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Were asking customers from different demographics to describe what they are looking for from their financial services providers.
January 13 -
With no more lines and far more banks to choose from, I want the one I select to handle my exceptional transactions exceptionally. I want to leave my bank knowing that my visit was and always will be worthwhile.
January 15 -
When I am ready to commit to paying many thousands of dollars financing a home, a car or my kids education, I will offer my business first to those institutions that helped me a 'high-transaction, low-balance customer' get there.
January 14
Editor's Note: This post is part of
Having embraced the digital-banking lifestyle, banks haven't received much face-time from me. From credit card bills to the monthly paycheck, most of my money flows in an automated system that requires almost no effort on my part. And, it's been great. The less I have to deal with the physical aspects of banking, the more I've come to appreciate my banks, JPMorgan Chase and Ally Financial.
But, no matter how streamlined my finances are, there is one thing that has proven to be a regular nuisance. It's the need for a no-cost method of sending money to and from family and friends, without the friction that requires recipients to provide hard-to-remember information like account numbers and routing numbers.
In two recent situations, I struggled to come up with ways to make and receive personal payments from family and friends.
First, a friend who uses Citibank opted to just go to the ATM to get cash for me. I knew he could have used Citibank's person-to-person payments feature (through Popmoney), but I didn't want to deal with signing up for a Popmoney account. This is far too common of an occurrence that prevents more use of P-to-P payments.
Second, I wanted to send money to a family member who uses Bank of America. Just like the above example, the relative didn't want to deal with entering hard-to-find information to collect money through Chase QuickPay, which I would have used to make the transfer.
I recalled that Bank of America and Chase are both founding members of clearXchange, a P-to-P payment network that would allow customers of member banks to send money to each other with just an email address or phone number. According to the
With Bank of America and Wells Fargo as founding members, clearXchange would allow me to send and receive money easily through Chase. To my dismay, Chase
As for the relative's payment, she wrote a check, which I immediately deposited through my smartphone. It's a waste of a check and the process required more effort and resources than an electronic method of sending funds.
The argument for third-party services may be brought into the discussion, but the likes of Google Wallet, Square Cash and PayPal can never earn the amount of consumer trust that exists when someone knows their money is moving between two financial institutions, as opposed to a middleman.
In the next year, I would like to see Chase finally incorporate clearXchange's P-to-P payment services, so that I may continue to bank with more ease. Furthermore, I can see clearXchange's value proposition to become attractive to more banks, especially the nation's largest financial institutions (the network recently added its first nonfounding member bank).
Simon Zhen is a financial writer and research analyst for
