BankMobile Kicks Off Facebook Contest for New Product Ideas
BYOB is not about bringing your own bottle anymore.
For BankMobile, the mobile-first bank launched in January by Phoenixville, Pa.-based Customers Bank, BYOB means “build your own bank.” The company is offering $5,000 for the “best banking idea” in a BYOB contest launched on its Facebook page yesterday.
BankMobile’s mobile app offers top-of-the-line mobile functionality, and, unlike Simple, GoBank and Moven, offers lines of credit to new customers. BankMobile used crowdsourcing in its marketing even before it launched. In November, it announced that the bank’s first 5,000 customers would be invited to help decide which features the bank should launch.
It’s possible that idea didn’t go so well, or that new customers don;t know what products they want the bank isn’t yet offering, since the bank announced on the contest page on its blog that it had already received about 200 ideas — not 5,000. A graph showing those ideas is below. (We’re a bit confused by the graph — the items at least seem to correspond to more than bar at right — and have asked the bank for clarification. We’ll keep you posted on that.)
UPDATE: A representative of the bank sent us a complete list of ideas, which is now at the bottom of this post, and said the graph represented just half in writing, to give a flavor of what had been received.
Contest submissions take the form of photos or videos and are submitted via the bank’s Facebook page. The deadline for submissions is May 3. Submissions will be judged by the following criteria, the bank says:
- Creativity: Has this been done before by another financial institution?
- Cost: How much would this idea cost to implement?
- Feasibility: Can this idea be implemented?
- Alignment: Does this fit in within BankMobile’s value set?
The grand prize of $5,000 will be directly deposited into the winner’s BankMobile account. If the winner is not an account holder, they’ll be sent a check.
Only in America.
Ideas Received Before Launch by Category:
| Deposits | 26 |
| ATMs | 20 |
| App | 17 |
| Overdraft Protection | 10 |
| Customer Service | 8 |
| Cash Back Rewards | 7 |
| No fees | 7 |
| Payments | 7 |
| Products | 10 |
| Alerts | 6 |
| Donations | 6 |
| Loans & Credit | 10 |
| Branches | 5 |
| Investing | 5 |
| Personal Financial Management | 5 |
| Transfers | 5 |
| Marketing | 4 |
| Bitcoin | 3 |
| Financial Content | 3 |
| Debit Card | 3 |
| Link Accounts | 3 |
| Open Abroad | 3 |
| Analytics | 2 |
| Business | 2 |
| Incentives | 2 |
| Statements | 2 |
| Cash | 1 |
| Checks | 1 |
| Community | 1 |
| Foreign Currency | 1 |
| Security | 1 |
| Taxes | 1 |
