1. S
P E P
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Web 2.0 While Web 2.0 tools n [ [nks to oaboratewi cs
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tomers, partners and employeer., arin trat is more respo0stve om-.
pelling and effective thcan ever beir ack of experience and fa ane
may hinder some institutior fro ra g tat WUb
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Secil Watson Matt Nelson Robin Bloor Nicole Kealey
SVP, Internet Senior Analyst, Partner, Group Manager,
Channel Strategy TowerGroup Hurwitz & Financial Services,
Group, Wells Fargo (Needham, Mass.) Associates Adobe Systems
(San Francisco) (Waltham, Mass.) (San Jose, Calif.)
Q: What is Web 2.0, and in which cial services firms, this isn't going to than ever before. Web 2.0 has the poten-
types of applicationscan Web 2.0 mean MySpace (a social networking tial to impact all facets of financial serv-
tools deliver competitive advan- site) or del.icio.us (a social bookmark- ices - from customer self-service to
tage for banks? ing site), but it might mean taking some process management dashboards. In a
of the philosophies that have made those customer-facing scenario, the key advan-
Secil Watson, Wells Fargo: The wiki- sites so popular in the consumer realm tage is to differentiate your brand and
based community is an intellectual asset and applying them to business software, deliver engaging customer experiences
for innovation. Our wilds provide research client portals or the firm's Intranet. online with the ultimate goal of increas-
and insight from our biggest assets - The most obvious opportunity for ing adoption of online services. In other
our team members. Members may con- Web 2.0 in financial services firms is in scenarios, the primary benefit is to
tribute and edit an idea or comment client-portal design. Most financial serv- accelerate and improve decision-mak-
regarding products and services, and ices firms still have fairly basic HTML- ing by delivering information that is
these ideas are subsequently passed on style client portals. Technologies like both intuitive and visually rich.
to product managers and/or manage- AJAX, Adobe (San Jose, Calif.) Flash
ment for consideration. The benefit of and Microsoft (Redmond, Wash.) Win- Q: Are banks currently implement-
a wiki is that it is unrestricted and dem- dows Presentation Foundation (WPF) ing Web 2.0 technologies?
ocratic - team members can create, allow developers to build much better
add, edit or delete content without Watson, Wells Fargo: Wells Fargo's
sites that engage the client more effec-
approval or supervision. tively. The slightly less obvious appli- Internet services group has an internal
Blogs are a wonderful tool in that cation is in business software where wiki where engineers, marketing peo-
they allow team members to share Web 2.0 concepts might allow firms to ple, product managers and operations
ideas and opinions in a more casual better collaborate internally and exter- teams all submit ideas and comment on
way. Our internal blogs have allowed nally [with business partners] on knowl- each others' ideas on how we can inno-
team members to really get inside the edge management and problem reso- vate our products and services to ben-
heads of their managers through a lution. Also, there are some interesting efit our customers. This creates an open,
more intimate platform than, say, for- possibilities for augmenting the tradi- inclusive environment where diverse
mal memos or meetings. tional support channels (e.g., call cen- points of view are shared, evaluated and
ters) with self-service tools like wikis. further developed across our group.
Matt Nelson, TowerGroup: Web 2.0 These wiki and blog initiatives have
Nicole Kealey, Adobe Systems:
is the use of lightweight, intuitive, Web- resulted in the development of next gen-
based services that rely on user partic- Web 2.0 is an opportunity to deliver erations of online financial management
ipation and user-contributed data, and information to customers, partners and products and tools, such as Wells Fargo's
generally involve some level of social employees in a manner that is more My Spending Report. They have also
interaction and networking. For finan- responsive, compelling and effective created active communities within Inter-
36 BiANK SYSTEMS & TECHVN IA

2. net services. We are also using RSS feeds site usability, collaboration, etc. But these institutions are hesitant to improve
to deliver news feeds that team mem- are the more relevant business impacts. one section of their Web site too dras-
bers can customize to see the business The biggest downside is that it's tically for fear of making the other sites
news that matters most to them. new, and some people fear change. IT look even more out of date. Given the
departments are eager to use these siloed nature of banks and financial
Robin Bloor, Hurwitz & Associ- tools and develop and deploy new soft- institutions, many companies find it
ates. I've seen no pioneering of Web ware, but business isn't yet driving the simply impossible to manage their Web
2.0 from banks at all. Banks have used projects. With regards to internal Web presence as a cohesive whole.
collaborative technologies - such as 2.0 tools (e.g., blogs and wikis) there
those from IBM (Armonk, N.Y.), Lotus are major adoption challenges. A good Q: What are the security,privacy
(an IBM subsidiary) and Microsoft - portion of the intellectual property of and legal issues, if any, of Web 2.0?
for quite a while, and they can be a firm resides in the older, more sen-
deployed in a Web 2.0 manner. But I've ior staff that is often hesitant to pick Nelson, TowerGroup: The fact that
seen no evidence of it. I haven't seen up and use new technology. Web 2.0 relies on users contributing all
any activity in the area of customer of the data certainly does raise some
relations, where the potential rewards Bloor, Hurwitz & Associates: The ret- issues.... If any firm, in any industry,
should be the greatest. icence is cultural with banks. Neverthe- decides to let its employees blog publicly,
less, if you want to sell to the younger they need to first consider the risks and
Kealey, Adobe' Financial institutions age ranges you have to meet them in create careful policies. Blogging has
are working to improve how they engage their chosen contexts, which can include become common in the technology indus-
customers online during the product places like Facebook, MySpace and Sec- try, and every major technology firm that
research and selection phase. There are ond Life. Banks have a particular inter- communicates this way (e.g., Microsoft,
numerous examples of Web applications est in attracting such customers. IBM, Sun Microsystems) does have well-
that provide retirement calculators, However, it may simply be a matter crafted blogging policies in place.
product selectors and guided advice of where to invest. A Web 2.0 project is
that are helping institutions differen- very difficult to define in terms of spe- Bloor, Hurwitz & Associates: I don't
tiate themselves online. We're also see- cific business objectives. You are, in effect, see the legal or security issues as any
ing a number of firms using rich Inter- opening a communications channel and worse than those associated with any
net applications as the front end to it may or may not pay big dividends other Web activity - by and large, they
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the users through the process in
a step-by-step manner, helping
to eliminate confusion and reduce errors. There are no obvious corporate success- are the same. Where a company sets
es to imitate and no easy way to calcu- up a wiki, it is best practice to declare
Q: Why aren't banks embracing late payback. So any foray into a Web a usage policy of all postings to the
Web 2.0 technologies more? 2.0 project is going to be speculative. If wiki, otherwise you are open to copy-
you are the first to open a bank in Sec- right disputes. But that has always
Nelson, TowerGroup: The general ond Life, though, you'll get a bundle of been best practice for accepting post-
problem is that this is new technology, free publicity. That on its own could pay ings. There is a particular issue, though,
which people currently equate to the for the cost of the project, even ifit does- for the banking industry. Security and
consumer realm. When you think of Web n't generate a heap of business. trust are pillars of the banking indus-
2.0 business opportunity, you probably try, and there must be no indication
Kealey, Adobe: Generally speaking,
think of ad and search revenues, not that either is compromised by any Web
better user-interface design, improved the main obstacle seems to be that 2.0 capability • -Peggy Bresnick Kendler
7 1 BANK SYSTEMS& TECHNOL,OGY 37

3. COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
TITLE: Web 2.0
SOURCE: Bank Syst Technol 44 no7 Jl 2007
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