Online Banking

I wanted to write an article about a Wall Street Journal new of Thursday, November 23 2006, in his European edition. This article talks about banks, and their problem of differenciation. Whatever the services or the products they offer to their customers, they all look alike, and hence, customers can not really tell the differences there are between one or another bank. And on such mature markets, especially the American and European ones, where the best way to grow is to gain market shares. Some banks decided then to use Internet as a tool to provide new innovative services, and then to add value to their existent proposals.

Among them, the Wells Fargo (which was by the way my bank while I was in the US), propose an online tool to help people regularly sock away part of their paycheck to meet a long term goal called "My Savings Plan". Commerce Bancorp has even gone further, and let their wealthy clients view and manage all their accounts online.

The Internet tools allow too, more than the primary banking services, to help out customers in their every day life. For example, Bank of America speeds up bill paying, on a next day basis.

Letting customers taking care of their accounts on line has a positive effects for bank too. It is cheaper for the banks to serve customers via Internet.

The next step : mobile phone. This media allows to touch the customer wherever he is at any time. Thus, banks are retooling in biid to attract users.

I think it is a very important fact, that banks, which are part of our every day life, allow us to manage better and at any time our bank accounts. It shows a good example of how the Internet can provides efficient differenciation and important services for customers. I hope french banks have been aware of that article.