Mobile Banking Updates - July 21

Future Mobile Awards - Winners Announced for Mobile Commerce
"Companies at the forefront of new developments in Mobile Commerce have been honoured in this year’s Juniper Research Future Mobile Awards."

Ad Lab: Banking Billboards, Print Ads And Outdoor Galore
"Here are two more excellent examples further illustrating the powerful relationship between that can be forged between outdoor marketing messages and their environmental context. In the first example from Palmetto Bank, you have to look closely to realize that it is actually a branch entrance in disguise — visitors have to walk right through the bank’s mobile app (quite a metaphor, if you think about it)."

We're witnessing the fastest ever shift in banking
"This week we're celebrating 5 years of the Apple App store (see Wired's commentary.) The realization that in 5 years mobile and apps have had such a huge impact on banking, can not be understated. Of course, there were many in the financial services space that were massively skeptical of the iPhone and Apps when they first launched in 2007. My favorite quotes come from a January 14th, 2007 article on Bloomberg, that contain the following gems:"

Diebold working on cardless ATM project
"Smartphones could replace the plastic card when stopping at the automated teller machine. Diebold has begun fitting ATMs for Wintrust Financial Corp., based in Lake Forest, Ill., so customers can make cash withdrawals using a smartphone. The test project has Diebold working with Paydiant, a company that provides cloud-based mobile payment services for banks and merchants. Wintrust is working with Fidelity National Information Services on the pilot program."

Mobile Banking on the Rise
"Banking has gone mobile. With over half of all American adults, about 56%, sporting smart phones, banks and other financial management tools have quickly adapted their systems to be compatible, secure and easy to use on mobile devices. Many smart phone users have already made the change from traditional to mobile banking and according to Consultants at the Aite Group, the number of people banking on their phones will triple by the year 2016."

Banks struggle to keep up with mobile demand
"While banks all have a mobile banking app, their clients are still pushing for more and more mobile capabilities. So says Mary Monahan, executive vice president and research director for Javelin Strategy & Research, a California company that rates banks on their mobile offerings. She says that many tech-savvy customers still 'cannot open accounts via smartphone, make payments, or deposit checks by snapping photos of them.'"

Mobile Banking Updates - Dec 16

Mobile Banking Soars; Usage in U.S. Increases 50 Percent Since 2011
"Mobile banking has taken hold around the globe, presenting significant opportunities for banks to drive out costs and deepen customer relationships; this according to Bain & Company’s annual “Customer Loyalty in Retail Banking Report (2012 global edition),” released today by the global business consulting firm. The report finds that Asia has the highest mobile banking penetration—47 percent of survey respondents in South Korea said they had mobile interactions in the previous three months, the highest penetration in the survey—while survey respondents in the U.S. reported the highest frequency, averaging 4.9 mobile transactions in the previous three months."

2 for 1: Integrating Mobile Banking and Deposits
"Despite operating autonomously, the eight banks branded 'Simmons First' strive to present a common, customer-centric image across all interaction channels. 'It’s our intent to provide consistent, seamless information regardless of the channel or location,' explains Lisa Hunter, SVP of cash management and retail delivery for Simmons First National Corporation. 'Whether customers come into a branch, call us or use a self-service option, it’s important the experience be the same.'”

GoPayment: The Future of Mobile Banking
"It used to be that a bank was a building you visited to make deposits and withdrawals and perform other financial services. Nowadays, a bank is something you carry in your pocket. Anybody with a smartphone can make or take payments, check balances, transfer funds and even make deposits from almost any location and at any time."

