The Banktastics

mShift
Mark’s Review:
A mobile solution that has the most deployments worldwide. Their latest offering targeted at business banking, ‘CFO on the Go’ moves business financial reports, transfers, ACH, and other operations through an application on a mobile phone. Also has a ‘push’ component for alerts via email, sms, voice, and fax.
I think this addresses a space (business banking) that has been under served by mobile banking and the MShift offering looks to be a good first step to bridge that gap. UI still is very mobile looking, but the functionality is really strong.

Lisa’s Review: No Rating
I missed this presentation as I was working on getting stuff on the blog. Sorry, everybody.

Mint
Mark’s Review:
An online PFM with over 500k that is now out of beta. It’s adding custom budgeting categories and now allows you to track your investments.
Pretty graphs and cool charts are still there for Mint and it remains one of the leaders in the online PFM space.

Lisa’s Review:
Mint is a personal finance management site that helps users budget and track their money. Just launched this morning their investment tracking feature on Mint. Shows you market value and other stats of your investments that mirrors the slick budgeting and money breakdown side of Mint. The site is the fastest-growing money management tool online today.

mFoundry
Mark’s Review:
Today MFoundry demoed their iphone mobile banking application. It’s one of 2 native iphone banking apps out there and looks and feels like a great iphone app. (Man iphone apps are so much prettier than other mobile apps. I’m sure my iphone makes me biased.)
Basic account lookup with date and other filtering all flows as you would expect an iphone app to flow. Also included are transfers and bill pay which, have I mentioned, look and act beautifully.
The big bonus: ATM and Branch finder BY CURRENT LOCATION! (Zip code is also an option, but who needs it!)
I want this on my iphone. Now

Lisa’s Review:
Another iPhone app demo. Mobile banking and payments solutions for banks. It looks easy to use, and the search function for your phone is awesome. Great setup with the sort transactions by dates. You can tell they’ve put a lot of work into this app. Really quick and easy payments made to credit cards and other vendors. You can manage automatic transactions (add, cancel) on your phone. Honestly, doing the whole demo from the phone was fantastic. And what would this app be without the “find an ATM” feature? Awesome. FIs really need to check this out!

Digital Insight
Mark’s Review:
Small Business FinanceWorks is geared at small businesses (duh) and offers bill management, invoice generation and home remote capture that is integrated into your banking site. It can also handle payroll and legal filing.
For small businesses, it’s sits somewhere between using a personal PFM and going full fledged into a quickbooks type product. I needed something like this when I was at McSpadden Technology.

Lisa’s Review:
Digital Insight helps small businesses of all kinds get everything organized. This looks like a fantastic tool for the new business owner that needs some help getting everything squared away. The Billing Manager feature allows you to send reminders to customers if they owe you money, print invoices, manage your drafts, etc. You can manage payroll and taxes, as well. I can think of a few people that could really benefit from using this.

Thrive
Mark’s Review:
A PFM that does offer the basic transactional dashboard views but really isn’t focused there. It’s focused more a ‘financial health score’ and offering ways for you to make that score better. Some of those tips are where to place your money, some of those are based on the type of spending you are doing. (Discretionary vs. Bills)
In addition, it helps you target savings specific goals and tips to reach those. They’ve also partnered with credit.com and will start looking at how credit scores play into financial health

Lisa’s Review:
Another personal finance management tool. I’m loving the way Thrive looks. Provides you 11 dimensions of your financial status. Thrive gives you tips on how to better manage your money, get better rates, and transfer money from “bad accounts” to “good accounts.” Thrive analyzes your information and suggests areas of your finances to focus on and clean up.

BillShrink
Mark’s Review: BillShrink is an online application to help you find the best deals on things like cell phone plans and credit cards. For the credit card comparision, using a super simple survey (only a few questions) the are able to pull numerous offerings. In addition you are able to filter based on the rewards you care about. (Cash v. food v. airfare)
Launched today, if you sign up with BillShrink let’s you monitor new offers that appear after you’ve made your initial decision.

Lisa’s Review:
Pretty, pretty site. Love the charisma in the presentation, too. BillShrink gives usage-based recommendations of wireless plans and credit cards. Another site that shows you how to shift things around to save money. They analyze your latest phone bill to help you find a better plan to suit your needs. Just got funding, too. Good job guys!

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Thanks for checking out this episode of BanktasticTV’s “The Burst.” Here are some important notes about this episode:

News: Southwest joins the Cashless Airlines Move
Southwest Airlines is the latest airline to announce that it will no longer accept cash on its flights. The usual free snacks and beverages will still be there, but the items they charge for, like cocktails and energy drinks, can only be paid for with credit & debit cards as well as drink coupons. This may cause an issue for those that haven’t adopted credit or debit cards into their wallets yet.

Q&A: Would you use a Twitter clone inside of your FI?
J.B. D. recently asked the Banktastic community if we’d use a Twitter-like program inside our FIs for communication? Would something like Twitter or other networking applications be useful in your FI? Get the conversation going - share your thoughts!

