Mobile Banking Updates - April 24

Better Authentication is Key to DDoS, Mobile Banking Protection: Jeff Carter
"'When you don't have trusted identities for accessing your online banking infrastructure, anyone in the wild can make a request, and you have to respond to it,' says Jeff Carter, who ran innovation for Bank of America and the Center for Future Banking, a joint venture between Bank of America, MIT and Harvard University, for six years and is currently chief strategy officer at EyeLock. He has a vested interest: his company's technology scans the human iris to create a "trusted identity" that can be used to authenticate users of anything, including a mobile banking app or online banking site."

Dr. Gavin Michael Joins JPMorgan Chase as Head of Digital for Consumer and Community Banking
"Chase announced today that Dr. Gavin Michael has joined the firm as Head of Digital for Chase's Consumer and Community Banking division. Michael served as the Chief Technology Innovation Officer at Accenture since 2010, where he was responsible for the innovation agenda, technology strategy, and research and development. He will report to Gordon Smith, CEO of Chase Consumer and Community Banking, and Guy Chiarello, Chief Information Officer for JPMorgan Chase. 'We are extremely pleased to have Gavin join the firm,' said Gordon Smith, CEO of Consumer & Community Banking. 'With over 31 million active Chase.com users and more than 12 million active mobile users, it's important that we continue to innovate and provide exceptional customer experience in our internet and mobile channels. Gavin has more than 20 years of experience across Retail Banking technology, including governance, organization, strategy, and innovation. His experience in running large, complex global projects across financial services and consulting makes him a great fit to lead Chase's mobile and digital channel.'"

Mobile banking: Increased acceptance equals greater opportunities for FIs
"Mobile devices have become a part of everyday life around the world, used for banking, entertainment, communication, payments, budgeting and even shopping. A recent survey by the U.S. Federal Reserve focused not only on the general growth in mobile usage but also on the increasing number of U.S. consumers turning to mobile for their financial service needs. Mobile phone and mobile Internet access have become much more widespread in the United States; 87 percent of the population now own mobile phones, 52 percent of which are smartphones. More surprisingly, the Federal Reserve found that 28 percent of mobile phone owners have used their phones for mobile banking in the last 12 months. An even larger proportion of smartphone owners (48 percent) have done the same. The most common uses of mobile banking are to check account balances or recent transactions (87 percent), and to transfer money (53 percent) and deposit checks (21 percent)."

IAB: 58 per cent of Americans use mobile banking apps
"But 52 per cent say they want a concrete guarantee their transactions are safe before using mobile banking more often. One billion people are expected to use mobile banking by 2017, while NatWest and RBS recently strengthened their mobile solutions with in-app customer service tools. IAB now finds that 58 per cent of Americans user their bank's mobile app, while 50 per cent use their bank's mobile website. Meanwhile, 25 per cent are aware of the app and 26 per cent are aware of the site, though they're yet to use them."