Mobility, where are you headed?
"Mobility, as a concept, has captured the collective imagination of the tech savvy populace. CEOs and CTOs wax eloquent on their grandiose plans in this domain. A lot has been written about NFC device use, smart kiosks, mobile banking etc., projecting these as the next big thing in mobile and banking technology. However, I feel the ground reality is far removed from this. Every time I glance around in stores and malls, I notice that very few people use mobile banking. I initially wondered if this was unique to India, as we are not a very tech savvy people. On probing further, I have come to believe that it is a worldwide phenomenon, with even advanced countries yet to warm up to mobility. "

BBVA Compass adds bilingual app for mobile banking
"BBVA Compass is expanding its mobile banking outreach with the launch of a bilingual iPhone app. The new app will allow customers to access the bank’s mobile banking information in both Spanish and English. 'We currently serve a number of markets with a growing Spanish-speaking population, so we wanted to give those customers access in the language that is most comfortable to them,' says Alex Carriles, executive vice president and director of Mobile Strategy and Retail Innovation at BBVA Compass. 'We already operate as a fully bilingual bank in the U.S., and these additions will support that commitment.'”

Three ways to transfer funds through your mobile
"While fund transfer through mobile banking is not an entirely new concept, it hasn’t become a part of our banking needs the way online banking has. So what is it that stops you? One reason could be lack of awareness and another could be the perceived challenging technology which really is not so challenging. We give you three simple ways to transfer your funds through your mobile. Through these modes, you can transfer money to a person’s account, with or without the account details, and even pay utility and other bills."

Marketing Mobile Banking Can Double Average Adoption Rates, Shows Fiserv Analysis
"Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ: FISV), a leading global provider of financial services technology solutions, today announced that an analysis of data from the Mobiliti™ mobile banking and payments solution revealed that marketing can significantly impact consumer adoption of mobile financial services. According to the analysis, which looked at data across hundreds of financial institutions, banks and credit unions, financial institutions that have actively marketed mobile banking have experienced an average adoption rate that is twice as high as financial institutions that have not promoted the service."

Mobile Banking Updates - May 12

The Impact of Mobile Banking: A Case for Mobile Marketing
"A new report from Aite Group provides insight into the behaviors of mobile banking users. Based on a December 2010 Aite Group survey of 1,011 U.S. consumers, the report explains why specific consumer behaviors are important to financial institutions’ mobile banking and mobile marketing strategies."

A Strong Cell
"Innovation's true power can appear as a subtle revelation, unveiling itself in something as benign as a line of data on a usage report.

'Two of our biggest days within the first few months of offering corporate mobile banking were the day after Thanksgiving and New Years Day. And they were the two biggest days for usage of wires and wire approvals,' says Don Jenkins, vp and senior product manger at PNC, which offers both retail and corporate mobile banking, which launched last fall. 'The offices weren't even open, and people were away and still able to get business done. That proves the point right there.'"

Citibank Ups Digital Engagement with Online Initiatives
"Tracey Weber joined Citi in October 2010 to oversee internet and mobile operations at Citibank North America. Weber spoke to eMarketer’s Lauren McKay about new developments at Citibank—from its @AskCiti Twitter account to its mobile banking efforts."

Tablets' Sweet Spot: Sales
"A hint of a lightweight laptop with a dashof a really big handset, tablets are still retail banking use-case nomads, in search of the best ways to get consumers excited and curious. Wherever the new devices are finding a comfort zone, in places such as sales and investing, tablets like Apple's iPads and RIM's Playbook are proving to be just as un-encumbered as their smartphone cousins."

Mobile Banking Updates - Oct 23

INSIDE CONTACTLESS LAUNCHES INITIATIVE TO JUMPSTART MOBILE PAYMENT MARKET
"INSIDE Contactless, the world leader in advanced open-standard contactless chip technologies, today announced an initiative to create a new class of mobile payment solutions that banks, brands, transit agencies and others can deploy quickly, easily and in a highly targeted way starting in 2010. INSIDE has already engaged with several innovative technology companies that share its vision to develop a variety of mobile payment solutions based on INSIDE’s proven, certified MicroPass® platform that will enable existing mobile phones to support mobile payments, as well as transit, ID and access control applications. A number of these solutions expected to reach the market as early as this fall."

