FindABetterBank is covered in Newsweek

rob — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 13:30:14 +0000

We’re in Newsweek’s April 28, 2008 “Tip Sheet” Section (page 60). We were also featured on this morning’s 5am Channel 9 News in the Washington DC area in a daily segment called “Links you can’t live without.”

This is all great. Here’s why it’s worth it (a comment posted on MakeUseOf.com about using FindABetterBank):

There are a number of reasons I’d like to say THANK YOU to makeuseof.com…after finding the site I spent about three weeks off and on, several hours each time, looking at the entire archive. I now have 9 folders of bookmarks of amazing stuff and the number is growing!

But this posting in particular is timed perfectly. Last month I was fired from a job of 17 years and was forced to move to a new town out of necessity. Luckily I have great friends in the real world as well as great cyber-friends. So the other day I walk into a Bank of XXXXXX to see about starting savings and checking accounts and they wanted $18.95 per month in monthly fees and I’d have to pay for checks. You know the typical banking scam! And then I got your e-mail that included FIND A BETTER BANK. And I did! Free checking, free checks, free bill pay, no additional ATM fee, free on-line banking, and on-line sign up for both accounts available with both accounts available at physical banking locations. Total cost per month $4, the same as the credit union I used to belong to!

Thanks again for all the great stuff you guys find and send our way!

FindABetterBank is featured on MakeUseOf.com

rob — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 20:04:04 +0000

Peter and I think the coolest feature of FindABetterBank is the Fee Estimator because it can really help you save money by identifying banks that don’t penalize you for banking your way (or force you to adjust). For example, I hate paying a fee from MY bank because I used ANOTHER bank’s ATM.

MakeUsOf.com posted an article titled “5 Comparison Websites That WILL Save You Money” and we’re psyched to be included because we’re saving people money. Here’s their introduction to FindABetterBank:

“Looking for a new bank account? Wondering how your current bank account stands against account offerings from other banks in the area? Find A Better Bank is the one and only tool you need. It’s very thorough and can help you locate the best bank account for your needs in a matter of minutes.”

Click here to check out FindABetterBank.

Click here to check out BankSwitcher.

Feed Growth wrote about BankSwitcher

rob — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 13:16:14 +0000

Feed Growth — an idea blog for marketers — wrote about BankSwitcher in their April 2 article “Enough With The Fighting.” Here’s an excerpt:

You can run all of the ads that you want and you may not get your target to do what you want. Depending on the category of product or service, sometimes it’s just too hard to overcome the switching costs. Especially in banking, now that everyone uses services like electronic bill payment. We won’t say that consumers are inherently lazy.

Think about how something like BankSwitcher might be able to help you. It’s a tool that simply makes it easy to switch from one bank to another. Users indicate what bank they currently use and which one they would like to switch to. Then, it asks you to go to your online banking site and download a detailed file of transactions and account balances. Then, it asks you to indicate which things you want to change and which ones you don’t. The point here is that there’s more than one way to skin a cat.

If you’re facing an entrenched competitor with what appear to be high switching costs, don’t forget that there are ways to make it easier to switch to your camp. Have you made the effort to put tools like this one in place?

Click here to check out BankSwitcher.

Click here to check out FindABetterBank.

BankSwitcher was reviewed at KillerStartups.com

rob — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 13:32:30 +0000

It’s been a really exciting time for us. Yesterday afternoon, KillerStartups.com reviewed BankSwitcher — which has brought us another wave of new users (and resumes to my email box!). Here’s an excerpt (you can follow the link above to read the whole piece):

BankSwitcher will certainly take part of the pain out in switching banks. It’s easy to use and works rather efficiently. It’ll save you some time and you don’t have to pay a dime for it?

Is it really safe? Will users be wary of having BankSwitcher access their banking details simply for a set of instructions? Does it make sense to use BankSwitcher versus, a phone call or a little diligence?

Our snowball is still small, but it’s building…

Click here to check out BankSwitcher.

