ANZ – goMoney iPhone app

ANZ has just launched its new GoMoney iPhone app, which allows users to transfer funds to anyone with a mobile number. Although the app has been available for a few days, it was formally launched yesterday and reportedly has over 30,000 registered users.

Telsyte research director Foad Fadaghi says these micro and mobile payments are becoming much more popular, but it will be initially difficult to start convincing customers to use them.

“The challenge is the level of trust needed from the consumer or the business moving into this space. However, with a significant bank moving into the market, it could provide users with confidence, and I think that’s a good move,” he says.

The mobile payments scene has been one of the hottest trends in IT over the past year. A range of new start-ups and established companies are attempting to make commerce easier by swapping money on smartphones.

Just last month, payment company PayPal said it will be pushing into mobile technology in a significant way, with its app already receiving constant updates and tweaks. Its newest feature allows users to physically “bump” their phones together in order to send payments.

Laura Chambers, the Australian-born senior director of PayPal mobile, said on the company’s blog earlier this year “we expect to close out the year with over half a billion dollars of mobile payment volume”.

One of the biggest pioneers in this area has been Square, the American start-up founded by Twitter co-creator Jack Dorsey. Although it’s had some difficulties in getting hardware off the ground, the system allows sole traders and small businesses to accept credit card payments through iPhones on the spot.

In Australia, companies like Mint Wireless are heavily promoting the use of mobile payments, while early in 2009 a trial of contactless mobile phone payments conducted by NAB, Telstra and Visa found 95% of testers would use wireless payment technology.

That particular type of technology uses a software application included in a SIM card, which is then waved over a Visa PayWave reader, which are already available in many stores. A similar venture is being explored in New York by the Bank of America.

Now, ANZ says it wants to keep moving forward with mobile payments. The new GoMoney app, which is free, allows ANZ customers to handle their banking facilities – including the ability to send money to anyone with a mobile number.

When a non-ANZ customer receives a transaction request, all they have to do is sign up at a website and they can then receive their money. Group managing director of strategy Joyce Phillips said in a statement the new app is all about focussing on the new technology customers are using.

“ANZ GoMoney is a result of a renewed focus on innovation to help us continue delivering convenient and simple solutions to our customers.”

“People are continuing to change and evolve the way they interact with their bank and as a result we also have to think differently about our business and about the customer experience we deliver. ANZ GoMoney is one example of how we can use innovation to deliver a new a customer experience and get ahead of the game.”

(Excerpt from smartcompany.com)

Check it out / download it here…

http://www.anz.com/gomoney/default.asp

Barbara is back at ANZ

New campaign by ANZ uses ‘Barbara – the unhelpful teller’ character from ‘bank world’.  The latest ad focuses on a young couple looking for a home loan.

Suncorp ramps up marketing

Suncorp Bank is poised to roll out a fresh marketing push to promote plans for expansion into NSW (31 new outlets) and WA (7 new outlets).  The bank aims to triple its customer base as a result of the expansion.

ANZ ‘Sneaky Thieves’ banner wins

(Excerpt from http://mark.com.au/blog/tags/15/anz)

Mark has won the fourth round of Ninemsn’s Butterfly Award for its ‘Sneaky Thief’ banners execution for ANZ. The ad, to launch ANZ’s Fraud Money Back Guarantee campaign, features two synched banners and depicts a rather sexy cat burglar crawling along the top banner, sawing a hole through the ‘ceiling’ of the lower banner to reach in and steal an ANZ card.

For more information on the campaign and to watch the banner in action, click here.

Mumbrella praises new ANZ TVCs

The ad…

Excerpt from Mumbrella post…

Compare nasty Barbara to Westpac’s campaign that has been running for the past year. “We’re factor 50” etc. The Westpac campaign is happy, helpful, reliable and positive: full of cute schoolkids and cheerful Aussies. Just the sort of thing the Finance Sector Union would love.

It’s beautifully shot and has an original creative idea. It would be a great campaign for a well-loved Australian icon brand like Vegemite.

But Westpac is not Vegemite. It’s one of the big four banks and as such is not trusted or liked by many Australians. Simply stating how they want consumers to feel about them, in direct contradiction to how those consumers actually feel, is nuts.

