Mobile Banking Updates - Feb 15

As Mobile World Congress approaches, let’s look into mobile’s future
"With Mobile World Congress (MWC) almost upon us, the mobile industry is already geared up to set us on a path for the next year. New handsets will be announced and pre-announced, partnerships forged, services and apps unveiled, and future technologies demoed, giving us a pretty good idea of where the next twelve months will take us. But what if we zoomed out quite a bit more and took a bit of a shot in the dark to try to predict the mobile trends for the next decade."

Survey: Users Prefer “Web Brands” Over Carrier Services
"I’ve long said that carriers continually miss the boat in terms of leveraging their position to capitalize on mobile marketing and advertising, and a new survey reinforces my stance even further.

CSS Insight, in its most recent survey, indicates that most consumers ignore the services offered by wireless carriers in favor of more familiar names on the Web. While the research suggests ways for network operators and phone-makers to maximize the uptake of the mobile Web, results indicate that many of these opportunities are being overlooked (again)."

Banks' Eureka Moment on Mobile Services
"Financial companies, discovering that people who bank by phone don't always bank online, are changing how they look at mobile services. Once considered just a component of online banking, mobile services that function independently of PCs are emerging. Banks have realized that mobile phones are a delivery channel in their own right. 'There's a whole group of customers for whom text banking is very attractive, and these are customers whose lives don't revolve around a PC,' said Arah Erickson, Wells Fargo & Co.'s head of retail mobile banking."

Leave The Credit Card, Take The Cell Phone
"Small business owners, listen up: Rachel Wallace, marketing director at Wallace Oil in La Junta, Colo., has a new "big box" killer. (Thought that would get your attention.) Wallace Oil owns and leases six gas stations and a convenience store, and Wallace is always looking for ways to land new customers and keep her existing ones coming back. Last spring The State Bank of La Junta showed her a demonstration of a new mobile payment service powered by Bling Nation."

Samsung unveils Bluetooth 3.0, 802.11n smartphone
"Samsung has taken the wraps off the first phone to be fitted out with its Bada operating system. It also has 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 3.0. Called the Wave, the handset sports a 3.5in, 800 x 480 OLED touchscreen. While Bada runs behind the scenes, users interact with the third incarnation of Samsung's established TouchWiz UI."

China Mobile begins commercial rollout of mobile contactless payments system
"China Mobile has begun the commercial deployment of mobile contactless payments based on RF SIM technology. The new SIMs, which incorporate both a payments chip and a contactless antenna, are now widely available from China Mobile stores and can be purchased for a one-off fee of ¥150 (US$22 approx). Subscribers can then simply replace their existing SIM with the new RF SIM and instantly begin to use their existing phone to make payments at the point of sale."

Haiti Donations: A Turning Point in Mobile Commerce?
"Only two days after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake leveled the capital city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, the American Red Cross raised $7 million via text messaging from more than 700,000 wireless customers. Donations poured in from every wireless network, including AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile.

Red Cross' relief efforts in Haiti signaled a turning point in the history of mobile commerce. 'It was a major validation about the possibilities of text and mobile commerce and what we're going to see in the future," says Gartner analyst Jeff Roster.'"

The New Market Player VoiceCash Makes Mobile Banking a Reality
"What’s in a location? It’s a good question when someone sets out to change the way the world banks. In fact if Michael Kramer was talking from a marble clad penthouse in Frankfurt or London it might sound more convincing. But Munich? But after a few minutes of Mr Kramer’s company the unimposing office suddenly becomes one of the reasons that he actually seems to have the potential of changing how a large part of the world banks."