BROOKFIELD, Wis. - In an effort to reach the growing Gen Y marketplace, Fiserv is debuting a new application built on the Facebook platform that will let members manage their finances directly from the popular social networking utility.
The new application, dubbed MyMoney, allows users to search for a credit union online, view account balances, review account history and transfer money all without leaving the Facebook space.
The application is steadily attracting credit union believers who are gradually starting to see the value of social networking forums like Facebook and MySpace.
“We just started announcing it and have about 50 clients that have signed up for it,” said Kirsten Gardner, product marketing manager of the Galaxy line at Fiserv. “About 14 are live right now.”
65 Million Prospects
Gardner said the decision to market the application on Facebook was essentially taken from a page from Marketing 101.
“We’ve been looking at a lot of industry stats and saw that Facebook has 65 million users that spend an average of about 20 minutes a day on the site,” she said. “Our thoughts were we needed to go where they (Gen Y) already are.”
Gardner said that only 6% of people between the ages of 18 to 24 belong to a credit union and those who do don’t drive out to the branch or visit the website to enroll online.
With MyMoney, when a Facebook user adds the application to their profile, their friends are notified and given the opportunity to add the application as well. Adherents of the application say it is one-stop shopping at its best with tremendous word-of-mouth appeal.
“We just started with Facebook and created a TexasOne Facebook page two or three weeks ago and within the first week or 10 days we had two of our members sign up to become friends within our page and also sign up for the mymoney application,” said Jason Lee, EVP of Houston-based TexasOne Community CU.
Lee said that as the $130-million CU’s network of members starts to grow, he thinks about the cost savings of being able to communicate with potential members-basically for free.
“MyMoney cost us very little and the Facebook page was free,” he says. “It’s just going to be an easy way to market to our Gen Y members.”
MyMoney is also very secure, according to Fiserv-Galaxy managers. The application was built using 128-bit encryption and a two-way security system that lets the credit union know who is trying to access the member’s account.
“The No. 1 or No. 2 questions we get asked is about security because we’re putting balances out in a social networking environment,” said David Reed, product manager of the Galaxy solution. ”In some cases we feel that it’s more secure than even the online banking systems that are out there. We authenticate three different ways to make sure you are who you say you are when coming on.”
“We acknowledge security is a concern, but believe me, we have put a lot of thought into that and it is a very secure product,” Reed assured.
Security was also a concern for Dan Veasey, director of marketing for Danville, Va.-based Piedmont Credit Union. Veasey, who also acts as the $31-million CU’s IT manager, who said he was impressed with the security features of the first-version application.
“I’ve tried to intercept data and transmissions through my own account and I was unsuccessful.” Veasey said. “I’m sold on the security, too.”
As is the case with many cutting-edge marketing campaigns, especially those targeting the Gen Y audience, the question of ROI comes into play albeit sometimes as an afterthought.
And there is also some question as to the efficacy of promoting financial applications online. A recent report on www.netbanker.com suggested that personal finance applications have “anemic usage levels” when compared to other Facebook applications like FunWall, which allows users to post videos and pictures to the users profile.
Fiserv plans to have a full reporting feature available to MyMoney that will be complete in the next week. It will allow the credit union to actually report on the number of members that have been added to their institution, according to Reed.
“When a member sees that list of credit unions they want to join, they can do it right there online if they use “switch kits” which is a galaxy product allowing them to join online, he said. “Were going to track the number of times they’re hitting that link and credit unions are going to get a measure of how many Facebook members they’ve added to their institution just through the MyMoney application.”
Advocates of MyMoney say that it is more important that the credit unions maintain a presence in the online space and keep a flexible posture rather than micromanage the campaign during its initial weeks and months.
Not Quick Ramp-Up
“If you look at innovation and coming out with new things, the majority of people tend to go with what they are comfortable with,” said Jay Slavin, SVP of product and business development at Fiserv. “One of the things I’ve said to credit unions that I’ve talked to about MyMoney is don’t think that overnight that you’re going to have over 150 GenY’ers knocking at your door to get this.”
Slavin says that if credit unions don’t put their presence out there, they won’t have the opportunity to attract the type of GenYers that they want to have as members of the credit union.
He said that as soon as Fiserv-Galaxy rolled out MyMoney, there was a lot of interest from the whole gamut of financial institutions which he thinks is indicative of a lack of ideas and products that are really attracting Gen Y members.
“With new things you don’t necessarily get a big ramp-up real quick, Slavin added. “But if you’re not there, it’s something that you’re going to be hurting for in the future.”
