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GoDucks · May 21, 2009, 11:34 AM

Hello out there fellow forum users - looking for a little input if you have some thoughts on the subject...

I'm a Director of a large financial institution and want to put a proposal together for my executive team. The topic is what we would need to do in order to transfer ourselves into becoming the Mac of the banking world. By this I mean streamlined with simple product offerings and a client experience that just works. Some of my initial thoughts include streamlining our product line in a huge way - we have 15 different types of chequing accounts and I can't understand why we don't have 2 or 3. Also, looking into automatic pre-approval for credit products so that ifa client has only a chequing account they can get an E-Mail notification that they have been approved for a line of credit that they could access same day via a few clicks of the mouse on our online banking package.

What else would you look for in a financial institution to make it more Mac-like and user friendly? An thoughts would be greatly appreciated...

ort888 · May 21, 2009, 11:57 AM

Have one kind of account and make it cost 4 times as much as your competition?

This is probably SPAM, but I've never considered banking to be that laborious. They generally all make it pretty easy.

Laminar · May 21, 2009, 11:59 AM

You wear nothing but a mock turtleneck and jeans, right?

SpaceMonkey · May 21, 2009, 12:11 PM

Originally Posted by GoDucks

I'm a Director of a large financial institution and want to put a proposal together for my executive team. The topic is what we would need to do in order to transfer ourselves into becoming the Mac of the banking world. By this I mean streamlined with simple product offerings and a client experience that just works.

I think that ING Direct has these qualities.

I can't say I'm a big fan of email solicitations from my bank, though, including pre-approved credit offers.

ort888 · May 21, 2009, 12:45 PM

Yeah, I get email from my bank, but I think I might get more from Apple.

Chuckit · May 21, 2009, 03:29 PM

Originally Posted by ort888

Yeah, I get email from my bank, but I think I might get more from Apple.

Seriously. Apple didn't use to spam this much. Like, I know you have iPods for sale. Really, I've noticed.

For the actual topic: The point should not be to have very few products, but to have very finely focused products. Every one of Apple's products has a very clear feeling of "Here's who this is for and here's what it does, take it or leave it" to the point where some people (those wishing for the mythical xMac) feel kind of left out because there's not really a Mac that has them in its focus. The one really notable exception, the G4 Cube, was a beautiful computer but a complete flop.

So I would say the key question is, how well do you know your customers? Not in a broad, fuzzy, poll-a-thousand-people-and-do-focus-groups kind of way, but on a level where you really feel like you can make these people happy.