By Gareth Vaughan
At least two New Zealand banks are already doing it, and now Westpac in Australia is starting to use people's internet browsing history as a tool to try and sell them more products and services.
The Australian Financial Review reported yesterday that Westpac Australia will start using customers' internet browsing history to help sell them the likes of home loans and credit cards.
The AFR quoted Karen Ganschow, Westpac Australia's head of customer relationship marketing and digital, who said Westpac's "KnowMe" programme was designed to both collect and analyse customer data before suggesting what banking products they might like.
For example, if a customer spent time on Westpac’s website looking at term deposit information, they would be offered one the next time they logged into their account or went to a branch.
Here in New Zealand Westpac NZ noted in its recent half-year financial results presentation that it had launched "personalised digital marketing to engage with customers around their specific needs. "And as one of five strategic imperatives Westpac NZ listed "deepen customer relationships in target segments'."
A Westpac NZ spokesman told interest.co.nz that as part of efforts to be "available to customers everywhere, all the time" the bank is moving from marketing campaigns to "more relevant and personalised conversations".
"Our objective is to link all the channels customers contact us through back to a staff member for a personal and on-going conversation. This allows us to understand what the customers needs are at different times and provide a tailored and relevant option," the Westpac NZ spokesman said.
"This is achieved through a variety of ways including how they respond to emails and what parts of our website they are visiting."
ASB too
Interest.co.nz asked the other big banks whether they were also using customers' internet browsing history as a cross selling tool. ASB said yes, BNZ said no and ANZ NZ's yet to respond.
Via a spokeswoman, Anna Curzon, ASB’s general manager of brand experience & digital channels, said: "Yes, at ASB we use customers’ browsing history on our websites as one way of adding value to the customer banking experience. We use it to ensure we present customers with relevant information, along with presenting options and offers that customers may find useful. It’s about creating a great customer experience and making things easier for them."
A BNZ spokeswoman said; "We don't do this but we're aware of it and are always looking at ways to improve our services to customers."
Meanwhile, Ganschow also told the AFR that Westpac's "KnowMe" tracks where and when customers are charged for using non-Westpac ATMs. If one specific area or ATM was regularly used, Westpac staff would tell the customer where the nearest Westpac ATM was to help them save money. Ganschow added that the system would only track the internet behaviour of users on Westpac's own website.
Westpac NZ is the only one of the major banks to disclose figures for the percentage of its customers that have four or more products with the bank. As of March 31 this was put at 49.8%, which is well ahead of the 31.1% of Westpac's Australian retail unit, and group subsidiary St George's 29.4%. Asked late last year by interest.co.nz why Westpac NZ has significantly more customers taking four or more products than its Australian parent Westpac NZ CEO Peter Clare said it's because New Zealanders are more loyal to banks than Australians.
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7 Comments
Asked late last year by interest.co.nz why Westpac NZ has significantly more customers taking four or more products than its Australian parent Westpac NZ CEO Peter Clare said it's because New Zealanders are more loyal to banks than Australians.
What they don't say is the Australian Government outlawed mortgage exit fees and undertook a major advertising campaign to encourage customers to talk and walk away
Ban on mortgage exit fees
Government reforms started with a ban on mortgage exit fees on new home loans from 1 July 2011.
http://www.bankingreforms.gov.au/content/Content.aspx?doc=exitfees.htm
Oh really . Why does it every time a NZ Bank does something creative the same Sad Sacks pop up with exit fees as the bane of their banking relationship.
The only exit type fees that are charged are the Early Repayment Fee calculated when exiting a Fixed rate Home Loan Contract . That is a valid fee why would you not pay it .
Iconoclast just go and bank with a tin pot 3rd rate high risk 2nd tier institution of which there are a few . Check Standard and Poors or Fitch for details. Plenty still to choose from and one or two like JimsBank might suit .
Otherwise get out of the Flat earth society and recognise NZ Banks are actually pretty good at what they do . Like employ kiwi people , pay more tax than anyone else and make very good profits .
While I don't pretend have a sophisticated knowledge of protection issues on the internet a couple of add ons I do use are addblock plus and donottrackme . Keep the pesky adds away around interest.co.nz, sorry David I know they pay the wages but they are annoying as hell. Not sure if they do an internet explorer version but adblock is avaiable for Chrome.
There are other techniques that will hide your IP addres and give you greater protection.
On top of that use Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE, its free) and something like Malwarebytes.
Because banks are sites you log into, identifying yourself, a bank would be able to identify your browser when you are logged, then identify you from other unlogged in visits (if they care enough to go to those kind of lengths). For a safe demonstration of such techniques, check out the electronic frontier foundation's panopticlick.
What this story really boils down to is that when you conduct business with the bank, they pay attention to your interaction with them. Now, if they were stealing information from your computer about where else you had been that would be a cause of concern, but this sounds just like they are paying attention to what you are interested in.
Yes quite true, even blocking cookies isn't going to help much when you log in. Just goes to show that caution should be exercised, or simply don't log in when browing for general information. A bit like coming to interest.co.nz, your visit is tracked and that visit is used to solicit advertising. Blockers are no help either once you are logged in. Nice link btw.
"The telescreen recieved and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever the wanted to. You had to live- did live, from habit that became instinct- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.
-1984, Book 1, Chapter One, George Orwell via kimdotcom, via http://technosniperz84.blogspot.co.nz/2011/05/quote-from-1984-about-telescreens.html?m=1
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