Chevron Valley CU Taps Corporate Network eCom as Its Provider
"A downloadable application residing on members' phones, MobileMember provides real-time, around-the-clock access to account information. In addition to the ability to view account balances and transfer funds, Chevron Valley members will have a full range of bill payment capabilities at their disposal, including scheduling regular or expedited payments, managing scheduled payments and viewing payment history -- all from their mobile devices."

Mobile-Banking Lagging Due To Ineffective Marketing by Banks
"Banks' marketing efforts are not keeping pace with their actual mobile-banking services, and the imbalance is causing limited adoption of mobile-banking by consumers, reports a study by Javelin Strategy & Research. The study found that 50 percent of financial institutions do not adequately address consumers' two primary mobile banking concerns. The report also rates the mobile-banking offerings of 18 top financial institutions based on features, access to mobile-banking services and marketing. Gold-category winners identified by Javelin include Bank of America, Chase, Citi, USAA and Wells Fargo."

Mobile Banking Discussion with Cameron Franks of Sybase

Today I'm excited to publish the notes from my interview with Cameron Franks - Director, mCommerce - Sybase 365. Click to learn more about Cameron.

Q: What’s your differentiator? What sets your mobile banking solution apart from the competition?

A: Sybase is an aggregator; plus, we provide software for banking and payments. Sybase is the only vendor that provides both.

Q: Who are your key clients?

A: Compass Bank (iPhone app and SMS alerts), Citizens Bank (Business Mobile Banking), Citi Bank (Messaging and Intelligent Services), IXE (WAP, SMS and Application). In addition, we have PayPal, Mastercard and Western Union utilizing our messaging services.

Q: Who are you key partners?

A: Within the Sybase family we work closely with Financial Fusion. Externally, we partner with IBM and Western Union.

Q: Budget season is just around the corner, and the #1 question bankers want to ask is – What’s it going to cost me?

A: Sybase offers two approaches:
1) Purchase the License Up Front. Depending upon the size of the institution and options selected this will cost approximately $300-$500k.

2) Pay Monthly. The cost of this model is based upon the options selected and the number of active monthly users. For example: An FI with a small number of users could expect to pay roughly $50,000 per year.

Additionally, we’re developing a third model for small banks. This will be a streamlined version that is hosted by Sybase and will be less expensive – more details coming soon.

Q: What components of your ROI model have begun to materialize?

A: A reduction in calls to the call center has materialized. Clients are choosing to use mobile banking instead of calling.

Also, more banks are using their mobile banking service as an acquisition tool and a retention tool. Banks are using the image of the iPhone in their advertising to draw the attention of prospects.

Q: What’s your highest client adoption %

A: It’s reasonable to expect 5% adoption of online banking users within 6 months.

Q: What do the demographics of your users look like?

A: The clients using WAP and applications are almost exclusively high-end smart phone users within the Gen X and Boomer demographics. However, we are starting to see lower-end smart phones being used by the Gen Y segment. SMS is very interesting because we’re seeing usage from Gen Y, Gen X, Boomers, and even some Seniors.

Q: What do the usage patterns look like? Balance, History, Transfers, BP, Locator?

A: The majority of users are focused on checking their balance. Some clients are reviewing their pending transactions and transferring funds, but we’re not seeing a lot of bill payment activity. Account alerts will be the catalyst that will drive adoption of bill payment and advanced functions.

Q: What security elements are incorporated into your application?

A: The key is to make sure that layers of security are appropriate for the service. The Sybase platform is channel aware and can allow the institution to dictate what’s required to complete the transaction.

For example: Requesting a balance can be performed via SMS and there’s really no need for additional security. Yet, for transferring funds via SMS the institution may wish to require an additional layer of security.

Q: How likely are biometrics to become a component?

A: Biometric security is a long way off because the devices don’t have the necessary hardware.

Q: How has the iPhone changed your approach to the business?

