CaixaBank launches Facebook app

It's astonishing that it's taken so long for Caixa to implement this.

And it's more astonishing how few other banks have implemented a Facebook channel (a financial services term which I usually argue against, but in this case it gets my point across).

Facebook penetration is so high, and with APIs already produced by financial services companies for mobile apps, creating a Facebook app should be a standard business approach.

While we're at it, why not use Facebook Connect to log into Internet banking? It's more secure than a 4 digit PIN number for my card. And a lot more traceable.

Maybe the way to value from Facebook users is thourgh hyper-targeted marketing and not thourgh banking transactions.  The consumer banking segment is so unprofitable today it's going to take lots more than a Facebook-to-bank app to bring the business back. 

This is not the first, but is a member of a chain of applications and social networks that have committed some deal to exchange identity trusts. In principle, this is a good direction in which to move. In practise, we need to be just a bit careful. We need to support moves to create interoperability standards and we need to have a body to enforce compliance with them. I can hear the naysayers talking about yet more bureaucracy and red tape slowing down initiatives, but it would be much more difficult, expensive and embarrassing to back out of the sort of situation that would undoubtedly arise from unfettered use of cobbled together bipartisan arrangements.

In what was arguably a global first, ICICI Bank did this over 2 years ago in India (https://www.finextra.com/news/fullstory.aspx?newsitemid=23331). At the time, I'd commented that, since I found no compelling reason to switch away from NetBanking, I was unlikely to use the FB channel beyond my trial for novelty's sake. I predicted right. But that's only me. With more banks launching FB Banking, we'll soon know how many customers really wish to use social media for banking.