Extra! Extra!

Congratulations to Campus Federal Credit Union (CFCU) based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on the new website launch!

During the website redesign, Extractable worked with CFCU to make sure the new web experience on the CFCU website was as professional as larger financial institutions in the areas but also directly addressed the students, faculty and affiliates associated with Louisiana State University (LSU) that make up a large percentage of their member base.  The website was designed for ease of use and to enable members to have a positive online banking experience.

Before the website was launched benchmark figures were calculated in order to show a positive ROI on the project over the next several years.  Figures and base costs originating from the website were calculated for the member call center, average products/services per member and on the total membership of the credit union.

If you live in Louisiana or are affiliated with LSU please consider using CFCU as your primary financial institution because sometimes the “perfect bank for you, isn’t a bank at all”.

Congratulations to Credit Union ONE for launching an enhanced website which provides members additional features and benefits.

CU ONE approached Extractable to help design a website that would “provide exceptional value to CU ONE members by delivering outstanding products and services anytime, anywhere.”  By having the website function as a 24 hour online member center (by empowering members to do more of their financial tasks online and by organizing information on the website more clearly) the website is poised to be a success!

Some great CU ONE site features include:

• Secure loan and mortgage applications
• Ability to open and fund an account online
• Wide array of financial calculators
• Numerous online forms
• Detailed online map
• Numerous online forms
• Dynamic Frequently Asked Questions
• Print and send-to-friend features
• Online help demos
• Online chat support

In the next month CUONE will be working to implement RSS feeds on their website and dynamically pull in rates into specific webpages in order to ensure their members have the latest rate information possibly available.

If you live in Michigan (or surrounding states) and are looking for a stable financial institution that still feels “personal” please make sure to visit Credit Union ONE.

It’s great to see our client SAFE Credit Union winning cheers from the greater credit union community for their 2007 WebAward-winning site. Credit Union Magazine just published an article titled “Build a Better Web Site” which features SAFE’s three-pronged approach to web marketing. It’s also great to see Extractable referenced within the article!

Adoption habits vary greatly based on demographics and we continue to see dramatic change in the ways that these groups are approaching online banking. According to Forrester, 76% of households will be banking online by 2011. Online bankers are more lucrative customers for financial services firms as they bring nearly double the salaries and investable assets as their offline banking peers.

At the 5th Annual Financial Services Marketing Symposium the team from Javelin Research and Strategy presented an interesting finding. Javelin’s Jean Garascia identified that there is an inverse reaction to a security breach between high and low income groups.

The low income demographic will jettison new technologies like mobile or online banking when a security breach takes place. For this group a security breach represents a more significant life impact in that a theft will be an extremely large inconvenience. As a result, low income users will assume that the breach occurred as a result of this new technology and simply discontinue using the channel. It is important for financial institutions to understand this trend and be prepared to engage in a dialog with these consumers about the actual driver of the breach. Fear of security still remains one of the top reasons for non adopters to avoid online banking.

The opposite reaction is true for the higher income group. In the event of a breach this group tends to increase high tech adoption. They actively seek out additional technologies to keep them in closer communication with their money. This is especially important for the roll out of mobile banking and SMS text alerts.

From a mobile banking perspective, risk adverse users still prefer a downloadable application in lieu of a web based mobile banking interface. Mobile internet users (MIUs) still remain the most likely to adopt mobile banking. As of today, mobile is still not a significant enough value for customers to switch financial institutions. Consumer Adoption for mobile banking remains a function of the perceived risk and Javelin goes on to say that zero-liability is the key to mobile banking adoption.

Education will continue to be a critical component of any high tech roll out strategy – this is even more important for the low income groups.