The role of bloggers in banks is still unclear

Recently James Gardner wrote an interesting piece on bloggers based in banks, heres the details:

Summary of James’ comments:

We are presently not at the stage where unbridled comment on sensitive matters would be seen as a positive contribution to the debate, and I doubt very many bank employees anywhere are in such a position.

That’s why you don’t see much comment from the few bankers who have blogs and can be traced back to their institutions.

Now, there is nothing much wrong with this.

I think, in the end, that banks will get to complete transparency in the medium term. The current crisis may even speed that along. But in the meantime, I’m quite certain that small, careful, baby steps towards that goal are much, much better than an all out race to the finish line.

About the closest I’ve seen anyone associated with a bank come close to commentary on this stuff is Rob Findlay at NAB in his BankChannel blog. But even he is reserved? Any comments Rob?

My response:

I’ve run The Bank Channel for about 2 years now, and in that time NAB has known about it for about half of that time. And when they did find out, there was barely a shrug about the conflict here, as it was clearly me expressing my opinions and not that of the bank.

If however I said that I was making comments for NAB, Corp Comms would have used a fairly heavy hand and stopped me in my tracks, and fair enough in the current climate.

As I say in my disclaimer (I hate the fact that I need one, and James, I think I copied yours and altered it anyway) these are my ideas, given I work at NAB, but I’m happy to promote other banks new ideas and innovations if submitted to me.

I agree with James that the world does not need me, someone who is not a banker nor qualified to discuss things financial and economical, to speak on behalf of the learned folk in our bank (altho you see I attempt to comment on economic policy etc, more for my own development than as an authority). Cameron et al are the best to discuss this. But I too am patient, and think this sitiation will change.

I like the BofA blog, and the Wells/Wachovia blogs – they’re excellent communication mechanisms that corporations under estimate and more particularly under resource. But in the end I really like good ideas, new ways of doing business, excellent customer experience, regardless of where it is. This is what I’ll report on for now.