ARTICLE
http://www.finextra.com/fullstory.asp?id=20559
Vantage Credit Union to offer account information and funds transfers via Twitter
RESPONSE TO ARTICLE
Interesting . . . this article kind of hit a nerve today as I just had a recent convo with someone about this. 
Soooooo, now I’m going to go on a soap box for a second . . .
This is just one of those things that I personally don’t think belongs in the world of social media. If you don’t want it to be shared, I don’t think it should be included in the communications plan for social media. I think it’s a cute idea, but the risks in my opinion totally outweigh the benefits. To answer general questions about the credit union, as a customer service tool that is not automated is a different story – individuals seeing that type of messaging, whereby the credit union is providing great customer service, showcasing their responsiveness and expertise, as well as showing people that they care to be there for their members is something worth using a social media platform for – where others seeing it is a benefit to the company. In this case, everything is confidential and you are using a social medium just because it’s all a-buzz right now when there are other methods that are less risky. Also, anything that relies on using an automated means of communication again goes against the grain of “Social” media. People don’t like to talk to robots – social implies people talking to people. I like their idea here, but I think it belongs with e-alerts or a log-in page on the web site, or even a log-in .mobi page so people can access it on their phones – a more secure method of communication – not to mention, you have no control over when Twitter goes down; it has a lot of technical issues, playing catch-up technically due to it’s overnight explosion, and we don’t know what improvements or changes are going to be made – The lack of control can be a dangerous thing if people start to rely on this type of usage. it seems like a very large and possibly dicey investment logistically without a lot of return, other than to say you use Twitter in a novel way.
As mentioned in the article e-alerts can basically do the same thing but don’t have the same security issues.
www.ceamarketing.com
#1 by Jason Keene on October 20th, 2009
Interesting post Jenn! I agree with most of what you pointed out. I personally use mint.com to manage all my financial accounts. They send you SMS/email alerts that you can configure for similar functionality or you can use their iPhone app for more information/control. Twitter is kinda slow and down sometimes so like you were saying I think something like this is a better option. I’m sure people who are on Twitter 24/7 and aren’t worried too much about privacy would see utility in this though.