Opening a New Bank Account Online Is No Picnic…<< Branch Strategy Re-visited | Main | Giving Up Broadband is Too Hard >> Asaf Buchner | August 14, 2006, 12:11 PM I needed to open a few new bank accounts for research purposes and figured that it would be a good opportunity to test online account opening. Our survey found that while the vast majority of online consumers prefer applying for a new account at the branch, there is a segment that would rather apply online. I tried opening new accounts at five major banks (B of A, Chase, Wachovia, WaMu and Wells Fargo). I discovered that banks still need to work on their online application processes. All five banks allow new customers to open an account online. In fact, Wachovia and WaMu promote the product in the main banner on their homepages. However, opening the account was not so easy. The process was rather smooth with Chase and Wells Fargo. Wachovia asked me to come to a branch and B of A needed to evaluate my application for a few days. WaMu has a great application; it’s lean and straightforward. WaMu rightly claims that it takes less than seven minutes to complete the process. However, WaMu’s application crashed three times before I was able to complete it, so I can’t say it was a great experience. I’ll write more about it in my upcoming research, so stay tuned. |
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