Bank of America Web Site is the Leader on Keynote Systems’ Banker Scorecard — Premier Best Practices Study for Banking Web Sites Now in Eleventh Year

Keynote Competitive Research, the industry research division of Keynote® Systems (Nasdaq:KEYN), the global leader in on-demand mobile and Internet test & measurement solutions for continuously improving the online experience, today announced the Q4 2009 Banker Scorecard, the latest edition of the Banker Scorecard. Now in its 11^th year and covering 25 large and regional banks over 320 of the most relevant criteria, the Scorecard remains the most authoritative study of customer experience best practices in online banking and sales.

Rather than applauding banks for every gee-whiz feature they roll out, the Scorecard starts with the premise that certain features and design elements help the online customer experience and other things don’t help, and that some helpful features and design elements matter more than others. To arrive at the essential criteria, Keynote draws on an unparalleled number of live user tests of banks’ public and online banking sites, interviews with privacy experts and usability professionals, market research data and proof points provided by financial services providers. Keynote is then able to cull out the things that don’t matter to customers, even if they’re bells and whistles that may win analyst awards or buzz. Keynote then focuses on the elements that do help customers, weighting each criterion according to its relevance to the online customer experience and sorting criteria into useful categories, such as Functionality and Ease of Use, and into critical tasks, such as Open Account or Get Service.

Bank of America repeats as winner for Overall score, expanding its lead on second place to 5 points on a scale of 100. Bank of America wins the Functionality, Ease of Use, Privacy & Security categories and the Look Up Information, Transact and Learn and Plan tasks.

Citibank wins for Quality and Availability, a category that covers such best practices as bill pay guarantees, the availability of customer support for online banking and Spanish-language online banking, where Citibank stands out with its Spanish-language banking offering. Citibank also wins the Open Accounts task. Chase wins the Get Service task on the basis of its support for a large variety of critical customer service items.

As Keynote has been conducting Scorecards about twice a year or more for over a decade, it has been able to spot and evaluate trends in online delivery as they emerge. Important trends Keynote spotted are now maturing: In money movement, most Scorecard banks (16 out of 25) are now offering the ability to move money between the bank and the customer’s accounts at another bank — more than the number of Scorecard banks that present third-party bills such as phone bills and electric bills within online banking. Keynote has also mapped the rise of mobile banking, noting that between SMS, WAP2 and thick-client mobile banking (each of which is tracked on the Scorecard), 16 of 25 Scorecard banks now offer transactional mobile banking.

"The Scorecard shows us which trends that have received publicity in the banking industry are in fact reaching customers. Banks are exposing customers to mobile banking and advanced money movement and these services are getting used,” says Chris Musto, general manager, Keynote competitive research at Keynote Systems. "The best practice as banks roll out new features such as these is to not forget the many usability lessons the banks have learned over the years with more mature features. Some banks are remembering these lessons while others are making usability mistakes anew as they roll out new features.”

The latest Scorecard evaluation period was eventful due to the high rate of site redesigns, notes Musto. "With five banks each rolling out significant redesigns that each show capabilities and usability touches not seen at the very largest banks, we can see how there aren’t just a handful of banks moving the ball forward online, but rather many, and from across the country. And with these redesigns we see each bank playing to its brand and strengths with targeted innovations. We also see how banks are innovating past the classic tension between putting as much useful informational and transactional content up front and making online banking easy to use and understand.”

The study is available for purchase from Keynote and comes with all scores and all answers for all banks with written analysis of each bank, along with access to prior Scorecards. To inquire about a Keynote Banker Scorecard subscription, please view: http://www.keynote.com/company/contact/request.html

About Keynote

Keynote Systems (NASDAQ:KEYN) is the global leader in on-demand test & measurement solutions for continuously improving the online experience. For over a decade, Keynote has been providing measurement data and testing capabilities that allow companies to understand and improve their customers’ online and mobile experience. Keynote has four test and measurement businesses: Web performance, mobile quality, streaming & VoIP and customer experience/UX.

Known as The Mobile and Internet Performance Authority™, Keynote has a market-leading infrastructure of 3,000 measurement computers and mobile devices in over 240 locations around the world. Keynote’s 2,800 customers represent top Internet and mobile companies including American Express, Disney, eBay, E*TRADE, Expedia, Microsoft, SonyEricsson, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, Vodafone and YouTube.

Keynote Systems, Inc. is headquartered in San Mateo, California and can be reached at www.keynote.com or by phone in the U.S. at 1-800-KEYNOTE.

Keynote®, DataPulse®, CustomerScope®, Keynote CE Rankings®, Keynote Customer Experience Rankings®, Perspective®, Keynote Red Alert®, Keynote Traffic Perspective®, Keynote WebEffective®, The Internet Performance Authority®, MyKeynote® , SIGOS®, SITE®, Keynote™, The Mobile & Internet Performance Authority™, Screen Sensing Technology and Keynote FlexUse™ are trademarks or registered trademarks of Keynote Systems, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2009 Keynote Systems, Inc.