Mobile Banking Updates - May 22

Android's Mobile Dominance Fails to Simplify Bank App Development
"Google's Android mobile operating system has grown its market share lead, according to new data from Gartner. Indeed, the research firm says the platform accounts for 74.4% of smartphone units sold worldwide during the first quarter of 2013. Furthermore, Gartner found there are almost 50% more Android smartphones in the market than a year ago."

Chase Tops Keynote's Mobile Banking Ranking a Third Time
"JPMorgan Chase has yet again won a ranking of mobile banking apps. In this one, Keynote's semiannual mobile banking scorecard, Chase came in first for the third time in a row. Wells Fargo came in second and Bank of America third. In late April, Forrester dubbed Chase the best in mobile banking out of 15 large multinational banks, for the second time in a row. What does Chase do right to get the top nod so often?"

Banking Up Launches at FinovateSpring, Lets Any Business Offer Customers a Trusted Alternative to Traditional Banking
"Banking Up launches at FinovateSpring today a first-of-its-kind personal finance platform that lets banks and businesses provide customers with a smart, mobile alternative to traditional checking accounts. Along with the launch, Plastyc Inc., which developed Banking Up, announced that it is now doing business as Banking Up. Over 24 million households have poor access to mainstream banking, and 91 percent have mobile phones and smartphones, according to the FDIC. Banking Up gives banks and businesses a scalable way to provide customers in their local communities with an affordable, high-quality banking option."

Green Dot Sets July 4th Launch Of GoBank
"Green Dot, the provider of prepaid debit cards and other financial products, is looking to launch its big move into the mobile banking market on July 4th, the company said Tuesday afternoon. According to Green Dot, it plans to launch its service, GoBank, on Independence Day on iPhone, Android, and online--and also will be making a big, national push to market the service."

Is electronic banking killing the bank branch? PNC pares branches citing customers' online trends "Another bank branch bites the dust. Three and counting among PNC Financial’s branches in Central Pennsylvania. Another ten PNC branches in Western Pennsylvania. And more to come, as banks evaluate their networks and analyze mobile banking and ATM trends. For so long, it seemed a bank branch was opening on every corner. That era might be coming to an end."

Mobile Banking Updates - Jun 21

Mobile, Tablet, Industry Disruptors Among Topics to be Featured at Celent Banking Insight & Innovation Day
"The future of mobile and tablet banking, and disruptors in the financial services space will be among the major topics discussed at Celent's Banking Insight & Innovation Day next week in Charlotte, N.C. This will be the fifth year the Boston-based analyst form will host the event, which will feature Celent analysts as well as representatives from more than 30 banks. Celent will also be issuingits "Model Bank" awards at the event."

PSECU Rolls Out Kindle, Large-Screen Android Banking Apps
"The $4 billion Pennsylvania State Employees Credit Union is now offering its 388,000 members two new mobile banking applications. One is a Kindle Fire app available on the Amazon Appstore and the other is for large-screen Android tablets and is available on Google Play, PSECU said. Both were developed for the Harrisburg, Pa., credit union by Vertifi Software LLC of Burlington, Mass."

5 Ways Banking is Changing Fast
"When bank ATMs first started appearing in the U.S. some 40 years ago, they were hard to miss. Recent innovations have been much more stealthy — but just as groundbreaking. In case you’ve missed them, here are five contemporary, cutting-edge technologies that are quickly changing banking:"

Plastyc to Address Mobile Banking for the Unbanked at Clinton Global Initiative
"Plastyc CEO Patrice Peyret will share examples of innovative services and products for the unbanked at the second annual Clinton Global Initiative America (CGI America) in Chicago June 7th and 8th. As participant in the CGI Financial Inclusion: Building a Path to Financial Security working group, Peyret will discuss leveraging mobile technology to reach traditionally underbanked consumers and using advanced features and analytics to help support financial responsibility."

RBS Citizens Treasury Solutions Experts to Speak On Mobile Banking, Payments Fraud, and Data Connectivity at Windy City Treasury Conference
"Mobile banking, fraud prevention, and the challenges of data connectivity will be the topics of presentations by experts from RBS Citizens' Treasury Solutions group this week at the Windy City Summit. Hosted by the Treasury Management Association of Chicago, the conference is the premier gathering for corporate treasury and finance professionals in the region."

Now Live -- Heartland Bank iPad App and Mobile Browser
"G. Scott McComb, President and CEO of Heartland Bank is pleased to announce an additional service to Heartland Bank's Online Banking. McComb stated, 'In 2011, Heartland launched both its Mobile Banking iPhone and Android App. Today, we are proud to introduce another Heartland Online Banking Solution - the iPad App.'"

ACI Worldwide Shares New Product Plans With Market
"ACI Worldwide ACIW +2.12% , a leading international provider of payment systems, today released details of its product roadmaps to the market, and described how the combination of ACI and S1 adds innovation, new product capabilities and resources around the globe to support the needs of its customers. The roadmaps were released to a gathering of customers at the company's annual ACI Exchange conference in Miami. The event marks the first collaborative exchange of the combined customer bases, and will be followed by ACI Exchange conferences in Monaco, June 12-15, and in Bangkok in November."

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."