Will financial institutions integrating with social media sites help restore some of the trust in banks that eroded as a result of the financial crisis? 

Fintech giant SunGard thinks so and released a product today that helps FIs achieve that goal by connecting them with customers through social channels. The new SunGard product, known as Ambit MyMoney, points to how important social media is becoming to FIs nationwide, as well as reveals how the channel may integrate with other existing communication strategies — eventually.

“We are big advocates of providing opportunities to drive down customer servicing costs and drive up trust,” David Hamilton, president of SunGard’s banking customers, told Bank Innovation from Dubai, where SunGard conducted the product launch.

Ambit MyMoney, which we first blogged about here, is an online and mobile banking platform that lets banks integrate into social networking sites, as well as provides deeper personal financial management (PFM) services. Practically speaking, say a banking customer sets up a financial goal in Ambit MyMoney to save for a holiday in 2012. Once the goal is created, he can then share that goal with close friends and family on Facebook via MyMoney without publically displaying the goal on their Facebook activity walls. In turn, the closed Facebook circle can participate in the savings goal, Hamilton explains. In another scenario, a customer could set up banking alerts and receive them through Facebook or Twitter. 

Though Hamilton concedes that SunGard does not “know where social media will end up in overall banking strategies,” he believes banks must take the channels seriously as they increase customer engagement and to grow out FIs’ communication strategy. Plus, he argues that banks will save money from lower customer service costs, as well as by gaining stickier customers, when pursuing banking business through social media channels. 

Still, one challenge banks will likely experience when rolling out such technology is helping consumers understand and use the new banking features. To help them out, Ambit MyMoney offers banks promotional tools that can be used within their advertising. Perhaps a customer is an active Facebook user, but has not yet integrated his banking to the social site. To help encourage the connection, a bank could kick him a video created by SunGard on how to integrate the experiences, and after viewing that, allow him to check a box to integrate the services, he says.

Though SunGard’s announcement underscores the importance of banks beginning to engage with social media, SunGard is not yet offering Ambit MyMoney in the U.S. Why? Because the U.S. market boasts unique online and mobile banking services that are too different from the banking tools made available elsewhere, says Hamilton, highlighting mobile remote deposit capture and online bill presentment as two such features that are indigenous to the U.S. market.

SunGard generates more than $5 billion in annual revenue and does business globally.