Interesting article yesterday in Finextra on Tower Group's view of Web 2.0 adoption in the financial services sector. Tower Group warns that "regulatory compliance represents a major challenge to the take-up of the technology, given that Web 2.0 tools are designed to break down walls and to allow freeform collaboration" and in a related article, Conchango said many of UK's major retail banks and building societies may be reluctant to embrace Web 2.0 applications over fears for their brand. 

Recently Gartner encouraged banks to develop Web 2.0 applications "that support multi-channel delivery for personal account information and alerts"...and "to monitor emerging Internet social networks for their potential for partnerships to offer services within the network or to create non-traditional distribution channels by dealing with customers one-to-one".

Read more on Conchango's Web 2.0 blog and worth checking out the McKinsey report on the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies too.