Big companies do it all the time. “Lets spend millions on simple denial of the facts.” It never works.

ANZ want to be loved too, but it doesn’t just scream, “Love me, dammit!”

Its campaign works because it has been honest: honest about how Australians really feel about ALL banks.

And therein lies the key to problem brands: first admit that you have a problem. Be honest. Get heads nodding. Then sell your solution.

iPad apps and Aussie banks

(Excerpt from http://www.itnews.com.au/News/176137,stgeorge-nab-to-launch-ipad-banking-apps.aspx)

Australia’s major banks are rushing to develop applications for the Apple iPad tablet on the back of significant growth in mobile banking use.

St.George Bank has become the first of the major banks to announce a dedicated app.  The app will go beyond the stripped back service made available by most banks for the iPhone, offering users the full functionality of St.George Internet banking, as well as a branch and ATM locator, product and service information, interest rates and product selector tools, and access to St.George video content through the bank’s YouTube channel.

St.George head of eDistribution, Travis Tyler said more than 110,000 St.George customers use the bank’s mobile banking service.

Tyler told iTnews he thinks the iPad is more likely to be used by customers at home.

“We wanted to make sure we provided the full functionality of Internet banking”.

Tyler also revealed the bank has a dedicated “think tank” of in-house experts working on new functionality for both the iPhone and iPad as customers embrace what Tyler said is a far more feature-rich experience than that offered by traditional websites.

NAB has also developed a dedicated iPad app, which it will launch tomorrow. The app will include full service NAB Internet banking, an ATM and branch locator and currency exchange rates. The bank said it will expand functionality over coming months.

Sam Plowman, executive general manager for direct banking at NAB said that as customers continue to embrace new technologies, “internet banking should be available anywhere, anytime, on any device”.

Ean van Vuuren, head of consumer online with Westpac said the bank is definitely looking at building for iPad as mobile banking continues to gain popularity, but it has no firm launch dates at this stage.

More at http://www.itnews.com.au/News/176235,cba-uses-google-maps-for-atm-locator.aspx

Newspaper ads sell out as iPad features expand

(Excerpt from http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/ads-sell-out-as-ipad-features-expand/story-e6frg996-1225870281344)

THE Australian has sold out advertising on its Apple iPad application for three months with confirmation IBM and Emirates have signed up.

The Commonwealth Bank was the first advertiser to take a $250,000 advertising package, which provides category exclusivity on the app for three months, as well as advertising in the newspaper and online, and a presence in the paper’s $1 million marketing campaign. Last week Optus confirmed it was also on board.

Managing editor, online, Grant Holloway, said the concept of what advertisers were able to do on the device, which launches in Australia on May 28, was changing all the time.

The Australian’s app is expected to be able to play video close to its launch date, on or soon after the iPad goes on sale, meaning advertisers will also be able to show video.

“There’s a challenge for all the agencies and creatives because the iPad won’t play Flash and a lot of online ads use Flash, so there are a lot of people who are going to have to become very familiar with HTML5,” Mr Holloway said.

Read more at http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/ads-sell-out-as-ipad-features-expand/story-e6frg996-1225870281344

Segmenting banking customers

Excerpt from Banking Day http://www.bankingday.com/nl06_news_selected.php?act=2&selkey=9879

Banks need to understand savers better

Banks are living in the past when it comes to the way they segment their customers, according to Westpac’s chief strategy officer Jon Nicholson.

Speaking at the Australian Retail Deposits conference in Sydney yesterday, Nicholson said segmentation had traditionally focused on how customers borrowed but banks didn’t know enough about how customers saved.

As the industry worked through the aftershocks of the global financial crisis, Nicholson said banks needed to spend a lot more time understanding the economics of deposits and savings behaviour.

“I don’t think we really understand those as well as we might,” he said.

Nicholson said the war for deposits would continue for some time and banks would have to change their culture to focus more on that part of their operations. We have tended to look at savings as a balance sheet item.

“I think people will come much more to realise that their liabilities are poorly named and that actually being custodian of people’s savings and their investments is a very, very valuable thing,” he said.

He said this could mean a greater focus on segments like retirees and young people saving for their first home which, until now, had been undervalued.

“The segmentations we have now are really directed for the decades behind us, not the decades ahead,” Nicholson said.