让银行业爱上平板的神秘推手

    数字设计公司Fjord拥有花旗（Citi）、移动定位服务上Foursquare和图片分享服务上Flickr等知名客户，它的创始人兼首席执行官奥勒夫•谢柏格森是一个有着几分浪漫情怀的人。在一个阳光灿烂的日子里，他坐在纽约格林威治村的一家咖啡馆里，满是憧憬地谈起了他的公司希望能帮助人们爱上……他们的银行。

    经过2008年的金融危机以及此后漫长而痛苦的复苏阶段，银行业备受公众指责。但账单必须要付，资金转账也还是要进行，账户余额还是要核对。谢柏格森深信在iPad、Kindle等平板电脑上完成此类银行琐事无需吸引眼球的炫目设计，而应该给人一见如故的亲切之感，就如同命中的那个他/她。

    谢柏格森的说法令人信服。这位年近40的首席执行官头发梳得纹丝不乱，一身学院风服装，看上去就像一个大男孩，彬彬有礼，温文尔雅。“恋爱和个人银行等服务之间有相似之处，”并温和而真诚地说。“寻找合适的数字银行服务和寻找人生伴侣是一个道理，寻找其他服务也是一样。”

    他认为，爱上一个人有不同的阶段。“经人撮合。开始约会，这个阶段很重要的一点是要有‘怦然心动’的感觉，”他以略带芬兰口音的语调继续说着。“当你找到真爱时，人们对这段关系——或银行软件——的评价是‘理所当然’，因为一切都顺理成章，他们无法再想象回到过去的日子。这种反应比‘心动’更让人感到满足。”

    Fjord总部位于伦敦，员工总数近200人，在美国和欧洲设有八家办事处，几年来谢柏格森和他的团队一直在从大银行争取并赢得手机/平板电脑应用软件的商业设计项目。从安装率和非常积极的评价等数据来看，Fjord为两大客户——花旗和西班牙银行BBVA （Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria）设计的iPad应用软件引来并留住了客户。从Fjord本身来看，谢柏格森的比喻再恰当不过了。

    Olof Schybergson, the founder and CEO of Fjord, a digital design agency that counts Citi, Foursquare, and Flickr among its clients, is a romantic. Sitting at a cafe in New York's Greenwich Village on a sunny day, he's talking dreamily about his company's desire to help people fall in love with ... their banks.

    After the 2008 collapse of Wall Street and a long, grueling recovery, banks have taken their knocks with the public. But bills must be paid, funds transferred and balances checked. Schybergson believes such financial chores shouldn't be represented on iPads and Kindles with flashy designs that scream for attention. Instead, tablet apps should be instantly familiar and quietly inviting. Like a potential spouse.

    Schybergson is convincing. With his neatly combed hair and his Euro-preppy clothes, the CEO, in his late 30s, is boyish and polite. And subtly charming. "There's an analogy between human relationships and services like personal banking," he says. "Finding the right digital banking service -- or any service -- is like the search for a life's partner," he says earnestly in a soft voice.

    He argues that there are different stages on the way to love. "There's matchmaking. There's dating, where it's important to have a 'wow' response," he continues, speaking with a slight Finnish accent. "When you find true love, people say 'of course!' about the relationship -- or the banking app -- because it feels natural, and they can't imagine a time before having it in their lives. It's a more flattering reaction than 'wow.'"

    Schybergson and his team at Fjord, a nearly 200-person firm headquartered in London and spread across eight offices in the U.S. and Europe, have been courting big banks and winning business designing mobile and tablet apps in the last couple of years. Data proves that Fjord's iPad app designs for two of the company's biggest clients, Citi (C) and Spain-based global bank BBVA (Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria), are luring in and retaining customers, in terms of impressive adoption rates and very positive reviews. In Fjord's case, Schybergson's metaphor has been more than apt.