What is Chase Bank Up To?

I was recently at an Indianapolis Indians baseball game and was talking to a good friend of mine about the growth of mobile banking. He, being a mobile junky, said I wish Chase Bank had a mobile banking service.

Then, literally the next day, I read a post by Eric Mattson on the Mobile Banking & Money blog that discussed how 4 of the top 5 banks in the country have already rolled-out or announced their plans for the mobile banking channel.

Which got me thinking - what is Chase up to?

After all, we're talking about the bank that implemented mobile alerts quite awhile ago, and has the highest rated website in the county. I'm not going to believe for a minute that they are sitting this one out. Nor do I believe that they are behind and haven't considered it. So what does all this mean? I'm not sure.

On the one hand, if they were enlisting the help of a vendor I'd expect that we would have already seen a press release. Vendors love touting their recent conquests and landing the 3rd largest FI in the country is no small feat. On the flip side maybe they are taking a page from the Steve Jobs book of marketing and have the plans locked down. Either way - keep your eyes and ears open. I am expecting to hear something soon.