News: HSBC Could Order 200,000 iPhones
Brad shared an article recently on Banktastic that discussed how HSBC is considering dropping the BlackBerry and picking up iPhones instead for its staff. This shows the significant impact that the iPhone has had on our mobile technology for a bank of this size to completely switch from the mainstream BlackBerry to the iPhone.

Brad Heading to San Antonio
Brad’s going to be speaking several times this weekend in San Antonio for the Texas Credit Union League. We wish him the best of luck on his several day trip and on his presentations!

Subscribe to Banktastic on iTunes
All of BanktatsicTV’s shows are available on iTunes now! Click here to access our podcast page to subscribe, or open iTunes and search “BanktasticTV.”

Email Us!
Feel free to email comments or suggestions about “The Burst” to brad@banktastic.com, or post your thoughts on the Banktastic Community.

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See you next week!

-The Banktastics

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Thanks for checking out this episode of BanktasticTV’s “The Burst.” Here are some important notes about this episode:

Get Some BanktasticTV Tees!
Brad created some awesome shirts for you guys on Zazzle! But the best part is that the first person to comment on this episode on the blog gets a shirt for FREE! If you don’t happen to comment first but still want a shirt, let us know and we’ll get you the information so that you can order one!

Q&A: Is the financial crisis only affecting banks and not CUs?
Brad asked a question on Banktastic to see if you all think CUs are being affected as much as banks have been by the recent mortgage crisis and recession. We think that perhaps CUs have stricter lending practices, which might be why they’re not running into as many issues as banks are right now. These are just our thoughts, and we’d love to hear what you think! Post your thoughts on the question on Banktastic, or comment on the blog!

Brad got his iPhone!
It didn’t take long, but it finally came in - Brad got his iPhone! He’s rather impressed with it so far and loving the new apps. We actually started chatting it up a little bit about an app that shows people where you are at any given time. There are already some apps out there that perform similar tasks, but not necessarily what we’re talking about. Watch the episode to check out our idea, and see if you think you’d want something like that on your phone.

Possible Facebook Payments App?
The Facebook F8 Conference was Wednesday, and there were rumors that Facebook was creating a payments app. Not knowing much more than that, Brad and I speculated that it would be an application to serve developers so that they can charge for their apps or accept donations.

However, the F8 Conference is over, and we’ve got some bad news. No payments app has been released. However, Zuckerberg unveiled Facebook Connect. To learn more about that, click on the link above and read all about it!

Subscribe to Banktastic on iTunes
All of BanktatsicTV’s shows are available on iTunes now! Click here to access our podcast page to subscribe, or open iTunes and search “BanktasticTV.”

Email Us!
Feel free to email comments or suggestions about “The Burst” to brad@banktastic.com, or post your thoughts on the Banktastic Community.

Thanks to our sponsors!
We’d like to give a huge thank you to our sponsors, Texas State Bank! We greatly appreciate your support!

See you next week!

-The Banktastics

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Thanks for checking out this episode of BanktasticTV’s “The Burst.” Here are some important notes about this episode:

Our Sponsor Gets Slammed!
Texas State Bank, BanktasticTV’s current sponsor, has made it big in the viral video business lately. One of their cameras caught a truck pulling a camper as it ran into their covered drive-thru banking area, pulling everything down with it. You can watch the video clip in the above episode. It’s pretty crazy to think that everybody made it out just fine! Neither of us thought anybody could walk away from that! Amazing video - watch it!

Q&A: Is your FI prepared to help Boomers?
An article that I found on Payment Industry Insider spawned a question I wanted to ask the Banktastic community. Is your FI working to help Boomers prepare for retirement? They’re a huge demographic and deserve your attention! The major hype lately has been on attracting Gen Y, but your loyal customers in the Boomers group are getting ready to retire and they need your help! Over 60% of this demographic is concerned about not having enough money to retire or to cover medical costs.

The question really is this: do you have any programs established to help the Boomers along as they take this big step? They could use your guidance, and this is a great opportunity for your FI! Let us know if you have any programs or ideas!

The iPhone: Evolutionary or Revolutionary?
Some discussions are going on about whether the iPhone is going to revolutionize the banking industry. Since it’s release on July 11, the new iPhone is making a huge splash, and FIs are taking notice. Many have worked to create apps to coincide with the new iPhone release. With the phone’s technology and banks’ work to create apps to work with it, some are considering the iPhone to be a revolutionary tool for the banking industry. Others completely disagree and think it’s going to take a heck of a lot more than a phone to get a banking revolution. A lot of people are getting in on the discussion, so go check it out and add your thoughts!

Also, if you want to read Brad’s recent experience trying to get his hands on one of the new iPhones, click here. It’s a shame, but there are probably countless others going through the same situation he described in his blog post.

News: Disgruntled Employee Locks San Francisco Out of Network
I stumbled across this news story recently, and I had to share it with Banktastic. Apparently a disgruntled computer network admin, Terry Childs, got some less than stellar reviews at work, so he locked up San Francisco’s computer network by putting in his own password and refusing to give the right one to authorities. Officials have been unable to crack the access codes on their own, and are worried that he may have sabotaged the system to leak some critical data. Either way, this guy is in a huge pile of trouble - in jail on $5 million bond. Yikes.

