Secure Enterprise 2.0 Blog

What does your bank have in common with Facebook? Nothing spectacular just yet, but if the latest analyst report from Celent is right on the money, then you will soon be able to pay that credit card bill or get a loan while chatting things up with your Facebook friends or checking out sports news on iGoogle.

That’s right, Web 2.0 is coming to your local bank, which makes a lot of sense for both banks and customers. Ever since the explosion of online retail banking, the market has been saturated with similar limited-capabilities websites. So much so, that there is really not much differentiation between the different websites out there.

Meanwhile, customers want full control of their personal finances - to be able to access account information when, how and wherever they want to.

And so, as banks try to find meaningful ways to engage customers, tools such as an iGoogle or MyYahoo personal banking gadget will soon be available at your fingertips.

In fact, financial research firm Celent has recently issued a report on the state of Banking with Web 2.0, reaching some very interesting conclusions -

• 12-18 months before Web 2.0 Banking is reality - banks are already trying to figure out the right technology to offer these tools to consumers, though there is still much work to be done especially as the banking industry continues to experience a downturn.
• Security is critical - an absolute prerogative for any financial institution implementing a new technology, which often brings with it emerging security issues. One industry forum that’s tackling this problem is the Secure Enterprise 2.0 Forum.
• Advanced banking web 2.0 tools to hit the market in late 2008 - which means that some vendors have already had a head start (shameless self-promotion).

(Get the full report here.)

So if Web 2.0 has anything to do with it, you’ll likely be reaching for your mouse, instead of your wallet, sooner than you know it.

E-Banking is great. It really is. I access my bank’s e-banking application at least a couple of times a month. I check my balance, look at the latest transactions, make sure the paycheck came in on time and then try to figure out where it all went…

I’ve been using e-banking for at least five years, and I recently realized, while trying to figure out the latest installment of ‘The Mystery of the Disappearing Dollars’, how little the experience has changed in those five years.

The Web has advanced tremendously and broadband Internet has led to an explosion of rich content, online voice and video communication, social networking, personalized home pages, gadgets, widgets, RSS and many other useful tools and services.

Yet, my e-banking application still shows the same balance and transactions page, lets me run the same queries, performs the same transfers and generates the same statements and reports. (It also shows a disturbingly consistent savings account balance, but that’s a different story).

Financial institutes and commercial banks in particular have always been conservative organizations, and rightfully so. We entrust them with our most valued assets. We expect them to safeguard those assets with prudence and diligence, and not hop on to any passing technological bandwagon just because it’s cool. But the Web 2.0 technologies I talk about can no longer be considered a passing fad. They have become ingrained in how we spend our time online, how we work and play, and slowly but surely, these technologies are making headway in the banking space.

Even today, if you search RSS and gadget directories you will find that some banks and related organizations are using Web 2.0 channels to stay in touch with customers and provide useful information (for instance, visit iGoogle, click on ‘add stuff‘ and then search for ‘American Express‘).

Now picture a gadget on your iGoogle page that lets you know at a glance what your credit card balance is and when your next payment is due, or an RSS feed that gets populated on the fly whenever your bank account is debited for an amount over $500. With the advent of tools that allow banks to deliver these types of services with the same level of security provided by existing e-banking applications, the widespread availability of such services is only a matter of time.

What does this mean for us? Well, for one thing, we’ll finally see a change in those good-old e-banking applications, and I’ll have one less thing to rant about, but more importantly, we’ll be able to access our banking information online where and when we want it, and take control over our finances. After all, I visit my e-banking site twice a month, but I visit iGoogle a dozen times a day.

Yuval