Doug True pointed out an article on blogging that may surprise many of you. Here’s Doug’s take:

Take a look at the demographics of those who read blogs. Not what you thought, huh? I know you thought it was all teenagers – admit it. Interesting – more than 54% over the age of 35 and 56% with household incomes greater than $60k. Of the entire Internet audience – 34% are visiting blogs.

I doubt that the typical credit union executive reads blogs, but hopefully that will change soon. (Hint—a certain research institute is about to launch a new site that looks remarkably blogesque. We’ll announce it here when it happens.)

Robbie over at The Life and Times of a Credit Union Employee blog points to the Callahan & Associates study we’ve been anticipating that covers online-only high-yield accounts.

From the press release:

Credit unions cannot afford to ignore this threat to their online member segment. This research identified a group of online members who are a highly attractive segment – not only do they prefer self-service, but they also already have significant relationships with their credit union. These members are already using more services than the frequent branch user segment, which may justify further investments in services or higher yield accounts to maintain their loyalty. The question is how to reward and retain this segment?

The answer seems pretty clear to me: offer a high-yield online-only product.

Just so you know how I feel about the topic, I covered ING Direct’s rumored paperless checking account here and the growing customer base for online-only banks here.

What are some of the online institutions up to? Well, they just keep raising their rates. Yesterday Matt sent me a link to a BeancounterBlog.com post on HSBC Direct’s rate increase to 4.8%.

Don’t ignore your competition that lives online instead of in branches, folks. 19% of your online members with annual incomes over $100k are already using them, or so the study says.

I just got an email from Mark, a fellow Trabianian*, pointing me to a Pew Study about the internet’s role in key life decisions – PDF File.

Highlights include (based on the May 2005 survey):

• Over the last three years the number of internet users who used the internet to help make investment or financial decisions increased by 45%
• Within the past two years 41% of internet users have “Made a major investment or financial decision”
• Only 5% of people who said the internet played an important or crucial role in their decision said they got bad advice or information online

That last stat got me to thinking about the most frequent bit of misinformation I’ve found on credit union websites: I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen incorrect IRA contribution limits listed (presumably because contribution limits have changed so much over the past few years). And now that the deposit insurance for IRAs has increased to $250,000, I’m betting a lot of sites still don’t reflect that change either.

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On a completely unrelated topic, one of my favorite blogs, Ask Uncle Bill, included a quote today that would make Yogi Berra smile. I dub it The Open Source CU Quote of the Day:

Overnight success usually takes a long time.

Read Uncle Bill’s Advice From A One-Earred Man post to give the quote some context.

*Personal to-do list: Make up new word today … check.

Our friend Mark just sent a link to an article showing the number of Americans who bank online has grown stagnant over the past year due to public fears of phishing and hacking. It’s interesting to note, despite those fears,

More people are signing up for new financial and banking services online. Half of all new credit card applications were made online, and about 50 percent of mortgages, home equity loans and car loans were signed up for online, the study said.

The article is from CNET News and is called Hacking fears bog down online banking growth.

I’ve mentioned this before (Educating members about phishing) – rely on both online and offline channels to educate your members about phishing and other forms of ID theft.

Also, just to preview what we’ve got coming here in the next few days, Brent is visiting with some credit unions in Jamaica right now (talk about a working vacation!), and he’ll be posting from there soon.

According to a report on Public Awareness of Internet Terms from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, “the average American internet user is not sure what podcasting is, what an RSS feed does, or what the term ‘phishing’ means.” In fact, less than 30% of internet users have a good idea of the definition of phishing.

Not knowing the meaning of podcasting is certainly excusable. Not knowing the meaning of phishing, however, cost 1.2 million U.S. computer users $929 million between May 2004 and May 2005.

It’s no secret that phishers are increasingly hijacking credit union brands, and even the NCUA’s brand has been used in phishing attempts. In fact, the Anti-Phishing Working Group specifically cites a major increase in the phishing of a “number of small and local credit unions” as leading to a significant increase in all brands being phished in May.

Fight Back

Use both online and offline channels to educate your members about phishing:

• Devote an entire section of your website to scam alerts.
• Print a phishing warning on the back of your statement envelopes.
• Record a message about phishing on your telephone system.
• Have each teller hand out a phishing awareness brochure with each deposit receipt.
• Offer free member workshops on preventing identity theft (host a “shredding party” like UW Credit Union for your members to recycle unwanted confidential documents).

Simply do whatever it takes to keep the message in front of your members, and don’t wait until your next quarterly newsletter to start.

Any other ideas?