Fresh Thinking from...Bank of America?

We don’t typically think of banks as a source of clever and innovative ideas, but Bank of America has somehow managed to break out of the mold.

Keep the Change is a brilliant new service from Bank of America. In a nutshell, whenever you purchase something with your debit card, it rounds up the amount and transfers the “change” into your savings account.

People know they need to save, but they don’t want to think about it. Most people would prefer for their savings to be built up gradually and automatically—rather than having to transfer a chunk of money at the end of the month or however else they might do it—and that’s exactly what this service provides. It’s a low-pain, low-maintenance way to get started on your savings.

This is going to be a huge feature for Bank of America, and we’ll see other banks jump on the bandwagon soon. All that was needed was for the bank to change their services based on their customers, rather than requiring the customers to accomodate the bank’s traditional system.

If a major bank—an entity not known for agile thought—can imagine and implement such a simple but revolutionary idea for their customers, there’s no reason that you can’t do the same in your own business. Get to it!