There was a fascinating story in BusinessWeek late last month about Virtual Wallet - an online banking tool aimed at Gen Yers by Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services.

The new service isn't very attractive, from a purely monetary point of view. But it's drawing in about 130 new users a day (4,000 a month or 47,000 a year) because of usability features designed to attract digital natives.

Customers can drag money from account to account on one screen. Instead of a traditional ledger, they view balances on a calendar that displays estimated future cash flow based on when customers are paid, when they pay bills, and on their spending habits. Customers also can set various saving rules with a feature called "Savings Engine," which transfers money to savings when they receive a paycheck, say.

So far PNC has over 20,000 Virtual Wallet customers. They maintain higher than average balances. They're cheaper to service. And 70% of them are Gen Yers...


Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Image# 5222020