Category: Financial

Qash (Dutch) offers you insight in your spending patterns by reading and analyzing the data of your various bank accounts, credit cards and/or savings accounts. Each transaction will automatically be given a label and through this categorization you'll know exactly where your money is going. On top of that Qash can give you ideas on where to save money. Cheaper subscriptions, for example.

At GreenNote American students can get financing for their college/university studies through acquaintances. The student creates a profile and adds, alongside the desired monetary amount, a photo, information on finished courses and in 'my story' the reason the money is needed. And of course why they think that lending them money to go to college is a good investment. From there the student can start to approach people.

If people are interested in offering a loan, GreenNote formalizes this through a legally binding contract for both the student and the person offering the loan.

Private loans (Dutch) are a new service of the Dutch ABN Amro branch. It's a service for people who want to lend money privately. It often involves a loan between friends, acquaintances or family members.

It's pretty simple. You agree with someone from your area how much you'll borrow and make arrangements about the height of the interest rate and the repayment plan. Lenders and borrowers can orient themselves on the website of ABN AMRO. When they've reached an agreement on the payment conditions, ABN AMRO offers them sample contracts for making the agreement. The site also offers fiscal and judicial tips and a calculator.

The bank doesn't charge a commission for this service, but aims at binding customers to itself and offers additional paid services. The Judicial Service Plan offers direct connection with professionals, specialized in judicial aid.

The district council in Hengelo, the Netherlands, helps its citizens to claim the correct subsidies by providing a 'money searcher'. Via the computer they enter a wide range of details about pay, benefits, tax credits, rent, savings and insurance policies. Within 10 minutes they receive personalized advice.

SmartyPig offers an online savings account for which you can invite friends, family or colleagues to contribute money towards a goal you have chosen yourself. SmartyPig has developed a widget for social networks MySpace and Facebook, so you can make your savings goal accessible for more people (fe, Dutch). Saving, lending, investing: it is all about trust. And the people directly around you trust you most. Brands are more and more building on this trust: they get better at tribal thinking since they have less chance to reach the consumer with messages, while at the same time they have more chance to facilitate the consumer. This development fits in that trend.

Via Wesabe consumers can manage their money. They can upload their bank transactions, set goals, and control their financial path (dc, Dutch). Thus personal financial brands evolve. They control the consumer’s household expenses, and advise you in choosing investments, savings, pensions, loans, and mortgages. A good advice however starts at total financial insights, and this is what Wesabe starts at.

Online Payment Provider PayPal now also offers the possibility to make payments through banks. With a PayPal account customers now have the choice between payments through credit card or through a bank account, for local as well as international payments (cc, Dutch). This way a brand taking care of all our payments slowly comes into being. Whether it is through a credit card or directly through a bank account (debit), PayPal takes care of it. Starting from this total package, PayPal has the possibility to grow into a personal financial brand. It can introduce a home brand account. It can start offering additional services like instant loans. This way PayPal gets more and more meaning in our lives. This is a small step in that direction.

Financial auction site Zopa brings together money lenders and borrowers. A borrower states the conditions for a loan, and if these compare to offers of lenders, the deal can be made. The risk is spread by dividing the total amount of money into smaller amounts, provided by several lenders. The credit scores of people who are borrowing money are thoroughly checked (dc, Dutch). Here banking 1.1 comes into being. It is he existing principle of a bank, as Zopa has to make money too. Using IT to make a new start, processes can be reinvented, or even be deleted if necessary. This way situation can arise that is comparable to what Easyjet has done in air transport. Zopa can grow into a transaction brand, with a price fighter position in the savings and loan markets. In the end personal financial brands will advice us on what we should do with whom (what transaction brand), under what conditions. And they will take care of that for us. That will be the added value of the personal financial brand, and that is where their margins will be. That is banking 2.0. The development of this kind of transaction brands contributes to that.