartypig.  Jon gave me the heads up and informed me of today's major announcements from the Des Moines-based leader in online goal-oriented social savings. 
  
 
For those of you who are not already familiar with the fun, engaging, social Smartypig service I invite you to watch my video interview with Bob Weinschenk - former CEO and Mike Ferrari - Co-Founder.
 
In my opinion, Smartypig is today one of the very best examples of gamification in banking.
 
Smartypig aka "The pig" is about to make several major announcements: a rebranding, a product launch, a new enagement model with an extended market -the whole worldwide financial services industry-.

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.

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.

Aviva UK Rethinks its Twitter Presence and Focuses on Customer Support

One of the key questions I always get asked about twitter is what's the best strategy regarding number of accounts: one multi-purpose account 'a la UBank' in Australia versus specific accounts for PR, HR or customer support 'a la Bank of America' in the US.
 
Today, Aviva UK took its twitter presence to the next level.

At Last, Barclays Bank Starts Supporting its Customers on Twitter

Social customer care is one of my favourite topics, and I covered it extensively on the Visible Banking blog.  I invite you to check those slides and this video on the topic.
 
In the last couple of years, US banks have invested significant budget and resources to provide timely customer care on the most popular micro-blogging service with the likes of Citi (@AskCiti), Wells Fargo (@Ask_WellsFargo), American Express (AskAmex) or Bank of America (@BofA_Help). 
 
Unsurprisingly, those accounts are among the most active financial services accounts worldwide, and respectively #85, #58, #40 and #25 in our Visible Banking Twitter Watch series (the ranking is based on the size of the follower bases of over 1,600 FS accounts in 72 countries).

Brands and Customer Care on Twitter (a Global Report)
My team is working putting together the most comprehensive and insightful report ever produced on customer support on twitter globally.  For months, we've been tracking over 220 accounts in 13 countries from financial services firms, but also FMCG, media, travel... 
Please reach out to us to confirm your interest.
 
Earlier today, Barclays Bank officially launched @BarclaysOnline its twitter account dedicated to customer support.  But how innovative is that move in the conservative UK banking industry?

Pygg.co Enables Payments on Twitter via PayPal [Video Interview]

I've just come back from three productive weeks in Singapore and Australia.  I still can't believe how perfect the timing of my trip to Sydney was: in addition to the few social media workshops I had lined up with some major australian financial institutions and my book launch party, Commonwealth Bank of Australia launched 'Kaching' its industry-leading mobile payment application for iPhone (based on true real-time banking, provided by their recently redesigned core banking system) and Pollenizer officially launched Pygg.co, a service which gives twitter users the opportunity to send and receive payments via PayPal.

On 28th October, I went to Sydney's trendy Surry Hills district to visit the Pollenizer's funky office and record a video interview with Michelle Rowan - Business Concept Manager and lead on the Pygg.co project.

A Successful Australian Book Launch for 'a practical guide to social media in financial services' (Sydney, 26 October 2011)

My publisher started shipping the first hard copies of my book 'customer experience withouth borders: a practical guide to social media in financial services' back in June. A few weeks ago, I proudly announced the availability of the kindle version!

After a successful soft launch and a few hundreds copies of the book already sold all over the world in countries such as the UK, France, Spain, Switzerland, the US, Brazil, Japan, Singapore and Australia, my publisher organized our first official book launch party (London, 12 September 2011).

I had the opportunity to talk the crowd (30+ journalists, students and financial services professionals) through the story behind Visible-Banking.com and my book, and answer questions from an engaged audience.

As I was going to travel to the Asia Pacific region in October and November, I was keen to put together similar 'book launch' events in Singapore and Australia.

Kaching! Commonwealth Bank Launches the Sleekest, Most Convenient, Mobile Payment App for iPhone

I'm currently in the middle of the Visible Banking Asia Pacific tour. I've landed in Sydney a couple of days ago after a successful week in Singapore ponctuated, among other things, by a social media workshop in Bangkok and a well attended book launch party with the likes of Standard Chartered, OCBC, DBS Bank, Maybank, Visa.

On Monday, Tracy Hicks - PR Advisor at Commonwealth Bank of Australia invited me to attend their event for the launch of their latest mobile banking application 'Kaching' ('#CBAAnnouncement on twitter). The event took place yesterday morning at the CBA building on Harbour street.

The leading Australian bank, which has started to celebrate its 100 years, did a good job building the level of excitement and interest with this well executed product launch. Well done to Tracy and her PR colleagues.

This initiative reminded me of FNB's recent event to support the launch of their own mobile banking app for smartphones. The South African bank's launch was extremely smart and successful: the bank invited a lot of influencial and vocal bloggers which helped them generate a lot of buzz online, sustain excellent conversations and capture valuable feedback from the get go, trend on twitter for days, and earn a high volume of online coverage (earned media).

My expectations were high. So, how innovative is CBA's new mobile app? And how successful was the PR launch event? Let's find out now.

Italy's Webank Drives Customer Acquisition And Deposits via a Partnership with Groupon and a Reward Tab on Facebook

In 2011, Webank has become one of the most experimental banks on social media: not only they are present on facebook and twitter, they also launched a couple of more engaging and committing initiatives such as social customer care on twitter and a crowdsourced ipad application.
 
This week, the italian bank became one of the first financial institutions in the world to partner with Groupon.

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.