Problem:

Since 1923, Washington Mutual's School Savings initiative has helped hundreds of thousands of elementary-school students learn the value of saving money. The program--a partnership between Washington Mutual and schools across the United States--enables students to open bank accounts and make deposits right at their school, with the help of parent volunteers, and without students needing to make special trips to the bank.

From 1977 to 2001, the program was run using floppy disks. Student deposits were recorded on disks at each school, and then the disks were mailed to a central clearinghouse to be processed. There were a number of problems with this approach: high support costs, data-corruption issues, delayed deposits, and the challenges of outfitting schools with the proper technology and support.

Solution:

Dark Frequency collaborated with Washington Mutual to create wamu.schoolsavings.com, a Web-based version of the School Savings program, replacing the antiquated floppy-disk system. The site provides a robust, secure, password-protected framework through which students and parent volunteers can perform bank-day activities, such as recording deposits and printing receipts. When the volunteer arrives at the local Washington Mutual branch to deposit the hard cash, an electronic paper trail awaits.

In addition, wamu.schoolsavings.com offers a host of reporting tools for students, schools, and Washington Mutual financial centers and marketing teams--something that was largely absent in the old system.

Result:

When the Web site launched in 2001, there were around 60,000 students enrolled in the School Savings program. Today, there are more than 220,000 students enrolled. The program is a huge success for Washington Mutual, generating lots of community goodwill, not to mention a steady stream of new customers. By moving to a Web-based system, Washington Mutual significantly reduced its support costs--eliminating the need for a clearinghouse and people entering the data--and made it easier for schools and students to participate in the program.

Technologies Used:

Microsoft.NET Framework (ASP.NET, Web services)
Microsoft SQL Server

Additional Tasks Performed:

Mainframe integration
MapPoint.NET integration

© Dark Frequency

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