Click here to check out FindABetterBank.

FindABetterBank was featured in today’s WorldStart Newsletter

rob — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:04:32 +0000

I love when another audience gets introduced to one of our tools (FindABetterBank and BankSwitcher). This morning, WorldStart covered FindABetterBank in their “Computer Tips” newsletter and already (about 5 hours) over 1,000 of their subscribers came to the site. Thank you Amanda for the great write-up (pasted below).

Are you interested in seeing if there is a better bank out there for you? I am fairly happy with my bank, but I was curious to see what else might be available to me!

If you want to see how the Web site works, I suggest reading the FAQs first. With those, you will learn how they get their information, how frequently it’s updated and much more.

To begin, click on the Get Started button. The only required information in Step 1 is to put in your zip code and to select how close you want the bank to be located to you. Choose any of the options you want below that and then just click Continue.

In Steps 2 and 3, you will fill out a survey about your banking needs. Those preferences will be used to help find the banks that best suit you. In Step 4, you’ll see the list of banks it generated for you.

Click on the green This One button to check out further information about a bank in Step 5. That page will give you all the specific account information for the type of account you selected so that you can learn more about it. It will also give you a map for directions to the bank.

At the bottom of the page in Step 5, you’ll find a green button that reads Take a Quick Survey Please. It basically asks you to review the program and if you’d recommend it to others.

Are you ready to find a better bank? Then why not take a look? You never know, there might be something better just waiting for you out there!

Click here to check out FindABetterBank.

Click here to check out BankSwitcher.

BankSwitcher is covered today in LifeHacker

rob — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:00:33 +0000

BankSwitcher was covered in LifeHacker today. Here’s the write-up:

Fed up with your bank’s hidden fees and customer service? Before you make the often time-consuming switch to another institution, consider checking out BankSwitcher. The web app (in beta, of course) asks you to grab the financial data from your old bank in the popular Quicken or Microsoft Money formats, then upload it to BankSwitcher. The site generates a list of everything you’d want to do to keep your same set-up—automatic payments, transfers, bill pays, and the like—at your new financial digs. The site repeatedly assures users that it keeps secure servers and doesn’t commit unnecessary information like passwords or account numbers to hard drive, erasing them from memory after the list is generated. If that’s good enough for you, it could help you get up and running with a new bank and saving yourself money and headaches.

Thanks to this great coverage, we’re helping a lot of people switch banks today. Thank you Keith at LifeHacker.

Click here to check out BankSwitcher.

Haven’t found a new bank yet? Click here to find a better bank using our unbiased comparison tool.

FindABetterBank is Banktastic’s “Website of the Week”

rob — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 20:26:24 +0000

A cool site for the banking industry called Banktastic has selected FindABetterBank as their Website of the Week. Brad Garland does a neat weekly video “Burst” in which he talks about FindABetterBank. (Perhaps Brad can be to the banking industry what Gary Vaynerchuk (www.winelibrary.com) is to the wine industry?)

Click here to view the video and read the blog article.

Officially, this is our first award. Tonight, we’ll celebrate and toast Banktastic on a excellent choice. Thanks Brad.

Six more banks added this week

rob — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 16:12:09 +0000

We’re continuing to add banks to FindABetterBank. Here’s a list of banks added this week:

EverBank (Internet / branchless bank)

Guaranty Bank (TX)

Northwest Savings Bank (PA)

International Bank of Commerce (TX)

Provident Bank (NY)

Fremont Bank (CA)

CLICK HERE to check it out.

FindABetterBank Finds Fans

rob — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 20:04:48 +0000

FindABetterBank has been live for 3 weeks. Already, a few blogs have noticed:

iwillteachyoutoberich

Feedback from consumers is rolling in as well. Getting a broader mix of users and placing the link to the survey in 2 places has helped increase the response rate and provide a more balanced snapshot of customers’ experiences. Expectedly, our net-promoter score has gone from 47 to 39. Ouch! We know that tracking interest rates, including information about linked savings and money market accounts, and increasing the number of banks and CUs in our system will move our NPS up.

