Making good on the “anytime, anywhere“ promise（Meleis, Sherie. ABA Banking ,2010.2 (4):36-38）How some banks keep their web experience fresh and flexible, pushed by mobile developmentsOn a recent blustery, winter afternoon two staffers of nearly $160 million assets Legence Bank based in Eldorado, Ill., chatted on the phone with ABABJ about its fresh looking website. It makes use of a rotating center banner that features its Smart Business Checking, a charity oriented, third party checking brand called Kasasa, a Boomerang Bucks reward program, and a trade publication cover article trumpeting its can-do approach to making smart hires and motivating staff.This was enough formation to sink a landing page of old, but with Flash and similar technologies, all of the messaging streamed along, staying long enough in the visual field only to tantalize. (Each product page features a “Tell me more“ email generator or “Apply Now“ link to generate leads or applications.) When it searched for a partner to help update the site in 2007, Legence was interested in making the site look modern while signaling the banks “with-it-ness.“ Transactions needed to be kept intuitive. Designed in 2008 by Austin based First ROI, the Legence site now succeeds on those terms, notes Vicki Commiskey, senior marketing and communications counsel.“If theres an opportunity to provide a useful service, we want to make it happen,“ she said. Wayne Garret, vice-president of IT chimed“ in: “Were always on the hunt for good vendors to partner with to do more with the channel.“ Big-bank sites not always better Thanks to a face-off among internet vendors to improve product offerings as an extension of their core processing services, the old divide between big bank and community bank capability is closing. Of the consolidated base of vendors that remain, channel products are meeting community bank needs.Take Farmers State Bank of Munith, Mich. Laurie Goodlock, director of marketing-certified financial services at the $62 million assets community bank, says, “we dont have Flash or flashiness on our website. It wouldnt fit our image and brand.“ Yet the simple exterior houses a sophisticated site. The bank offers internet banking, bill payment, and mobile banking from Funds Xpress First Data.Goodlock advertised Farmers State Banks mobile banking with banners at branch locations and with a direct mailing. “We are just starting to get highspeed internet access and we need more towers to make mobile service more widely adopted here,“ she says.Still, the bank wanted to move slightly ahead of the technology curve in Goodlocks region because she thinks that such moves will reach tomorrows bank customers. For that reason, she is also thinking about experimenting with Twitter and Facebook. “Our official tagline is The bank where you feel at home,“ Goodlock says. Naturally, if tomorrows customers feel at home in the so-called remote channels, then thats where shed like to be.Although site experiences vary, generally, mobile and internet channels are each undergoing rapid incremental change. Once thought of as merely an extension of a website, mobile is beginning to be its own “thing,“ literally and figuratively, certainly in the mind of the customer.At the same time, the internet has flowered. In five short years, internet banking has been affected by Web 2.0, the rise of rich internet applications (RIA), and other advances that make the web experience closer to what people expect from their computer desktop software. Rapid change in small steps As a result, static, crowded sites are giving way to something more flexible and informing. Yet, the hunt to add value never ceases nor should it, say experts.Critics of these channels continue the call for a nonstop advancement in design and capabilities including doing more with actionable alerts as they urge banks to do more with technology and complain that change isnt coming fast enough, nor is it as significant as it could be.The era of the banking transaction is out, they say; the time of the value play should be ushered in, including use of personal financial management (PFM) tools. “Banks need to be thinking about what, beyond storage of money, they can do for customers,“ says Mark Schwanhausser, a research analyst with Javelin Strategy and Research, Pleasanton, Calif. (Nearly everyone mentioned the buzz around PFM and sites such as Mint.com a free online money management site that boasts more than one million users-and most experts were certain that it was a development that would have legs.)Most banks tend to favor a more measured approach to their website upgrades, both for compliance reasons and because they dont like to disrupt customers with unnecessary change.“When youve trained your customers to step through a certain process, and then you change it, that can be the equivalent of when your local grocery store alters the layout and makes it harder to find your favorites,“ says Dan Fisher, a f