This year my team had some big projects that we spent the better part of the year working on. It’s been a good year, and we’re ending it on a great note, launching two projects of incredible value to our members in the last week.

On December 6th we released our iPhone App. Earlier this year we launched Mobile Web so members can use any kind of smartphone to do their banking in a way that is optimized for a small screen size, touch screen and browser. It was very important to us to launch Mobile Web first so all members have access to Mobile Banking. Then we could spend our calories on a really great app for our members with iPhones. Why iPhones? When we look at the metrics of site visitors to Vancity.com we see that of the traffic on our site coming from users on smartphones, the vast majority is from iOS. Over time we anticipate adding other apps for other devices, but with our member base iPhones took a clear lead.

I’ve written before of our partnership with Central1, the credit union central for all CUs in BC and Ontario. They created this app with major input from two credit unions: Vancity and Mt. Lehman. We focused heavily on the user experience, which I believe will pay off with members. In only a few days we already have 49 reviews of the app in the App Store, almost all of which are a full five stars. It’s a very rewarding experience.

And today we launched Interac e-Transfers. This is a standard feature in Canada which allows any Canadian to transfer money to any other Canadian via email or text message. All the big banks have long had this feature, but we had lagged behind. So it feels good to play catch up in this way and launch e-Transfers for our members. It is a much needed service, and now it’s available in Online Banking, Mobile Web and our iPhone App.

Launching these great new services wouldn’t be possible without great partnerships. I have amazing staff in my department who bring these projects to life, we have outstanding relationships with our colleagues in our IT division and our partners at Central1.

It’s a fantastic way to end the year, launching exciting new features, responding to the needs of our members who have been asking for these services for some time now, especially e-Transfers, and starting 2012 with the capacity to take on a bunch of new exciting projects.

So have a happy New Year, and here’s to a great 2012!