Tag Archives: banking

Mobile Banking with VNCTY.

First of all, my favourite quote about Mobile Banking this year has got to be by Avi Pollock Head of Applied Innovation at RBC who simply said at Net.Finance East “I know Mobile Banking is important, I’m just not sure why.”

I feel the same way. So I’m excited to say that Vancity has launched Mobile Banking to our Online Banking members. It’s pretty simple SMS banking where you register your cell number within Online Banking and then when you text to the shortcode VNCTY you get your balance or last five transactions.

Mobile Banking

So it could come in handy if you need to know your balance in a hurry and you’re not near a computer.

But the powerful thing here is getting members’ cell numbers into Online Banking, because that paves the way for text alerts which are of a much greater value. It also starts down the path of a more full-functioning Mobile Banking offer where our members can use an ATM/Branch locator, pay bills and transfer funds via their smart phone. That’s starting to get more interesting.

So I’m excited and proud of this baby step and need to acknowledge the unsung hero of this initiative, one of my favourite strategic partners, Kelly West, the Director of Product Management at Central1. He wrote an awesome Mobile Banking strategy for all credit unions in BC and Ontario. Thanks to him, we’re headed down the right path. Thanks Kelly!

Of the seven principles of a co-operative, the sixth is Co-operation among Co-operatives

Co-operatives serve their members most effectively and strengthen the co-operative movement by working together through local, national, regional and international structures.

One of the things I love about my work is that I get to collaborate with other credit unions in the province. At the end of 2008 80% of BC credit union members will have access to Mobile Banking. We worked on it together, we’re launching the same product to our members and next up, we’ll advertise Mobile Banking as a credit union innovative difference to BC residents. I’ll post more about that ad campaign when it launches in the New Year.

Climate Friendly Banking shows how your money can make an impact.

Climate Friendly BankingOne of the advantages of getting Google Alerts for your company is that you find nuggets like this.

The Rainforest Action Network has investigated the contribution that Canada’s big FIs make to climate change. Their site, Climate Friendly Banking, goes beyond the actual greenhouse gas emissions from the FIs’ operations to quantifying the lending and financing they provide to the fossil fuel industry, which in Alberta is particularly polluting.

The enormous financial commitments made by Canada’s five biggest banks – RBC, TD Bank, Scotiabank, CIBC and BMO – to fossil fuel production, namely oil and coal operations, inextricably links them to the fueling of global climate change. Banks are the lifeblood of the fossil fuel industry…

“Financing Global Warming: Canadian Banks and Fossil Fuels” is the first report to analyze and quantify the greenhouse gas emissions of seven leading Canadian banks – the aforementioned banks as well as Desjardins and Vancity – based on their financing of fossil fuels…

Canada’s top banks provided more than $155 billion in total corporate financing for fossil fuel extraction in Canada and internationally in 2007.

It’s a very intriguing way to look at this issue. I’ve said repeatedly that one of the main reasons I love working at Vancity is when you get to how financing affects the community, you get to the root cause of a lot of issues and can be an instrumental force for progress. Here’s one conclusion they draw.

Moving $10,000 from Scotiabank, the highest-carbon footprint bank, to Vancity, the low-carbon bank leader, avoids an amount of financed CO2 (1,430 kg CO2) comparable to:

  • not driving a small car for five months;
  • replacing an average car with one that gets 33 percent better gas mileage;
  • eliminating seven two-hour airplane flights per year.

That’s powerful stuff. They have a calculator to figure out how your deposits at a Canadian FI affect climate change. I truly believe that more and more consumers (though by no means most) will include factors like this into their consumer decision-making.

The site has several versions of the report, from a one pager to the full 294 page report. Well worth checking out.

I was particularly proud of this sentence:

…Vancity stands out as the only Canadian bank profiled in this study that provided no corporate loans or direct investments to fossil fuel producers.

Now that’s a company I want to work for.

Thanks to Dan Dickinson for sending this my way.

Fighting poverty through saving – Vancity’s new TV ad.

Jumpstart High Interest Savings AccountLast week, when I spoke at the Partnership Symposium, I talked a little bit about Vancity’s Jumpstart High Interest Savings account.

It’s a high interest savings account (as of this writing it is paying out a very competitive 3% interest rate) that works like any other. Except for one big difference:

Vancity donates a portion of the proceeds to a not-for-profit partner who runs a program called Future Foundations, which gives a 300% savings rate to eligible people who need help paying for:

  • training or education
  • paying for a child’s education
  • starting or expanding a business
  • purchasing housing

Truly amazing stuff.

This week, we launched a slightly edgy TV ad to promote this product. Take a look and let me know what you think…