Let’s have a little patience for those who seem to be addicted to their smartphone. After all, it is an awesome device. You can use it to communicate via voice, text and email. Take and share photos and videos. Check the weather, sport scores, stock prices and news. Track down answers to nagging questions. Manage your finances, shop, watch movies and play games. Go to sleep listening to music and wake up to the alarm chime of your choice.
What’s Not to Love?
It’s no wonder, then, that it’s easier for a credit union to make the business case for offering mobile access when its executives understand the allure of the smartphone firsthand. SVP/Chief Marketing Officer Shari Storm, a CUES member, recalls that the conversation about mobile banking at Verity Credit Union started soon after CEO William R. Hayes, a CUES member, started raving about his Kindle. Storm responded, “Well, if you think that’s amazing, you should see what the iPhone can do.” That led Hayes to suggest equipping the executive team with those popular devices.
“We made the decision to offer mobile banking about a week after we got our iPhones,” Storm says. “We were sitting in a meeting all sharing our favorite apps. We could all see how people could fall in love with their smartphones and want to do everything with them.”
In announcing the launch of mobile banking to Verity CU staff in 2011, Hayes acknowledged it was hard to predict how quickly members would warm up to the new delivery channel. But that was also the case with ATMs, Internet banking and debit cards—all of which most members have embraced wholeheartedly over time.
To find out what its members wanted in a mobile access channel, the Seattle-based $380 million/26,000-member Verity CU asked for volunteers for three focus groups: moms, gadget guys, and older, affluent members. At least 10 members stepped forward for each group.
“We didn’t even describe what a gadget guy would be and got 45 responses for that group,” Storm says with a laugh. “I was really surprised how many were just watching for mobile banking. One had moved all his accounts to a financial institution just because it offered mobile service.”
The focus groups were illuminating. Participants shared how many hours they kept their phones with them and on (average in the high teens, and some slept with them next to their beds) and how many let their kids play with their mobile phones (though one offered a cautionary tale involving a toilet). “When we asked, ‘What’s your favorite app and why?’ it was like they were showing us pictures of their children,” she adds. “I was mesmerized. It’s amazing what these phones can do.”
In discussing their research, Verity CU’s executive team started out with grand ideas about what mobile banking could and should be, “but it quickly became clear for a credit union our size buying off the shelf that we’d be limited to what vendors are currently offering,” Storm says. “We did spend time talking about what would be the coolest thing we could offer, and we’re keeping that in the back of our minds. But our ultimate goal was get something out quickly.”
Verity CU signed on with mFoundry to launch mobile access with text, a mobile website and iPhone and Android apps on May 1, marketing the new service primarily through a video shared with members through an email link. Within one month, 10 percent of Verity CU’s home banking users—1,500 members—had signed on for mobile banking and continue to use the channel regularly. Enrollment since then has been slow and steady, with apps as the most popular option, both among Android and iPhone users.
Other credit unions we contacted while researching this article reported similar experiences, with a rush by the most enthusiastic “smartphone addicts” to enroll immediately, followed by slower gains.
