Gonzo bankers, I get asked who has the best online banking/mobile banking offering a lot. I mean, a lot. Banks and credit unions, struggling with numerous challenges around remote delivery (banking online, mobile banking, mobile remote deposit capture (mRDC), bill pay, etc.), want to know which vendor has the best offering. The trouble is, there is no easy answer to that question when so much of the answer is dependent on the institution’s strategy. 

It is like asking which is the best car. That’s easy, right? It is the McLaren P1. Or is it the Hennessey Venom GT, the current top speed record holder for two-seat sports cars? Well, seeing as I have small kids and do not have a million-plus dollars to spend on either, neither is the best car for me.

That said, the question got me thinking. What if I could build my own product? What if I could take what I like from each of the vendors, stitch them together with the help of a hunch-back assistant, and shock it to life on the roof of my castle during a thunderstorm? What would my Franken-banking product look like?

Now, I know what you’re thinking. If I had a castle, I could probably afford the McLaren. But, bear with me.

Below is a list of five attributes that my product would include. These are above and beyond what we could all agree are the table stakes of remote delivery: bill pay, internal and external transfers, mRDC, and possibly some type of budgeting tool.

Security, Fraud Detection
This one is near and dear to every institution that has suffered a fraud loss via the online channels; so, all of us. Online fraud has historically been extremely hard to prevent, as most fraud tools alert on an event that has already taken place. There is a vendor that can and does suspend the transaction for review, before the transaction is fully executed and without alerting the would-be fraudster.

I would select Q2’s Risk and Fraud Analytics (RFA) to be a part of my product. Tracking user behavior (and learning it), anomaly detection, transaction risk scoring, and holding suspicious transactions for manual (human) review are a few examples of what makes this solution stand out. The RFA dashboard is built into the Admin Console (no separate log-ins), easing monitoring and decisions.

Mobile/Tablet Banking
Would anyone out there dispute that mobile/tablet banking is the go-forward platform? A strong tablet app is critical to retaining customers/members, in my opinion. There is evidence suggesting that remote offerings are influencing choice of primary financial institutions. So my product must have a top-notch tablet app.

For this, I choose Digital Insight’s tablet app.  For a moment, set aside the issues with the Intuit Data Center, and the press around outages. DI’s tablet app is truly great. Optimized for a tablet experience (pinch, swipe, tap), it is as attractive as it is functional.

Administration Console
The administration console is certainly undervalued, if not overlooked, during system selections. An intuitive admin console with strong ad hoc reporting capability is necessary for an efficient and tolerable support experience for both staff and users.

ACI Architect’s Admin Console would best fit my criteria and my product. User templates, strong reporting and a user Interface that does not make the user think are all indications of the strength of this product.

Custom Development
Many institutions want the flexibility to add functionality and/or integrate a new service. A strong software development kit is a must. Further, customizations should not put the product or institution at risk when taking a code update from the vendor, requiring weeks of regression testing. The custom code cannot get in the way of the core product code.

Jwaala’s SDK is what I would select for my product. Beyond the strong SDK, it is the way the product is architected that encourages custom development. The product has performed well in institutions with proven development track records.

In-Product Marketing
What do I look for when building my product? Allow the client/member to choose the type of advertisements they see. Think of how Amazon presents offers: “Those who bought this, also bought this.” Customers see offers because of their behavior, not because they fit into a demographic. Most current vendor offerings use the latter, requiring the institution to upload a list, or detail who should see a particular ad.

Sure, Amazon uses demographic information as well. My experience with Amazon tells me that the information is used to inform the product suggestion as my behavior is learned. That is an important distinction.

So, which vendor’s functionality would make it into my product? I would take the marketing functionality from Alkami’s ORB (Online Relationship Builder). The product allows the institution (CU only at this point, though the company is looking for its first bank customer in 2015) to tag content. The tags link similar products and services. So, if I click on an offer that is tagged as “loan,” I will see other product offers with the same tag. My behavior dictates the offers I see. Further, like Amazon, demographics can then be used to filter which version of the offer a customer sees. Younger folks who click on retirement would not see a picture of their grandparents, but rather something suggesting building a nest egg.

So there you have it, Gonzo bankers. I call my product DIAlkamiJwaalaQ2ACI. It is definitely the best Online Banking/Mobile Banking product available. Any takers?
-TD

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