TECHNOLOGY SPECTATOR: Banking's Facebook frenemies

Banks are tapping into social media channels to better connect with customers, but are they willing to respond to suggestions in order to make friends?

By Charis Palmer ·
7 Dec 2011

Technology Spectator

Banks have been in the headlines this week for all the wrong reasons, with ANZ in court for the latest round of a class action case alleging many of its fees are illegal.

It is something of a major indictment of the bank's technology efficiency (or lack of) that it can continue to argue that $35 represents the actual cost to the bank of handling a late payment, but that's a story for another time.

What's equally interesting is that while 34,000 ANZ bank customers line up to sue their bank, the banking sector is looking for new ways to get closer to customers through social media.

In the UK, HSBC is at the tail end of a long-running case in which it has proposed a revised $62.5 million settlement with investors in an Irish fund that lost millions in Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme.