Mobile Banking Updates - Aug 3

CSCU Expands Electronic Payment Offerings With Mobile Banking Partnership
"Card Services for Credit Unions (CSCU) has expanded its portfolio of electronic payment products to include mobile banking, through a partnership with MShift, Inc., adding more value to the member cardholder experience.

CSCU is committed to providing more than 3,000 member credit unions with the latest industry trends and services that keep them on the leading edge. As a part of that commitment, CSCU has partnered with MShift, leveraging their exclusive patented technology to bring member credit unions a holistic solution that's carrier and content agnostic. By leveraging this new strategic partnership and CSCU's pooled volumes, member credit unions will be eligible for significant savings and superior value."

Carriers move to supplant credit cards with smart phones
"Three of the nation's largest wireless carriers are working on a joint venture that should give mobile banking and contactless forms of payment a major boost.

According to Bloomberg though, AT&T Mobility, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA Inc. are all working on a smart-phone payment system using near field communications (NFC) that would displace credit and debit cards.

While the new service would reportedly keep Visa Inc., MasterCard Inc. and American Express Company out of the mix, Discover Financial Services would be the payments network that processes all of the transactions. Barclays Plc is lined up to manage the accounts, according to Bloomberg, which cited three anonymous sources for the story."

Mobile Carrier and Bank Convergence
"Yesterday’s report about AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Discover and Barclays potentially working together on a mobile payment service in the U.S. brings up a a topic (banking and mobile industry convergence) that Bart Narter has blogged about, and about which I have added my two cents’ worth."

Plastyc Launches Full-featured Mobile Banking Service for Prepaid Account Holders
"Plastyc, Inc. launched today a new service enabling anyone with a browser-enabled cell phone to manage money on the go -- including writing checks, sending money to friends and locating the nearest retail location to add cash to their cards -- using Plastyc's iBankUP and UPside prepaid Visa services. While viewing balances and receiving alerts by cell phone is becoming common, people who rely the most on their cell phones and the least on personal computers have not had complete mobile access to their money until now."

Why mobile phones can transform banking
"70 per cent of the BRIC population don’t have bank accounts. But what many of them - and an estimated billion people in all emerging markets - do have are mobile phones.

So investors are eyeing big growth in “mobile payments”, where people use their phones to perform transactions. Last week Actis bought out Egyptian chip-maker MSCC to get in on the action.

Now Arthur D Little is forecasting the market in mobile payments will be worth $60bn by 2015. It predicts that, within five years, the number of people using mobile banking will rise from 32m people today to 290m. That’s more than a million new users each week."

Comerica Bank Introduces Mobile Banking Services
"Comerica Bank has introduced Comerica Mobile Banking(SM), a new service that allows customers to utilize their mobile phones to securely view balances, check recent account activity, perform funds transfers, pay bills and locate Comerica ATMs and banking centers. With Comerica Mobile Banking, Comerica Web Banking(SM) customers can typically bank everywhere they have cell phone service, 24 hours a day, seven days a week."