Facebook Deals & Banking: Real Possibilities for Kicka** Services

What are bankers to make of Facebook Deals, which launched on Nov. 3?

To recap, Facebook Deals allows Facebook users who “check in” at a location using their mobile phone to Facebook Places to then receive rewards and offers again via their mobile device. These are mobile coupons on steroids.

A video describing how Facebook Deals works:

For one thing, Facebook Deals has the potential to shift business models. For example, digital banking today is very insular. What I mean by that is banking is largely done on the bank’s site or via the bank’s, not necessarily where the consumer is. You are starting to see more push offers via email, for example, but the consumer still can’t transact in the email. Rather, he has to go to, say, Chase.com to execute on an offer. (Banks are working on changing this by beefing up security within the email environment. There’s a startup in Israel which has purportedly solved this problem … but I digress.)

Facebook Deals clearly changes this paradigm. The transaction is not just mobile, but at a particular location. I have little doubt that Facebook Places will eventually enable automatic check-ins.

Already, there are brands selling inside Facebook. 1-800 Flowers, for example, has partnered with an outfit called Alvenda to build this shop inside Facebook. More than 49,000 people “like” the shop.

Banks have branches inside Wal-Marts, so there is no business reason not to put a branch inside Facebook. But Facebook Deals means that a branch does not even have to be inside Facebook to see via social media. Banks need to let go of channel ownership, because driving consumers to bank websites is not the only way to create a positive — dare I say, kicka** — customer experience.