SAN FRANCISCO — Social networks are becoming a key channel for credit unions, and a new resource is launching to make it even easier for CUs to jump on the cyber bandwagon.
Wesabe, a personal financial network created just over two years ago, is expaning beyond its consumer-facing website to offer a web-services-based version of its money management tools specifically for financial institutions.
As the financial sector upheaval began last year, CEO Marc Hedlund's phone started to ring with FIs asking if they could leverage his firm's technology, which has been lauded by the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, USA Today and CNBC.
"We started to hear from more and more financial institutions, especially credit unions, that were looking to distinguish themselves from the big banks," he said. "They want to be able to say 'we are different, we have a different philosophy, we're trying to do more for our members.'"
Wesabe's budgeting tools and vast consumer network certainly appears to espouse a different kind of philosophy, one much like the "people helping people" motto of credit unions. The website's money management tools pores through users' checking, savings, credit cards and all other account information and breaks down income and expenditures in an easy-to-understand dashboard. Users can view their expenses line-by-line or simply by category; they can also set and track personal financial goals.
"We provide a system where people can get all of their accounts from all their institutions in one place. And we automatically edit transactions so they are in more readable forms," Hedlund noted. "Every transaction on our site has been edited by a person. It's not a computer that is guessing."
But it is community knowledge that appears to be Wesabe's greatest asset; Hedlund likes to compare its editing and discussion capabilities to Wikipedia, the open-source online encyclopedia. Wesabe users can join groups and both write and pick-up tips on where they can save the most money in virtually any area of their lives.
"They are contributing great tips, great advice and great edits that make everyone else's experience better," Hedlund said of the site's users, who have an average age of 28.
Credit unions and other institutions that get on board with the web-services version of Wesabe, which the firm calls Springboard, will have the ability to fully customize the user interface and integrate the technology into their core systems. The tools will be as fully formed, or as much of a blank sheet as the credit union prefers, giving the institution maximum flexibility to brand the technology as their own to the membership.
To better communicate with the membership, Springboard will also offer credit unions the ability to set up their own private network, blogs and discussion groups to generate conversation among members and between members and credit union staff. CUs can even go so far as to cut themselves off from the greater Wesabe community, but Hedlund said that direction could be counter-productive.
"We're happy to do that, but starting a community on a website is really tough. For us it felt like pushing a steam engine for the first year."
The entrepreneur also cautioned CUs against getting stretched too thin in the world of social networks saying that it doesn't make sense to have a presence everywhere. While in-house website blogs and micro-blogs like Twitter can provide good contact points to members, Hedlund urged credit unions to zero in on maintaining a live presence only in areas where it makes sense-pointing out that putting a page up on Facebook may not be helpful.
"It's like putting up a credit union booth at a dance club. It is not exactly what people are looking for," Hedlund said.
Three financial institutions, including one credit union, are currently in contract negotiations to incorporate Wesabe Springboard with their e-banking solutions.
