Catching Up with New-Age Banking Facilities

Not so long ago, bankers were looked upon as fatherly figures, giving sound advice on handling our finances. Today’s generation is more likely to seek advice from friends and trust its social networks. This transformation has created a never-before demand for banks to reinvent themselves and change the way they interact with their customers.

To make banking sustainable, they need to move beyond the realms of traditional marketing and customer service to embrace continuous relationship-building, listening and engagement practices. They need to interact with individuals and their communities in a personalized, collaborative and transparent manner. More and more banks are now reaching out to their existing and prospective customers on social networking websites including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Indeed, forward-thinking financial institutions have realised that social media banking could be used to serve a range of purposes like:

• Running awareness campaigns about new products and services, new campaigns, and other banking related news.
• Reinforce bonds with existing customers
• Let the customer know about credit card usage, account balance, identifying fake currency, confidentiality and transactional security.
• Marketing their services faster in an effective and interactive manner.

Check out some of the greatest benefits of this new-age banking system mentioned below.

• Leverage the wisdom and experiences of other customers to solve our own banking problems.
• Unite on a single platform to resolve issues and drive innovation through crowd sourcing.
• Create a collective buzz on social media to get our needs heard by our bankers.
• Work together with the bank to create products that we need.

Modern banks assure us that using apps, e-facilities and social media makes banking simple and quick. However, a common concern we share is that of safety. How do we ensure that our money remains safe? Here are 3 ways to ensure this security:

1. Don’t bank on unsecured networks. Considering our increasingly mobile world, it is not uncommon to access our bank account online using a Wi-Fi connection at an airport, hotel or cafe. While e-banking has proved most convenient on the go, ensure that you always use a secured connection when entering your log-in details, checking account balances or transferring funds.
   

2. Don’t save your password on your mobile device. If your phone gets lost or stolen, you do not want to spend hours blocking your bank accounts and cards. So, don’t save your password and access details on your mobile notepad or banking app.
   

3. Don’t get phished. Banks never ask their customers for account information over e-mail, social media message or SMS. So, if you have received such an e-mail, it is certainly fraudulent. Ensure that you don’t click on any links provided in such communication either.

Following these basic safety tips may make e-banking a few seconds slower, but will keep your money safe. As long as we are cautious, banking facilities via apps and social media can prove safe, convenient and quick.