PNC’s new Money Bar Desktop widget casts the bank as an angel on the shoulder of its users, an ever-present advocate that reminds consumers to be responsible spenders.
The tool, part of PNC Financial Services Group Inc.’s online-focused Virtual Wallet account, graphically depicts users’ cash positions in real time without requiring them to log in to the full online-banking site. It does not list balances, instead using color-coded representations about cash reserves in relation to coming bills and warning consumers when they are at risk of slipping into danger zones with their spending.
Consumers can configure the widget to send alerts when spending reaches a critical point, and the widget provides a quick link to the full online banking site if users need to move money around. Observers say this elevates PNC’s brand, giving it a persistent but unobtrusive presence in consumers’ everyday lives.
“You are looking at this thing all day long, and from a branding perspective, this presents an opportunity to bring the [bank customer] closer,” says Jacob Jegher, a senior analyst at the research firm Celent. “If you like [Money Bar Desktop], the affinity could result in a sale of additional products.”
Jegher cautions that marketing through the widget would have to be handled carefully, and almost passively, as pop-ups for new bank products might alienate customers.
Nicole Sturgill, a research director at TowerGroup in Needham, Mass., says “PNC has done a good job of building community around Virtual Wallet and getting feedback.”
Mike Ley, vice president in the e-business and payments group for PNC, says PNC listened to consumers, who said they want “to be aware of what is going on in their accounts.”
Virtual Wallet is a series of three connected checking and savings accounts. One of the features it has had since its 2008 debut is a Money Bar slider that allows consumers to move money among the accounts by moving a slider on the bar.
The new Money Bar Desktop application tests whether a streamlined version of the tool would be useful for consumers. “It resides on the desktop without having to go into online banking to see it,” Ley says. “We are going to look at how people like this and see what requests they may have.”
For example, some early comments on PNC’s Inside the Wallet blog (which, true to its name, is viewed from within the Virtual Wallet account) requested more detail, such as listing balances.
Hank Israel, a partner at Novantas LLC of New York, says that according to the firm’s research, about 40% of bank customers are “control-seekers” and would be potentially interested in a widget that gives them continuous information about their banking balances.
“They want to manage every penny, and they want to manage their finances at this level,” Israel says.
Stessa Cohen, research director of banking industry advisory services at Gartner Inc. of Stamford, Conn., says PNC is being smart in extending a function it already has built into its Virtual Wallet instead of building entirely new applications.
Cohen also says it was important that the widget relies on Adobe Air, a common Web application development platform, because it was an inexpensive, accessible approach to building new functionality that works on multiple operating systems. “It is a common tool that is not banking-specific, and from an IT perspective, it is easy to get people who know how to use these tools,” she says.
Ron Shevlin, a senior analyst at Aite Group LLC of Boston, adds that “widgetizing [the Money Bar], and breaking it off from the online tool itself becomes a nice convenience for folks who don’t always want to log in to the site.”
When it launched Virtual Wallet in 2008, PNC initially sought to target the Generation Y demographic, which PNC defines as consumers between the ages of 18 and 34 (
Such consumers tend to check their balances more frequently than those in other age groups, primarily to make sure they do not overdraw their bank accounts, Shevlin says. “An incredibly high percentage of [Generation Y] customers check balances before, after and during transactions,” Shevlin says. “When they are about to swipe, they want to be sure the money is there.”
Jegher mused that the tool “is a bit like “Back to the Future”–back in the day, Internet banking was downloaded.”
Money Bar Desktop had obvious applications for business users who have a need to see their cash positions in real time, but it was perhaps less clear for regular consumers, who do not handle all of their finances on a computer screen, Jegher says.
“Folks do not always rely on a single device these days,” Jegher says.
