McKay said RBC has begun talking internally about the idea of bill aggregation within Facebook, for example. He likened the situation to people who live outside the city or seniors who made periodic visits downtown and want to accomplish several tasks.

"When I go into a social networking site, I want to do multiple things. One of those things I might want to do is pay my bills," he said. "What I don't want to do is go to six different Web sites and eventually sign in six different times. We're trying to create that kind of environment within the bank's community, but we also recognize that as people get more involved with social networking sites that there's a desire to conduct multiple business transactions."

Maggie Fox, CEO of Dundas, Ont.-based consultantcy Social Media Group, said RBC's thinking makes perfect sense.

"That's the way people exist online. It's an ambient experience. They leave (those sites) open all day long. There's no real boundary. To be quite honest, when you look at the amount of time people spend online, everyone needs to integrate with the largest, most populous platforms. Do you or do you not want to be there?"

Bill aggregation with social media would create interesting opportunities around customization, Fox added. Users could pick and choose from widgets with specific alerts and add them to their site profiles.