(Not) Moving at the Speed of Business

Webster Financial Corp. had about as much luck as the big banks in staying ahead of the curve on debit card fees.

The Waterbury, Conn., company launched a no-fee debit card campaign largely through Twitter and other social media outlets in early November. Not a bad idea at the time.

Webster wisely withdrew the campaign Nov. 4, following Bank of America Corp.'s announcement earlier that week that it would not charge $5 a month on its debit cards.

Unfortunately, Reuters ran an article Nov. 4 that used the $18 billion-asset Webster as its first example of banks marketing themselves as a transfer destination for angry customers of big banks. The article cited a tweet that Webster sent that morning touting its no-fee policy.

Oh, well.

Webster replaced the campaign with advertising of other products and services on its website such as small business banking and retirement planning, a spokesman said.

Hopefully for Webster old-fashioned banking products will have more staying power than tweets.