Pygg Helps Australian Students Pay their Friends via Twitter or Facebook

2012-03-30T19:18:22+01:00

Pygg.co, one of the latest social media innovations in banking has raised many eyebrows, with its pledge to transfer small amounts of money through SMS, Twitter and E-mail.

Tim Howard (son of former Prime Minister John Howard) and Rohan Lund (chief executive of Seven West Media's digital arm Yahoo!7) are the founding investors of Pygg.

Find out what has proved to be a great test market in Australia for the Pygg...

Mr. Howard says "Rohan and I have shared a common philosophy that technology is going to be pretty disruptive to just about every industry, and we were looking at investing in something and the banking industry was quite attractive, We really wanted to build a payment network that makes it easy and fun to pay your friends and family."

Pygg requires users to create their account and make payments through different electronic platforms as per their choice. It charges $2.50 to deposit into their account and with a deposit in their accounts, users can transfer money using SMS, Twitter and even email.

Mr Howard believes that universities are a great test market – he says "University students are early adopters; they are quite digitally savvy and they are also the first generation that is totally comfortable transacting money online," office holders at the Mechanical Undergraduates Society and students of University of Sydney, have already used the services and are quite satisfied. Mr. Vickers, MUGS Presidents happily agrees "As a (student) society we will definitely use it a bit,"

And expect a lot of activity in the next few weeks, when Pygg will allow transactions via their iPhone app and Facebook! So, have you had a chance to try the service? Would you like to be able to pay a friend via twitter or facebook?

During his business trip to the Asia Pacific region in Q4 2011, Christophe Langlois had a chance to interview the Pygg team in Sydney, days after the launch of the service. We invite you to check Christophe’s article, which includes a video interview, to find more information on this innovative social payment service.

Working Together
We at Visible Banking would be delighted to help you and your team better UNDERSTAND and LEVERAGE social media in a strategic yet pragmatic way.

So please don't hesitate to call me, send me an email or DM me (@Visible_Banking ) to book a meeting and talk about twitter, facebook, crowdsourcing, customer reviews, social media & social commerce in banking, financial services and insurance.

Other Articles of Interest on Visible-Banking.com
* All my posts related to Twitter
* All my posts related to Facebook
* Visible Banking Directory: Social Media in Financial Services
* Visible Banking Social Media Watch Series (Twitter, Facebook, Blogs)

Progressive Insurance Taps Twitter and Instagram with #BestDayEver

2012-03-29T19:16:07+01:00

Once more, Progressive Insurance leverages the immense popularity of its fictional character Flo, the Progressive girl. Over the years, Flo has built a community of 3.7 million americans via its dedicated page on facebook, an engaged audience 85 times bigger than Progressive's own facebook community.

This time, the campaign which aims to generate a significant amount of digital buzz and drive the volume of requests for free insurance quotes, taps into twitter and instragram, and focuses on photography and music.

Progressive launched a dedcated micro-site ' http://www.FlosBestDay.com'.

I invite you to watch the video which has already been viewed more than 37,000 times.

According to Progressive's digital agency "the campaign is not to drive retail sales, but awareness and brand equity" and "the campaign is designed to engage users on the social Web in conversation and engagement around Flo, the video, and the Progressive brand".

It is interesting to point out that Flo's facebook page was originally launched by fans, and it is only about 18 months ago that the insurer started to own and manage the page.

Please note that the leading US-based insurance firms have invested a lot of time, resources and money on facebook which proved 'successful': Progressive, Allstate and State Farm all made our Top 10 most followed financial institutions in our Visible Banking Twitter Watch series (we track over 1,700 accounts in 78 countries).

This twitter campaign is purely focused on brand and marketing, so we are far from the brilliant, business-driven, American Express' Twitter Sync', but who said that a financial brand, let alone an insurer, couldn't be 'cool'?

Working Together
We at Visible Banking would be delighted to help you and your team better UNDERSTAND and LEVERAGE social media in a strategic yet pragmatic way.

So please don't hesitate to call me, send me an email or DM me (@Visible_Banking ) to book a meeting and talk about twitter, facebook, crowdsourcing, customer reviews, social media & social commerce in banking, financial services and insurance.

Other Articles of Interest on Visible-Banking.com
* All my posts related to Twitter
* All my posts related to Facebook
* Visible Banking Directory: Social Media in Financial Services
* Visible Banking Social Media Watch Series (Twitter, Facebook, Blogs)