Movenbank has moved to address concerns about its use of Facebook for registration and logging into movenbank.com. The branchless, paperless, mobile centric bank unveiled an alpha site last month, with a commercial launch set for 2012.

However, the new venture's decision to require 'Alpha Team members' to use Facebook to register and log in has not gone down well with the trialists. An unsurprising turn of events given the controversy that has raged around the social network's privacy controls. The company took to its blog to address the situation, stating: "Are we only going to use Facebook? Absolutely not. As we build towards our full banking service we will supplement the registration and login features with additional authentication channels, including a private, Movenbank-specific user identity as well as other popular social media channels like Twitter and LinkedIn."

The blog post adds: "Facebook provides a secure and accessible framework for user management that we were able to hook into very easily. Facebook also has several hundred million global users and a large percentage of the United States, our first market, has Facebook accounts. So we decided not to re-invent the wheel and instead focus on Movenbank’s long-term goal of providing you with a financial service linked to your behaviour and financial life. Many other startups have made the same decision. The primary driver behind our release of the alpha site was to begin developing a relationship with you, our users, and to gain an understanding of how you interact with your money. We are using that information to identify your Financial Personality, which will allow us to formulate financial insights and guidance to help you improve your financial health and behaviour."

It goes on to stress that Movenbank is only taking Facebook data when greenlighted by users. "We are collecting the information available on your Facebook profile’s “Info” screen that you have marked as Public. We are using information like your first and last name, current location, and profile picture to customise your Movenbank Dashboard. We are looking at your list of friends, identifying which of them are also Movenbank Alpha Team members and are showing you each other’s personality, but only if both of you both choose to share this information. This additional step is an opt-in feature and your personality will not be displayed unless you explicitly enable sharing on your Dashboard. Don’t see your friends? Get them to turn on sharing… you both might be surprised what you see."

Movenbank says that it is not sharing any data with external parties, it will not publish content to a user's Wall unless they click on a Share link from its site and it will not send spam to any individuals or their friends.

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