Ask HN: How can banks use the Internet to better serve their customers?

The internet is good for one thing information. Providing tools to make that information available and easy to understand is pretty much the best you can do. There are several businesses in the make sense of my bank's information category aping them might be a first step(mint and the like.) Budgeting and getting alerts when certain budget limits are met say a text when 90% of my monthly entertainment budget is gone, or better yet be able to check my entertainment budget balance by web enabled phone so I can decide if I really need that new gizmo.

I've lived & worked in Ireland, New Zealand and the UK and I can categorically say that the UK online banking system is by far the worst.

My biggest issue is the time delay between making a purchase and that purchase reflecting on your account. The EFTPOS system in NZ is incredible. Almost all transactions are reflected within an hour on your account.

I think a lot of my issues are probably specific to my current bank so forgive me if this doesn't apply to the company you work for but one thing that really winds me up is that I have to physically attend a branch if I want to print of an official statement. On my online account I can print off a list of transactions but only after the transactions have been exported to an excel worksheet. How hard is it to pop up a PDF document with the banks header & footer and my transactions in between that I can print off on the spot?

/rant

there are two things that immediately come to mind:

1. APIs. 2. Authorization/Authentication

I should be able to get my data out and do things with it. I should be able to do so without fear.

My current banks online security its mostly theatre and the API is a csv download. Must banks I know just need to catch up.

For a long time i've wanted to disrupt[1] the UK banking industry and i even came up with a rough plan on what i'd do. While searching around i came across banksimple.com which are pretty much doing a similar thing but in the US, i know a good few people on HN are aware of them.

Unfortunately its highly unlikely i'll ever get to do what i'd like to because i'm simply not in a position to do it, nor have any experience in the banking industry. It'll have to be one of those dreams that never happens.

To me the number one benefit of internet banking is the convenience and less bureaucracy but even then the actual banking industry itself imposes limits on internet banking because of this and stifles innovation. I'd like to see API's for banks and i believe theres ways to do it safely and securely but i really cant see something like that happening in the next 10 years because of the industry behind the online fascia.

[1] i detest using that word in this context

I don't know from where you are typing, but there's an excellent service here in Portugal called mbnet. It allows you to create a "virtual credit card" where you define a limit and the bank generates a credit card number for you with the amount you specify and with the validity of one month. I wouldn't make so much online purchases if it wasn't for this service.

Another service that would be great would be something like mint. I imagine it shouldn't be hard for a bank to at least categorize the expenses so clients could have a better picture on how they spend their money.

A really simple thing that banks could add is that in Englan when I login to my banks website and I then have a question, I have to pick up the phone, go through 100s of security questions and then I get to speak to someone and I get to ask my question. For the life of me I don't understand why there is not a live web chat on the page. I have already gone through security, I should be able to ping a question to someone online who then responds instantly. It would save an awful lot of hassle.

I may be biased as a designer and front end engineer, but almost every banking website I've seen is designed horribly. Now I know this isn't directly answering your question, although it is addressing how banks can better serve their customers.

Look at Mint. My bank could offer what Mint does, since Mint is pulling in info from my bank– but they dont. A lot of what Mint is doing seems to be making the information easy to understand. Their UI is beautiful and their UX is intuitive. For me its hard to even understand why certain design decisions were made by my bank.

Beyond that, I would say to invest in mobile experiences. A lot of my interaction with my bank happens on the go as well. And while my banks iphone app is a better experience than the website, it is a little bit crippled.

You should checkout companies like Venmo and Square, who are really innovating in the area of mobile payments.

Recently my local bank (Kiwibank in NZ) launched a free online financial management service that I've been very impressed with. It automatically categories all my expenses and makes it easy to see where my money is going and set a budget. It also has an intuitive interface which is rare for a bank.

This page gives an overview of its features: http://www.heaps.co.nz

Aside from that banks should be aiming to make as many of their services as possible available online. Little things like setting up a new account should not require me go in to the bank just to fill out a form when the same process could be done online in only a few simple steps.

Easy ways to open and close new accounts using the web interface.

Operations like closing out an old savings account, opening a new one, etc. are simple to describe operationally, but aren't possible/are very hard online.

Also, detailed explanations of bank-initiated charges in the transaction list. I'd like to know why my account has started charging me $4 a month, and "Maintenance Fee" isn't very descriptive. Especially since it seems to be new.

Predict spending. If I pay my rent, student loans, etc. every month I should be able to flag that as an expected expense and see what’s left over. Basically show current both the current account balance and how much I can probably spend before I overdraw the account.

