As Wall Street embraces the inevitable tide of social media, fiduciary responsibility is taking on new parameters.

In a different kind of security risk as Morgan Stanley Smith Barney is stepping up its social media reach, granting its 17,000 financial advisers partial access to Twitter and LinkedIn over the next several months. The move expands a year-long experiment with 600 employees to test whether social media would be a helpful tool for its employees.

Of the 600 advisers involved in the trial, 40% cited new business through their social media use and of those 240, 60% said those new customers had more than $1m worth of assets. “The big takeaway is that it works,” commented Lauren Boyman, director of digital strategy at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, to the New York Times.Continue reading...

P&G and Walmart aren't the only brands putting the "mobile" into their marketing mix by hitching their brands to the food truck craze.

A new kind of chuck wagon hits New York City today as financial services brand Charles Schwab invites locals to their “Oh, Chuck! Truck” on June 13-14 for the chance to win $10,000 in a Schwab Brokerage Account. 

The campaign is part of Schwab’s YouTube video series, “Oh, Chuck! I Blew My Cash,” which features Chuck proffering financial advice to people confessing to unfortunate purchases causing regret and angst.Continue reading...

The notion of crowdfunding has actually existed for centuries as crowds gathered to hear and support pitches, but digital technology and social media have catapulted that notion to new heights and expanded the playing field and the playbook.

When President Obama signed the April 5th legislation, "Capital Raising Online While Deterring Fraud and Unethical Non-Disclosure Act" a.k.a. the Crowdfund Act, as part of his JOBS (Jumpstart Our Businesses and Startups) Act, the general public became empowered to fund startups and small businesses and receive stock (equity) in exchange, as well as legalized 'general solicitation,' which means that startups and companies can leverage social media like FaceBook and LinkedIn to raise funds.

Kickstarter’s modus operandi of crowdfunding individual projects has iterated to the next level of VC-like funding, which prior to the President’s action, could only be donation-based — making it illegal in the U.S. for a company to raise money from a crowd that would then grow the business.Continue reading...

The latest TV commercial from Ally Bank, “Grocery,” (above) touts the brand’s "people sense" which translates into customer-centricity as good business sense, specifically, Ally’s Raise Your Rate CD, one of their most popular products.

Ally Bank, a direct bank in the U.S., is a subsidiary of Ally Financial Inc., and offers a full suite of financial services including 24/7 live customer care, online savings, interest checking, money market accounts, IRA Plans and products, CD’s, reimbursement of ATM fees nationwide, an Ally Perks debit card reward program, and is a member FDIC. 

"Ally Bank brand awareness has reached an all-time high throughout the duration of this campaign," said Ally Financial CMO Sanjay Gupta. "With it, we continue to see the strongest brand linkage since the Bank's launch in 2009." Indeed, Ally Bank now has over 1 million customer accounts — and it's now expanding its customer-centric offerings with the launch of Ally Mobile Banking for smartphone users.Continue reading...

The race for NFC-based mobile payments is heating up with projections for 2013 exceeding $13 billion globally, up from just over $7 billion in 2011, according to Gartner research.

Isis, the mobile-payments joint venture backed by AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, has signed up Coca-Cola, Macy’s, Aéropostale, Dillard’s, Foot Locker (and its subsidiary Champs Sports) and Jamba Juice, as well as hundreds of local retailers in Texas and Utah who will start accepting Isis payments by this summer.

Both Isis and competitor Google Wallet use NFC chips that store user’s credit card data or pre-loaded digital cash. Both companies are also working with check-out scanners and retailers including Gap, Office Max, Toys ‘R’ Us and Walgreens. 

Google Wallet is currently available on four Sprint handsets and none from the mobile operators backing Isis. Sprint is the only U.S. carrier backing Google Wallet and to that end just released the LG Optimus Elite for Virgin Mobile.Continue reading...

In its latest social spending salvo, American Express has launched a mobile offer engine, a “spend graph”  for U.S. cardmembers that recommends and ranks local merchant offers real-time based on spending history and location.

“We developed our mobile offer engine with three key points of differentiation in mind: relevance, convenience and value,” stated Josh Silverman, president of the U.S. Consumer Services Group at American Express. 

Piloted via the "My Offers" feature on the American Express iPhone app, local offer recommendations will be concentrated in Los Angeles and New York City with an overlay of nationwide merchants such as Baskin-Robbins and Dunkin' Donuts.  

“My Offers” leverages the Smart Offer technology that powers the company's card sync programs with Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare connecting merchants and Cardmembers.

"In an increasingly crowded marketplace, where consumers are bombarded with daily deals, we saw an opportunity to help our Cardmembers save time as well as money by curating meaningful offers for them," added Silverman.

Users can download or update the iPhone app to see "Offers Available for You," along with a dashboard that shows offers added to their card, expiration dates, and savings delivered via a statement credit within three to five days. The brand has also enhanced its Go Social entry tool for SMB’s.Continue reading...

NYSE Euronext today unveiled a new logo, an abstract vision of the globe that “visualizes the concept of unlocking the potential of our worldwide community," according to Euronext’s global head of marketing, Marisa Ricciardi, in a blog post.

"Our company has transformed dramatically over the course of the last five years, so we’re rolling out a new brand identity that better represents both our position today, and our direction for the future," she adds.

The vibrant blue and green colors represent “growth and optimism,” Ricciardi notes. The lighter hues, meanwhile, “convey our commitment to transparency, and the bolder colors recall our storied historical role in developing the world economy."Continue reading...

Barclays got out of the branch-banking business in the United States in the early 1990s, but now the British bank is making a digital run at the U.S. by wooing Americans to its new online banking service.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Barclays, which will have its name on the side of the new Brooklyn Nets arena when it opens later this year to basketball (and Barbra Streisand) fans, is looking to “diversify funding for its growing credit-card operations” in the U.S. The British bank, as Marketwatch notes, today went live in the U.S. with a high-yield savings account and certificates of deposit through its Barclays Bank Delaware subsidiary.Continue reading...