NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Portana is in the building. Portana (www.portana.com) is the portal creation of FISI-Madison, a Cendant subsidiary, and FundsXpress, an Internet solutions provider. Some credit unions may already be familiar with FundsXpress' Web solutions. The company has a relationship with CUNA to provide CUs with Internet banking solutions. CUNA President/CEO Dan Mica even sits on the FundsXpress board. The just-released Portana is designed to give credit unions control of what their members are seeing, and how they are being marketed to, said Greg Constantine, a senior vice president with FISI-Madison. Constantine said any competitive advertising can be squelched by the credit union. The credit union can also present its entire online suite of products from within Portana, including Internet banking, online lending, online brokerage and shopping for insurance. Constantine said this transaction component is not fully developed yet, but should be available by year-end. FISI-Madison and FundsXpress are working on developing a single log-in to allow members access to all of the above online functions. The idea is to prevent members from getting bogged down logging in separately to all of the different components, said Constantine. Portana also offers credit unions revenue sharing opportunities, including sharing on banner advertising dollars and revenue from member purchases. The portal, like most, provides loads of content, including search engines; direct news feeds (Portana's is from Reuters); stock quotes; horoscopes; and on and on, but there is also a component that allows the credit union to offer local businesses advertising and news space on the portal. Down the pike, Constantine said one major differentiator between Portana and the other portals is the development of an e-wallet. Constantine said the e-wallet will allow members to make purchases anywhere on the Web using a CU loan or account product. At first the e-wallet will be launched with the CU's credit card as the form of payment, but Constantine said in about 180 days they expect to tie the e-wallet to a member's share account-debiting a member's account once a purchase is made. Constantine said Portana will also utilize data mining, predictive modeling and one-to-one marketing tools for credit unions to target products to members. All information about members' movements through the portal are available to the credit unions only, said Constantine. He said some credit unions have expressed interest in these reports so that they can match products with members' needs. Unlike some of the other portals, Portana is available to both credit unions and banks. The name "Portana" doesn't mean much of anything, said Constantine. "It's one that our ad agency created. They came up with about 300. This one stuck. It's catchy," he said. Constantine said Portana currently has 25 financial clients (a mix of credit unions and banks). Credit unions pay a one-time initial marketing fee. -
pgentile@cutimes.com