Also you are not limited to showing numbers there are plenty of ways to show account information graphically. A line chart of account balance that allows you to hover over and find transactions is innovative (for a bank) if minimally useful. How about a chart of how much money you had in your account on this day over the past year. etc.

PS: The bank may might lose out on fees but they can gain a lot of customer loyalty and some good publicity.

I do work for moneyStrands and we do banking stuff in a similar way Mint does. We also license our technology to banks because they lack a modern and graphical way to digest their customers financial data. eg: how much did I spend on restaurants in the latest 6 months? And if it's too much and I want to save, why not setup a budget that allows me to know when I reached it ? Or setting up alerts depending on configurable parameters in an easy way.

I would like to be able to split my account into virtual ones with set budgets and then issue myself cards (and limits) for each: savings, food, bills, fun etc.

For U.S. banks, add better protection for wire transfers. I had to set up a separate account to accept wire transfers from international customers. After the wire transfer is complete, I shift the money to my main account to ensure no unauthorized withdrawals are made.

I would like a provision that all outbound wire transfers must be authorized by the account holder (me). I don't currently do outbound wire transfers, but if I did, the bank could send out an email notification when one was requested. I could then log onto my account and approve/disapprove it.

I've lost faith in banks. Part of why I'm even here is because I love the internet and how it gives "power to the people"

Me, I want to see modernized banks (inspired by P2P-lending like Prosper and LendingClub) that give people more control and risk/reward. Ideally, a better cut of the profits. In my opinion much of this subprime lending crap could've been avoided if it's people putting their own money at risk vs bankers putting it at risk for us.

Maybe I'm dreaming.

Allow me to transfer money between bank accounts via online banking without crazy fees.

I currently transfer money between bank accounts by writing myself checks, because my bank allows me to do that for free but electronic transfers cost money. This wastes my time and waste my bank's money since it results in needless paper shuffling.

This is almost certainly a pipe dream, but I would love it if my bank started PGP signing (and encrypting if I provide my public key) all of their email correspondance with me.

- Send me emails when any amount arrives or is removed from the account

- Based off my age, give me recommendations on how I could potentially grow the money I have, or what I should stick the money in (medical?)

- Allow me check my current balance using the *<pin># code of mobile providers

- Setup one-click transfers to some pre-approved accounts so I don't need to go through the security hassle with those particular accounts

Take a look at http://www.mint.com for some ideas about providing useful account use and budgeting information to users.

Banks seem to encourage people to make really terrible passwords. Why does my password have to be 6 characters and only alphanumeric?

The things that would get me to switch banks would be:

- A system that helps me strategically save, pay off debt, etc., all integrated with the bank's online banking system.

- The ability to deposit checks by submitting a photo of the front of the check via a website or iphone app.

- No fees. Period.

- A high interest savings account designed to get me to save more. Perhaps by adding extra interest if I reach a predefined goal and roll some of it into a CD.

- A built-in line of credit to prevent overdrafts/fees and to encourage a more aggressive savings strategy.

- Electronic signatures

- Credit coaching. Help me take steps to get that 800 credit score. I think people value their relationship with a bank very highly, and this sort of thing would build tremendous trust/loyalty.

• I require my bank to be secure, but for the love of god, stop going through ridiculous hoops to convince me that you're secure. Keep reminding me, and I get more convinced that I have something to worry about. Part of the genius of Mint was that they only reminded you about security when you needed to worry about it. • Make transferring, sending, and allotting money easy. It's my money, allow me to do things like set a minimum balance with alerts when I get near it, auto-bill pay should be simple, transferring money to a friend ought to be simpler than writing a check. • Focus on UX and not features. I'd rather have a bank website that simple to use than one that's loaded with features and is unnavigable.

It has always bugged me that my world of warcraft account and poker accounts have and encourage the use of a rsa tokens and my bank doesn't even offer it

I would love some useful charts. Let me see a histogram of how much enters and leaves my account on a particular day of the week or a particular week of the month. Give me a visualization of how much money from my debit card goes where. Line items are not great at giving me a sense of where I could trim my budget.

Give me an interactive budget "wizard" for reaching particular goals and identifying major cost centers. For an example that's almost wholly not applicable to me, "If you cancel cable and bring lunch to work every day, you can pay off your student loans two years sooner." With this sort of thing, it's easier to make the case for thrift to others.

Please keep us on informed on HN of how your meeting went.

Could Twitter be of any use to banks? I have noticed that very few, if any, banks use Twitter. If they used it in a Dell like fashion to promote banks products at a reduced price or if they used it in a purely customer help way would this be of benefit?