Yesterday, PNC Bank announced new enhancements to Virtual Wallet^®, their online and mobile management tool. During a time when a lot of consumers are struggling with their finances, it’s encouraging to see financial institutions offer products that focus on education and awareness. By focusing on helping customers manage their finances more conveniently, PNC continues their engagement and focus on their customers. In the long run, this strategy will come back to benefit PNC through customer loyalty.

According to the release put out by PNC, a few of the enhancements:

• Budgeting and Smart Spending: Customers can consolidate their spending methods (e.g., debit card, credit card, online bill payments, etc.) and create budgets for their spending categories (e.g., education, groceries and entertainment) – all in one view. Graphical indicators and opt-in alerts keep them informed about spending and help stick to their budgets, e.g., a yellow icon shows when the budget is close to being overspent and a burst shows it was overspent.
• Credit Card Tracking: Customers can now add eligible PNC credit cards to Virtual Wallet so they can see a complete picture of this spending in one place. The card balance, available credit and monthly spending history will appear together. Transactions will appear on the calendar function with a “payment due” reminder.
• More Alerts to Avoid Mistakes and Fees: New alerts help customers keep track of their debit and credit card usage with e-mail and text messages while adding security, e.g., notification when the card is used for online purchases or overseas. New alerts include “$pendometer,” which tracks dollars like an odometer tracks miles – monitoring total spending over a chosen timeline, and “Threshold Amount” – which flags overspending on a single transaction or the total for a day/week/month.

Providing tools and resources for consumers to bank smarter and more conveniently. Such a novel concept. Clearly, PNC understands what consumers are looking for in a financial partner. This is a great example of a financial institution providing a product that benefits both parties.