By Susan A. Baird
PBN Web Editor
WESTERLY – The Washington Trust Co. is preparing to roll out a new Web site with sections for personal banking, wealth management and business customers, including specialty sections for customers in various business sectors, such as retail, construction, manufacturing, nonprofit or health care. “We tried to make it so you get the information you need within two clicks,” Lisia E. Quinlivan, a Washington Trust vice president and the bank’s e-commerce manager, told Providence Business News today.
The site itself is set to launch Monday at mid-afternoon, a time when online banking is relatively light, Elizabeth B. Eckel, the bank’s senior vice president of marketing, and Sharon M. Walsh, vice president of marketing, said in a telephone interview today. “We have a lot of online banking customers, so we wanted to inconvenience them as little as possible,” they said.
An expansion of Washington Trust’s online banking system will follow in early January, Quinlivan said.
None of the archived data will be lost, the bank spokeswomen emphasized. Instead, online banking customers will gain access to new features. “For instance, customers will be able to do stop-payments, customers will be able to do loan overpayments [of more than the minimum due]. … They’ll be able to update their e-mail address,” said Quinlivan, who has been working closely with the bank’s service provider, Digital Insight, on both parts of the roll-out.
The new system also will be compatible with the latest versions of Quicken – unlike the current system, which supports only versions through ’04, she said. “The new technology will be what they call ‘direct connect,’ so customers will be able to pull in their financial details to Quicken from within Quicken,” without exiting the accounting software to download their banking data. They will also able to use Quicken to transfer money from one account to another, she added. “It’s still password-driven, so it is secure. … It’s actually kind of neat!”
The new site is the product of nearly two years of planning and development. “It’s not that the design process took that long, it’s the research,” Quinlivan said.
The site developers searched the Internet for ideas, then a lot of other companies’ sites to see what other companies were doing, Quinlivan recalled.
The additional functionality extends across all customer types. For instance, “in the resource center,” Quinlivan said, “there are actually articles that help you with your business, for instance providing a medical benefit program, managing and motivating your employees.”
“In personal banking, we do ‘How can we help you ...’ – buy your first home, save for college, build your wealth, that sort of thing,” she said.
“Wealth management is a little different. We do have case studies in there,” telling how an executive went about planning for retirement, for instance.
In business, the specialty centers are “driven by your type of business,” Quinlivan said. Walsh explained: “If you’re a retailer and you go to the site, you don’t want to have to wade through information on international exchange rates,” so the new design pulls together the functions each sort of customer is likely to use.
The site also has “crossover links” between the sections, Eckels said. For instance, for business customers who need information on succession or retirement planning. “More customers are using online banking, so the login is on every page,” Walsh added. Every page also has a link to the site’s Security Center, featuring information on phishing, scams and other Internet issues.
The goal, Quinlivan said, was to make the new site “solution-based, so we’re helping you with your financial needs – it’s not just, ‘here’s a checking account.’” What’s more, she said, “We want to stay competitive with the Bank of Americas and Citizens Bank. … The new site makes us look like we’re a $3 billion bank.”
Washington Trust Bancorp Inc. (Nasdaq Global Market: WASH), based in Westerly, is the parent of The Washington Trust Co., a Rhode Island-chartered bank founded in 1800 that has offices in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and southeastern Connecticut. Additional information is available at www.washtrust.com.
