Mobile Banking Updates - Mar 7

How do banks and operators feel about mobile banking?
"There’s a definite different between mobile payments and mobile banking. Mobile payments are all about the secure transfer of money across mobile channels (don’t let my one sentence description there fool you - it’s a hideously complex and necessary service). But mobile banking is about offering full banking and financial services to people over their mobile phone. Early forms of this were focused on SMS notifications - banks would send you a text when certain things happened to your account (bills paid, large amounts taken out or put into an account, etc). But what a lot of people including myself have found is that we want complete control of our bank account from our mobiles."

More than 100 Banks to Launch POPmoney™ Person-to-Person Payments Service in First Half of 2010
"CashEdge Inc. (www.cashedge.com), the leading provider of Intelligent Money Movement™, announced today that more than 100 financial institutions are adding POPmoney™ (www.popmoney.com) to their customer offerings. All are preparing to launch the groundbreaking email and mobile person-to-person payments (P2P) service by the end of Q2 2010, demonstrating strong momentum and growing consumer demand for the POPmoney service."

USAA Makes Mobile Financial Transactions Simpler, Safer with Quick Logon
"USAA, a leading financial services provider for members of the military community and their families, is giving its mobile users faster, more secure mobile logon access to their banking, insurance and investment accounts through its new quick logon and authentication security software. USAA has teamed up with VeriSign, Inc. to simplify account access for USAA members while strengthening the logon security for its popular USAA Mobile App."

Visa courts phone firms for slice of mobile banking pie
"Global payments technology company Visa International is courting mobile phone network operators with a view to tying up partnerships that could give the company a foothold in the emerging mobile phone banking services, the group’s general manager for Sub Saharan Africa has said."

Equity to join mobile banking
"Equity Bank has announced its intention to join mobile banking. This was revealed last week by Equity Bank Uganda’s executive Director Apollo N. Njoroge during the official opening of the bank’s branch at Oasis Mall in Kampala. The service, dubbed Eazzy 24/7, targets Equity Bank customers with mobile phones."