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March 27th, 2009

Make That Scrilla

Rick Banister
I want to tell people how to run their businesses. Like agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky's irreverent consulting for Burger King—the ads featuring the King with the plastic head, the motocross chicken video game, talk of them writing a movie staged in an apartment above a BK, inventing new menu items and dictating their prices, Meat on top of Meat on top of Meat—I want to help a bank remap their offerings and help them be profitable in a post-apocolyptic banking universe.



1. One may have a rapport with his or her Bank Teller, but waiting in line at a bank is the worst. It's laughable that for all the digitalization of commerce we spend a reciprocally large amount of time waiting for tables at restaurants, in the checkout line, the DMV (all of whom's business could be conducted online), and so forth. Lines at those irreplaceable real world venues are getting longer. With regards to banking, ING has been quite successful at being paperless/branchless/painless. Unless you need to pay bills online...

2. Banks need the best websites. Intuitive e-billing, better graphs, trending, pdf creation. I use PNC bank for checking, their Bill Center is only OK...

3. It doesn't make it easy to have a free overdraft protection solution (you had to pay to open ANOTHER credit card, I gave up). My various accounts (checking, savings, money markets) are unlinked. When I give them my money they put it in one large pool, why can I not do the same...

4. My main recommendation is to allow for account partitions. Instead of thinking in terms of Checking, Savings, etc. I should have one pool of money. If this is tricky under Government banking regulations, simply allow it to be visualized in this way. It should all earn the same competitive savings interest rate (ING is currently a cute 1.5%). It should be partitioned into custom pie slices: rent/mortgage, bills, tax savings (if you're a 1099er), personal savings, pocket money, and any other useful partitions. Give me a simple interface to adjust partitions or add new ones. Perhaps I'd like to split my savings into rainy day and vacation funds...

5. Give me a line of credit and a credit card based on my cash flow. Make the rate fair and adjustable based on my payment schedule. If I don't feel slighted by rising rates or bully late fees I won't jump ship and get a new 0% card every year...

6. Incorporate the better features of Mint—comparative graphs and charts of my spending each month, long and short term trends. Don't make me think, show me where my money is, what it's been doing, why I should give it to you...
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