We will add interest rates and info on linked accounts in March. We’re continuing to add Banks and CUs to our system. (There are over 8,500 banks and 2,400 CUs in the US)

Initial feedback about FindABetterBank

rob — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:21:21 +0000

FindABetterBank has been live for 10 days and the overall traffic and feedback have exceeded our expectations. Based on the average time people spend (3:59) and the number of pages viewed (7.6), it’s clear that people are finding the content useful (or at least interesting). Thank you to Mark Hurst (and Mike Krypel and Julia Druk) for advising us to lose the home page and start the site at Step 1 – once we “let go” our bounce rate went from 20% to 8%.

We’ve had an excellent response to our feedback survey. Most responders indicate they find the site useful — but we have plenty of opportunities to make improvements. For any Net Promoter Buffs, our current NPS is 47. Okay for week 1, but we’ll do better. We’re still experimenting on placement of the survey link to make sure we get an accurate snapshot of how most people feel. Here are quotes that represent the majority of comments:

“It’s streamlined, efficient, and provides a valuable, comparative tool that is otherwise non-existent.”

“It was quick, easy, and gave me the basic information that I was looking for without having to search 5-10 banks’ websites.”

“I like how you can really narrow down the search based upon your criteria, and I’m not entirely happy with my own bank.”

Not everyone thought FindABetterBank was terrific. Interest rates were the number one suggestion:

“It’s essential to include the interest rates for the checking accounts. Without that, this is pointless! I’ve had checking accounts earn 0.25%… why bother?”

“This site would be great if it also had interest rate comparisons”

As I mentioned in a previous post, we’ll be including rates and linked savings / money market account data within the next month. I’ll keep you posted here.

For some users, the number of banks in our database was an issue:

“Very Informative. It’s nice to be able to make the side by side comparison, having to go to get this info directly from each bank takes a lot of time. I could have used it a few years ago when I was in desperate need to get away from Bank of America, but scared to be stuck with the same issues at a new bank, it took a bit of foot work before I got to switch. It did not cover a few other banks in my area which is kind of sad because I know a few that have comparable and sometimes better features than most of the banks listed here.”

“After trying several locations and distances, I did not see any smaller, locally owned, community banks. In my opinion, the local banks are the ‘better banks’.”

“I see Regions, US Bank, Bank of America, Wells Fartgo, and Bank of the Worst. All banks to be sure, but I wouldn’t do business with MOST of them. Great big banks with lots of money for marketing and crappy customer service don’t impress me. Good Lord, I’m trying to get AWAY from one of those soulless, money-grubbing piles of poop. I see no smaller, alternative, local banks in the list provided. Case in point; Midland Bank was bought by Amerus; which was bought by Commercial Federal, which was bought by Bank of the Worst. I’ve been a customer for something like 18 years and when Bank of the Worst bought ComFed it was like I never existed. All of the big bank attitude with none of the customer appreciation. Plus, their conversion from the ComFed system to BotW was hideously stupid. I even heard someone else complaining about it in a bar over lunch one day! Sorry, but if you’re just pushing the big banks I’m going to tell others to steer clear. Bleh.”

Of all the feedback, the last comment was my personal favorite. I wish I had that person’s email. [Note: The opinions expressed above do not reflect my opinion. But comments that work in farts and poop make me laugh out loud.] We’re continuing to add more banks to our database. Last week we added Colonial Bank, Associated Bank, M&I Bank, Chevy Chase Bank, First Tennessee Bank, and First-Citizens National Bank – not small banks, but nowhere near the scale (or reach) of a Top 10 bank.

It’s not trivial to include a bank in our database – it takes a decent amount of time to do the initial research and requires an on-going effort to maintain the information. Our strategy was to start at the top of the list (Bank of America) and work our way down. We’ve included some Branchless/Internet banks for variety. Let me know of banks you feel should be listed. Tell me why we should include that bank and I’ll see what I can do.