A: A couple of years ago people were trying to figure out how to get their application on every phone and which carriers to work with. The iPhone and App store took care of this question; plus, removed many of the banks’ customer service concerns.

Q: What has been your biggest surprise/lesson-learned over the last couple of years?

A: Marketing of the mobile banking service is very important. In the UK nearly half of financial institutions now have their SMS short code on billboards and general advertising.

Q: What big industry development should we expect within the next 12 months?

A: The two main developments we anticipate are:
1) More effective P2P solutions. In many other countries it’s easy to move money online between banks. This is an untapped market in the US and is a great opportunity.

2) Mobile Coupons. We need to resolve questions around opt-in, privacy, and enrollment but there’s great potential.

Q: What can banks do a better job of to facilitate adoption?

A: Banks need to focus on creating services that make sense while you’re mobile. Alerts for example add incremental value. These types of services will drive uptake.

Mobile Banking Updates - Jul 14

Macalla honoured in sixth annual International Business Awards
"Macalla, leader and innovator in mobile payments solutions, has announced that it has earned a Certificate of Finalist Recognition in the category of Best New Product or Service of the Year - Computer Hardware or Software in the 2009 International Business Awards."

Yes to mobile banking, no to paying for it
"Despite 59 percent of consumers stating that online banking on their mobile phone is important to them, they are not willing to pay for it, KPMG's Global Consumers and Convergence survey reveals."

Mobile Banking Without Your Bank
"British consumers who want to conduct mobile transactions and P2P payments no longer have to wait for their bank to offer the functionality. A new disintermediator, dubbed MoBank and built by First Direct and Egg bankers Steve Townsend and Dominic Keen, now gives Apple iPhone users a broad range of mobile commerce functionality."

Bank Of Mexico Issues Rules For Mobile Payment Services
"The Bank of Mexico said Monday that it has issued rules for mobile payment services as part of a broader initiative by the central bank and the government to make financial services available to more people."

Mobile payments: Will Colombo keep its leadership in South Asia?
"A recent Central Bank (CB) statement that a framework for mobile payments would be finalized in 2009 raised much interest in financial and communication circles in the region. The press statement does not make the objectives absolutely clear but it is expected to be an advance on what is available today in the Sri Lankan market."

Mobile Marketing Security
"In less than 12 months, the Apple App Store has revolutionized the global mobile industry. It has helped usher in a new wave of applications and services which, combined with the greater availability of open mobile networks, lower mobile data costs and the wider variety of Smartphones, has helped create a new type mobile communications experience…one dominated by a new generation of content, entertainment and social networking."

Are you ready for small to be the new big?
"We’re all fashion victims. Mobiles are basically fashion accessories with electronics inside. Technology itself has fashions, at the moment the pendulum has swung towards thin architectures and cloud services for example. But at some point thick clients will return to stride the techno-catwalk again, and we’ll all rediscover how nice it is to have a user interface that isn’t a browser."

Mobile Banking Updates - Feb 12

Phone virus that steals money
"A virus that attacks the mobile phones in Russia and 'steals money' by sending unauthorised SMS texts to gain control over the bank
account, could spread global, experts here have warned."

FirstBank Appeals To Young, Mobile Skiiers
"Once upon a time, banks feared customers wearing ski masks. But in today's mobile phone age, at least one bank welcomes them."

Standard Chartered launches Mobile Banking in Kenya
"Standard Chartered Bank is the first bank in Kenya to introduce ‘mBanking’ on the USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) platform to the market. This new product will provide Standard Chartered Bank’s customers with access to banking 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – anywhere in the world, at any time- all through their mobile phone."

Mobile Banking Updates - Dec 2nd

Absa Launches New Mobile Service
"A new mobile service to bring greater control and convenience to millions of its clients, has been launched by the largest retail banking group - Absa. Over 3.5 million Absa clients using the SMS messaging service, NotifyMe, can now request instant balance enquiries and statements, as well as purchase prepaid cellular airtime, from their cellular handset."

