Not sure if any of you are Bank of America customers, but I dropped by IDEO Palo Alto on Friday afternoon to have a conversation with Altay Sendil about the emotional and human aspects of the goods and services we use.
The Keep The Change program (I'm not a BofA client) is one of my favorite examples of good design strategy. When BofA was looking at creating an easy savings account, the questions started (predictably) about how we use savings accounts - about interest rates, linked accounts, online tracking, and other functionality that we classify as "account features". But the interesting question is not how we save, but why we save. What is our savings paradigm? Fundamentally, how do we interact with money? What are our deep-seated attitudes, our internal scripting about spending and savings?
Understanding the why was important to making the how work. The Keep The Change program is very well-received in the consumer banking arena.
Microfinance in developing countries caters to similar attitudes. Repayment rates for microlending in Bangladesh are unbelievably high - not because people are more capable than in other countries to repay the loans, but because the lending structure - the women-centric, group-accountability, installment-structured system of lending - works for the villagers who take the money. The process fits with their relationship to money and the way they view capital and investments.
I have a Way2Save account with Wachovia (Wells). As I build my own financial paradigms and explore my attitudes toward wealth and savings, it's been interesting to take a deeper look at how I interact with money, and to talk to others (including my parents) about how they deal with their own finances. About saving and spending. About the things that I value and what I'm willing to pay for them. About creation and consumption.
So how do you interact with your savings? When you were growing up, what did you learn about saving and spending? Ultimately, what is your relationship with money?
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| (photo courtesy of... ) |
Understanding the why was important to making the how work. The Keep The Change program is very well-received in the consumer banking arena.
Microfinance in developing countries caters to similar attitudes. Repayment rates for microlending in Bangladesh are unbelievably high - not because people are more capable than in other countries to repay the loans, but because the lending structure - the women-centric, group-accountability, installment-structured system of lending - works for the villagers who take the money. The process fits with their relationship to money and the way they view capital and investments.
I have a Way2Save account with Wachovia (Wells). As I build my own financial paradigms and explore my attitudes toward wealth and savings, it's been interesting to take a deeper look at how I interact with money, and to talk to others (including my parents) about how they deal with their own finances. About saving and spending. About the things that I value and what I'm willing to pay for them. About creation and consumption.
So how do you interact with your savings? When you were growing up, what did you learn about saving and spending? Ultimately, what is your relationship with money?
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