[Source: bankwatch - 7 May 2009]
Interesting new report noted by Gartner. I haven’t seen the report (hint hint) but the press release is appealing and fits with the general theme bankers need to get beyond their current problems, and look up for new directions and strategies.
Gartner make the point that fundamental shifts are occurring online, and while not specific to banking, except in pockets, the directions at play are too fundamental to ignore as being permanent. Sounds like an interesting report.
Gartner Says Banks Need to Be Ready to Take Advantage of the New Age of Social Banking | Gartner
“Currently many traditional bankers tend to reject the concept of social banking as a fad while others refuse to recognize or accept any degree of threat posed by such new phenomena,” said Alistair Newton, research vice president at Gartner. “Although bankers may see current low usage by consumers as a permanent source of safety, this disregard for changing consumer behavior with social networking generally may mean that they miss the possibility of fast, viral uptake of social banking.”
Consumer interest in social networks and social banking does not mean that consumers expect or want their banks to be social networks like Facebook or MySpace. In a January 2009 survey of 3,988 consumers who use online banking (1,970 in the U.S. and 2,018 in the U.K.), the results showed only a small percentage of respondents (7 percent in the U.S. and 8 percent in the U.K.) said that they were interested in using an online social network on their bank’s Web site to talk to other customers. Out of this small percentage, most were interested in using social-network information about how their banks compare with others and to find information to simplify their financial and personal lives. Although these consumers are few currently, they provide clues about the desires for social banking and are likely to be the first adopters and therefore online trailblazers for social banking.
“What has become clear from the growth of social networking as a phenomenon has been both its speed of growth and the viral impact of such communities,” said Ms. Cohen. “Ideas are picked up, established and disseminated within short time scales, much too short to allow late entrants to the market to take advantage of the opportunities that will arise. Banks need to be positioned to take advantage of this shift to a new age of social banking.”