Citizens Bank of Canada Launches Mobile Solution
"Have you ever found yourself standing in line to purchase something and wanted to check your bank balance? Now you can through text messaging from your mobile phone. Introducing Mobile Banking with BANKCB."

Can You Hear Us Now? Mobile Carriers Eye Financial Revenue
"As bankers continue to roll out services for mobile phones, wireless carriers are trying to find ways to earn more revenue from the financial activities moving through their systems."

Cell Phone Payments Make the World Easier For Terrorists, Too
"The Reuters article said little about the downside of the new technology. But terrorist financing experts in and outside government have long been worried that the mobile payment development is outpacing regulators' and law enforcement's ability to detect and prevent use by terrorists."

Alltel Wireless, mFoundry Partner for Alltel Wallet
"Alltel Wireless, will leverage the extensible mobile wallet platform from mFoundry (San Francisco) to create the Alltel Wallet, which will initially provide access to a consolidated mobile banking experience, providing customers with access to a wide variety of U.S. financial institutions."

Economy Puts Mobile Marketing on Hold
"If all went according to plan the day after Thanksgiving, JC Penney customers were roused with a wake-up call. The service was provided free as part of a Black Friday mobile marketing push. Consumers had been invited to come to JCP.com to sign up for the call, SMS shopping tips and sales alerts. This is a prime example of how this much-hyped marketing channel is helping companies like JC Penney, Subway and Coca-Cola court consumers through their cell phones and PDAs. The only problem: The economy is in free fall, leaving some marketers leery of dumping dollars into an unproven medium."

The Mobile Banking Opportunity for Small Businesses - Are Banks Listening?
"Small businesses want mobile banking services. Approximately one-third of those interviewed expressed a likelihood that they will use mobile banking."

Mobile Marketing from ChaCha

It's likely that you're familiar with the concept of mobile marketing, but chances are you're not familiar with ChaCha's operating model.

ChaCha is an Indianapolis firm that was launched in January of this year by Scott Jones. A little history on Scott..."At age 25, Scott invented the massively scalable, easy-to-use voicemail system that has been used by over a billion people around the world."

How Does ChaCha Work?
"ChaCha is conversational, fun, and easy to use. Simply ask your question like you are talking to a smart friend and ChaCha’s advanced technology instantly routes it to the most knowledgeable person on that topic in our Guide community. Your answer is then returned to your phone as a text message within a few minutes."

Example:

Mobile Marketing

Here are a few articles related to the topic of mobile marketing:

Bank of America campaign targets students for mobile banking
"Bank of America has introduced a financial awareness campaign designed to educate students to take control of their finances and discover mobile banking in this upcoming academic year."

Mobile banking, payments, marketing…what to do first?
"But there are lots of ways to play in the mobile arena, even without spending a truckload of precious assets. For example, mobile alerts and mobile marketing represent two relatively simple points of entry that should meet with real adoption and customer utility."

Google Banking On Mobile Ads
"Google Chief Exec Eric Schmidt has been talking about the future of the internet and his belief that mobile adverts are the honey pot of the future. "

Visa, Chase Kick-Off Mobile Offers Pilot
"Visa (NYSE:V) together with Chase (NYSE:JPM) today announces a consumer pilot that delivers merchant offers directly to the mobile devices of Chase credit and debit cardholders in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The offers – from merchant discounts to specials – are tailored to match the personal interests selected by Chase cardholders and will be redeemable at the point of sale or the web site of more than 50 participating merchants."

Chase Ahead of Mobile Marketing Curve

It's official - Chase has launched a revolutionary mobile marketing initiative. To view a copy of the full promotion email click here.


To learn more about the program, FAQs, or view participating merchants - click here.

Wow! I would love to learn more about this program. Could it be that Chase has actually figured out a way to boost their card purchase volume while simultaneously generating a new stream of revenue?