It has come to my attention that some credit unions are still using the term “home banking” as the name for conducting online transactions. I’d love to see this term vanish from the face of the earth. This has NEVER been a good name for this function. Yes, a huge number of people, perhaps even a majority, do their online banking from home, but a huge percentage of people access it from work. This has been true since the early days of teh internets. Not to mention that in this day and age, millions of people have laptops and/or smartphones, thus enabling “home banking” to be done from such non-home or work places like their car, the nearest Starbucks or Panera Bread, city parks, the beach, a restaurant, the public library, at a hotel, etc.
Please please please don’t call it home banking! Purge the term from your vocabulary! “Online banking” is far more appropriate.
Tags: Banking 2.0, home, home banking, marketing, Marketing 2.0, mobile, naming, online banking, terminology, vocabulary, work
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May 6, 2010 at 9:52 am |
I’m not sure I agree with you Morriss. I agree that On-line Banking is a more appropriate name in that it describes what it actually is. However, maybe its the demographics of my membership group, but online transactions still make some people nervous. Home is a “safe” place. Calling it home banking just sounds safer……online banking could be construed as riskier.
So yes, we are guilty. Our website link button says “Online Banking”, but when we get to the page we say Welcome to Home Financial Services. And when we talk about it, we informally call it Home Banking.
This one really doesn’t bother me at all. I still struggle with “share drafts” and ummm “credit unions”.
May 6, 2010 at 10:05 am |
But calling it “home banking” doesn’t actually make it any safer. What’s needed in this case is education.
Also, the worst possible thing is to be inconsistent in the naming. When you click on something, you expect to be taken to a page that has the same name. There’s no excuse for a differently named page from the button you were clicking to get there. Consistency of naming = good branding. Inconsistency in names is sloppy.
I agree that Share Drafts is a pretty bizarre name. And while “credit union” may be a weird name, it’s just a name. Unfortunately, the name “Cooperative bank” was already taken… they existed about 100 years before the first CUs in the U.S.
May 6, 2010 at 12:12 pm |
I’m with you Morriss! When our CU changed its name, we changed our @home (uuuuugh, using the @ sign was even worse than just saying “Banking at Home”) and we now simply call it Internet Banking. We still have a number of folks who call it “Home Banking” and it drives me bonkers.
Looks like it’ll be a long, drawn out education process to get everyone to let go of the old term.
May 7, 2010 at 8:46 am |
We call our “home banking” access eBranch and have started branding everything eBranch to drive this name. Now having mobile banking as well…Online dosen’t seem quite right either.
May 7, 2010 at 9:48 am |
@Joanne – I wouldn’t worry about what your members call it. They can call it what they like. The question is what does the CU itself call it, and is it consistent? As long as the CU is consistent, members will get it, whether or not they use the CU’s terminology. After all, most members call their CU “their bank.” And that’s okay.
May 7, 2010 at 9:50 am |
@Tina – You are right that online banking doesn’t actually apply to mobile banking. But calling it eBranch doesn’t really work either since it really has nothing to do with a branch. I don’t think of my iPhone as a bank or credit union branch.
May 24, 2010 at 6:58 am |
I was just saying the other day that I like the term “home banking”. Here are the reasons why:
1. It does roll off the tongue easier than “online banking” (don’t underestimate how lazy we are with our syllables. Ask any Joe, Bill or Bob.)
2. The word “home” has a warmer, happier connotation for most people. It’s personal. For many, home = safe and happy. What word does ‘online’ emotionally conjure?
3. If a term sticks around for a long time, it’s probably for a reason. People like it. (Your comment “don’t worry what your member call it”) has me perplexed. Why ignore the terminology they gravitate toward?
June 8, 2010 at 8:17 pm |
Catching up on the water cooler and loved this post. I get so crazy about the term “checking account” not accurately reflecting how the account is used any more – it feels so dated and faded to me, but not quite as bad as share draft. Well now I can add “home banking” to the list – not sure I can come up with the great marketing names that are memorable and more accurately describe these accounts and services, but that does not mean I will stop looking. Welcome to the 21st century!
August 6, 2012 at 2:55 am |
my idea is ….because we dont go to bank wiht our car or each vehicle..and we help trees because we dont use any paper for our work…hadi
November 1, 2019 at 12:24 pm |
great post to read
Can we leave behind the term “home banking” yet? | EverythingCU.com World 2.0 Adventure
August 3, 2023 at 2:37 am |
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