Security

Flushing financial plan new internet banking division to capture deposits

Thanks to David for this story, referenced here: Web Deposits: New Players, New Brands in American Banker.

Flushing Financial Corporation Reports 2006 Second Quarter and First Half Results: Financial News – Yahoo! Finance

… we are planning the introduction of an internet banking division to capitalize on the growing use of the internet. We anticipate that this initiative will allow us to further reduce our reliance on wholesale borrowings.

From what I gather the American Banker story makes the point that many smaller FI’s in the US are looking at this as a low cost approach to gather deposits. David pointed out they intend to use separate brands (no-one has heard of Flushing).

Another example in the article, is RateEdge started by a county level Credit Union. Their interface is simple and to the point:

This process will take
about 10 minutes and there are two (2) steps:

Account Sign Up

Account Funding

You can track your progress on the gold bar on the left side of your screen. The step you are in is highlighted — right now it shows you are on “Account Sign Up.” When you have finished a step, the RateEdge.com symbol will appear and the text will remain green.

Relevance to Bankwatch:
The space created by INGdirect, HSBC, and Citigorup is one to watch for new entrants, seeking ways to gather cheap deposits, and at the same time promote online banking.
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2 thoughts on “Flushing financial plan new internet banking division to capture deposits”

  1. The RateEdge product is indeed interesting – but the credit union has chosen to market the product as a separate piece from the rest of their brand. The domain is unique to the product and I can’t even find it on their sunmarkfcu.org website. It might be a browser issue, as a lot of CU sites don’t build for Firefox or Safari. But that’s another issue on its own.

    A Sunmark representative explained in an issue of Credit Union Management Magazine (March 2006, p. 62), “We pride ourselves in knowing our members, which is difficult to do with an electronic-only account. We didn’t want to set the expectation of ‘Sunmark service’ for people signing up for RateEdge.”

    I certainly don’t feel that’s the approach they should be taking. While the RateEdge site does seem intuitive as you pointed out, getting there in the first place isn’t. Maybe their offline promotion isn’t lacking, but I’m afraid that they’re sending mixed signals online.

  2. The separate brand point is interesting. Historically that has been unsuccessful, eg mbanx, wingspan, etc.

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