Be the Spider: How to Make Websites Sticky

Michael Bartlett
March 10, 2010 | COMMENTS

Spiders make their webs sticky to capture their next meal—credit unions need to do the same thing with their websites.

That's according to NAFCU Services Corporation CEO David Frankil, who knows a variety of tips for creating "stickier" credit union websites.

Financial calculators, Frankil noted, are an easy way to add interactivity to a website, and that interactivity may as well be online glue. There are lots of calculators credit unions can purchase to put on their sites, but the quality and price varies greatly.

"We invested in 33 calculators for credit unions, from home loans to auto loans to retirement savings," Frankil said during NAFCU's recent Technology & Security Conference in Las Vegas. "Math is math, so we tried to make it a holistic project with a financial education component. Our goal was to provide an opportunity for credit unions to offer free services on their websites."

The slew of financial calculators has been combined with a credit union locator service on CULookup.com. Frankil said the package of services launched in November on NAFCU's website was rolled out to the first half of NAFCU's members in early February.

There has been an immediate 10% penetration rate, and the numbers are growing as more and more state-chartered credit unions inquire about being part of CULookup.

"We started with wanting to give consumer-friendly information on finding a credit union," Frankil recalled. "A credit union locator is a passive model-people need to first want to find a credit union before they come to such a site. Having the calculators evolves CULookup.com and makes it more valuable."

Anecdotally, Frankil says he already is hearing stories about new members walking into credit unions and saying they found their new credit union on CULookup.com. NAFCU Services has commenced a public relations effort to get out the word and was thrilled when the site was mentioned in a Consumer Reports article.

"That story was picked up nationally and caused a spike in traffic to the site," Frankil said.

According to Frankil, the need for a credit union's website and/or online banking application to be as secure as possible trumps all other concerns. "If you look at the macro-environment, credit unions are competing against institutions that have much more resources,” he said. “Credit unions must show themselves to be as secure or more secure than banks, because they already have branding issues. Credit unions simply cannot afford to have the perception by consumers that they are not as safe."

More than the Cost of Doing Business

Security is not just a cost of doing business, it is much more, he continued. "If a credit union is not secure, it does not have a future. Just look at the black eyes an institution gets from a security breach."

Most security concerns have been focused on the technology side and "outside-in" threats, but Frankil warned credit unions to look inside as well. He said credit union employees regularly cause security breaches, either accidentally or on purpose, with actions as simple as e-mailing themselves a spreadsheet to work on at home.

A third area of concern is social engineering. While most people associate the term with clicking on a link to a bogus site in an e-mail from a scammer, Frankil said it also includes allowing strangers to have access to credit union computers. Someone in the uniform of a delivery company or a plumber might be let in, and thanks to the exponential increase in the storage capacity of cheap flash drives, that person needs just 30 seconds to steal catastrophic amounts of sensitive information.

Mobile banking is one of the hottest new topics in the financial technology space, but Frankil said it has the same concern: any provider must make sure their platform is secure.

This article appeared at www.cujournal.com and is reprinted with permission.