Friday, October 17, 2008

my future bank is blank

If you are an Australian social software head then you probably know all about Cheryl, uBank/NAB and the demise of My Future Bank. At this point it would be de rigeur to beat up Loaded Tech/NAB and point you towards my own top 10 tips for corporate social software engagement (because this is, of course, all about me).

Here's my take:

  • Cheryl's been writing about the marketing attempts of Australian banks for a while. I think her criticisms were valid and I share a lot of her frustrations with the way Australian banks operate. I want the banks to get it. I want them to give a flying **** about their customers but I am not convinced they do.
  • The more observant of you may have noticed a little turbulence in the financial markets at the moment. Perhaps many people are not liking bankers presently...
  • ...However the question of what my our future bank(s) should be has never been more important. We desperately need more consumer engagement from our banks - N.B. "engagement" does not equal "advertising".

So here's the pitch. A bunch of us re-start MyFutureBank. The banks are invited. Consumers are invited. Governments & NGOs are also invited.

Let's have this conversation.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

being out of the Australian space at the moment means that i missed this little episode. But I would like to be included in the conversation. One of my last jobs in the Australian Public Service was working on a report into the future electronic payments system in Australia. Part of this research showed up the lack of innovation of the major banks in developing alternatives to current payments infrastructure. EFTPOS was developed 25 years ago, credit cards dominate (with the RBA doing some good work in reducing merchant fees), and disintermediating technologies fail to gain traction.
Please include me in any future work that you are doing in this area. As of 4 weeks time, I am not in paid work so I might have some spare time to help out...

Gavin Heaton said...

Great post, Matt. Looking forward to when you rewrite this post including your top 10 tips for how NAB could turn this around ;)

kelpenhagen said...

you mean actually a REAL conversation about banking - between consumers and bankers and other folk. And not just a discussion amongst ourselves about what UBank did wrong/what they should have done.

Like Gavin I would actually prefer a top ten list, (top five is even better - easier to remember)...

But count me in...