The Financial Brand writes about Goldwater Bank’s new website, which is a reflection of Goldwater’s upscale image. Their branch offices look more like posh hotel lobbies than the usual slightly run-down brownish interiors of many other banks. The article mentions Goldwater’s luxury offline amenities like concierge and couriers. So let’s take a closer look at their new website, and see whether it provides the same luxury experience.

First of all, the look of the website is pretty good. It looks somewhat like a hotel, because it shows a picture of the lobby, and it has a prominent link to a virtual tour. So they definitely succeed in promoting their in-bank services. How much online service can you expect from a bank that probably has a limited in-house IT staff? Let’s take a quick look at the home page, online forms and online banking.

Home page

The home page does not include any type of value proposition, just pictures. I personally believe some kind of promotion is useful, especially for people who have never visited a branch office. The moving navigation bar is not very easy to use: visitors have to be pretty good with the mouse to hit the right button. Also, the background music can be annoying, especially since I didn’t find out how to switch it off. Additionally, it would be useful to see where they are based. I would expect a tagline like “Lifestyle Banking in Scottsdale, Arizona”. Also, they might want to invest a little in search engine optimization, because currently only the front page is indexed, and that doesn’t contain any text. So I admire the concept, but feel the execution is lacking.

Application Forms

It’s very good that the ‘apply online’ button is prominently placed on the home page. There are various applications behind this button, some are PDF, and some are forms hosted on a third party website: theformsgroup.net. These forms look very “2001”, just like the copyright statement on the website of the Forms Group. I’m a big proponent of software as a service, and it’s probably the right decision for a small bank. I wonder if other vendors provide forms that deliver a better user experience: does anybody know such vendors?

They also have their own forms; however, the apply-for-a-loan form gives a ‘page not found’ error, which is obviously not a good thing.

Online Banking

I’m not able to login to the actual online banking system, but I assume they are using some kind of off-the-shelf software, because it is very costly to develop your own online banking system. I’ve recently looked at Jwaala, and they have an impressive offering for small banks: see their screenshots. They provide an attractive online banking system that connects to various core banking systems. Regarding Goldwater: they should also revamp their online banking login page: it looks like it hasn’t been changed in over ten years. It even has promo buttons for Netscape 4 and Internet Explorer 4 (released in 1997).

Summary

The Financial Brand weblog is pretty positive about the new Goldwater site. And at first sight I agree. However, in my opinion it doesn’t go beyond pretty pictures. I don’t think it’s a matter of spending more money: it’s really about smart use of 3rd party tools such as Jwaala which make it much more cost-effective for small banks to offer a large-bank online customer experience. What is your take? Can we expect small banks to have a really cool and functional website? Or is that only possible for the bigger banks?