Subscribe to Banktastic on iTunes
All of BanktatsicTV’s shows are available on iTunes now! Click here to access our podcast page to subscribe, or open iTunes and search “BanktasticTV.”

Email Us!
Feel free to email comments or suggestions about “The Burst” to brad@banktastic.com, or post your thoughts on the Banktastic Community.

Thanks to our sponsors!
We’d like to give a huge thank you to our sponsors, Texas State Bank! We greatly appreciate your support!

See you next week!

-The Banktastics

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Thanks for checking out this episode of BanktasticTV’s “The CU Scoop” featuring Mark McSpadden. Here are some important notes about this episode:

New iPhone Release
If you have a tv, radio, internet connection, eyes or ears, you’ve probably noticed that Apple released it’s brand-new iPhone this past Friday. Along with this release came a race for companies to create an app to go with the new phone. We’re glad to see that Mt. Lehman CU from Canada developed an app that connects you with your recent account activity right on your iPhone (and iPod touch). As Mark said, Mt. Lehman shows that a credit union of any size can be innovative and keep up with changing technology. Great job, guys!

Remarkd.com
Mark stumbled across this cool site that helps non-profits help members interact with one another. It works by members posting items up for sale on the site, and then the members give a portion of the proceeds from the sale to benefit a cause. It’d be great to see if CUs could use Remarkd for their member base, or just particular groups within your CU. We think you oughta check this out when you can!

Thanks to our sponsors!
We’d like to give a huge thank you to our sponsors, Texas State Bank! We greatly appreciate your support!

You can be on The CU Scoop!
We’re interested in your thoughts on topics and trends in the credit union industry. If you want to be a part of our show, record your own video (roughly 2-3 minutes long) and upload it to our Viddler.com account. Here’s the log-in information:
username: thecuscoop
password: markymark
Remember the rules: 1.) no bank bashing, and 2.) don’t self-promote too much. If you have any questions about sharing your video with The CU Scoop crew, send an email to mark@banktastic.com.

What’s on the whiteboard this week?
See what’s behind Mark’s head this week!

Email Us!
Feel free to email comments or suggestions about “The CU Scoop” to mark@banktastic.com, or post your thoughts on the Banktastic Community. We’re always looking for your input.

See you next week!

-The Banktastics

I wanted to drop in a quick note to those interested in the new iPhone software that comes out today (but I got it understand) to show you some stuff it can do today and were it might be heading tomorrow. Enjoy.

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Thanks for checking out this episode of BanktasticTV’s “The CU Scoop” featuring Mark McSpadden. Here are some important notes about this episode:

BarCampBankDallas - Whoo!
This week marked the very first BarCampBankDallas! We had a lot of really fantastic people join us on Saturday and Sunday to cuss and discuss innovation in the financial industry. Mark wanted to share a few of the sessions with you guys just in case you missed it!

Session: iPhone
The first session of the day was discussing your FI and the iPhone. Do you spend all this time and money to develop for the new iPhone, or do you not take the risk? As Mark said, Steve Jobs predicts that 60% of all phones in use will be iPhones within the next 5 years. If you’re skeptical about that number, take into consideration the impact the iPod has had on the mp3 market. Despite the numbers, if you decide to develop for the new iPhone (coming out on July 11th), it will probably be worth your while. Can’t wait for the new iPhone!

Session: Blowing Up Accounts
A session initiated by the crew from San Francisco Fire Credit Union discussed different types of accounts and how customers would like to use them. This was a great discussion that definitely got the wheels turning. The coolest thing about San Francisco Fire CU is that their CEO, Diana Dykstra, has established an innovative group that she won’t allow to be distracted by naysayers. She allows them to develop without having their ideas squashed by talk of regulation and whatnot. This CU is doing a lot of really awesome things, and we highly suggest you check them out!

You Can Sponsor The CU Scoop
The CU Scoop and other BanktasticTV shows are looking for some sponsors! if you’d like to sponsor any of our shows, shoot an email off to lisa@banktastic.com. We have several sponsorship and advertising opportunities available, so email us if you’re interested!

You can be on The CU Scoop!
We’re interested in your thoughts on topics and trends in the credit union industry. If you want to be a part of our show, record your own video (roughly 2-3 minutes long) and upload it to our Viddler.com account. Here’s the log-in information:
username: thecuscoop
password: markymark
Remember the rules: 1.) no bank bashing, and 2.) don’t self-promote too much. If you have any questions about sharing your video with The CU Scoop crew, send an email to mark@banktastic.com.

What’s on the whiteboard this week?
See what’s behind Mark’s head this week!

Email Us!
Feel free to email comments or suggestions about “The CU Scoop” to mark@banktastic.com, or post your thoughts on the Banktastic Community. We’re always looking for your input.

See you next week!

-The Banktastics