Mobile Banking Vendor Updates

Sybase 365 and Dutch Bangla-Bank recognised for “Best Mobile Banking Initiative” at Asian Banker Technology Awards
"Sybase 365, a subsidiary of Sybase, Inc., an SAP company and the global leader in mobile messaging and mobile commerce services, today announced that together with the Dutch-Bangla Bank Limited (DBBL), both companies were presented the “Best Mobile Banking Initiative Award” at The Asian Banker Technology Implementation Awards 2012."

KeyBank Launches New Mobile Banking Solution with mFoundry
"mFoundry, North America's largest mobile banking and payments provider, today announced KeyBank launched mFoundry's mobile banking technology, mBanking, to expand the bank's mobile banking offering. mFoundry's mobile banking solution is now used by nearly 10 million consumers across more than 675 financial institutions nationwide, including one-third of the top 50 banks in the United States. KeyBank is the latest financial institution to select mFoundry's mBanking solution to support its mobile banking requirements."

Ensenta and MShift Extend the Reach of Mobile Banking with Mobile Deposit
"Ensenta, the leader in self-service remote deposit capture and risk management, and MShift, the leading provider of mobile banking solutions for financial institutions, are seeing a strong uptake of MShift Mobile Banking Apps with their combined end-to-end Mobile Check Deposit service. Among the first financial institutions to go live with the Mobile Deposit service integrated into their MShift Mobile Banking Apps are EECU, State Department Federal Credit Union, Air Force Federal Credit Union, Unity One Credit Union and Nutmeg State Federal Credit Union."

Mobilearth Announces Mobile Banking Training App
"As Mobile Banking continues to gain traction at a staggering rate, we see an increasing need for additional tools that customers can use to access their information. Although Mobile Banking comes with a huge benefit in terms of convenience for members, there is a serious need for training resources to teach customers how to use Mobile Banking to the fullest extent."

Mobile Banking Updates - Apr 10

MOTOROLA EMPLOYEES CREDIT UNION EXPANDS OFFERINGS WITH CSCU/MSHIFT MOBILE BANKING
"Card Services for Credit Unions (CSCU) is pleased to announce that Motorola Employees Credit Union (MECU) is now offering its members a full suite of mobile banking services, including Downloadable Apps for the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry, SMS Text Banking and a universal Mobile Browser App, through a partnership with CSCU and MShift, Inc."

Mobile banking cuts into bricks & mortar biz
"Many years ago, commercial and savings bank branches were built as architectural cathedrals. Most of these large bank locations have been closed and converted into catering halls and exhibition space. They include the former home of Citibank at 55 Wall Street, Greenwich Savings Bank on Broadway and 36th Street now known as Gotham Hall, Cipriani 42nd Street, formerly known as the Bowery Savings Bank, Capitale at 130 Bowery and the iconic Williamsburgh Savings Bank branch on Broadway in the Williamsburgh section of Brooklyn."

Phone-based banking: Dial 'M' for money
"There are almost 80 million smartphone subscribers in the United States. Banking applications make up 37% of all applications purchased for the Apple iPhone, Google Android and RIM Blackberry. And according to a study conducted by FIS Mobile Financial Solutions, about three out of four banking users are happy with their experience this year, a 16% gain from 2010.

'We are seeing mobile deployments by banks accelerating in 2011, with our clients growing mobile users by 35% monthly,' said Douglas Brown, senior vice president of FIS. 'The momentum is driven by unprecedented consumer demand.'"

Consumer tech grows bank customer 'stickiness'
"According to Pranav Seth, head of e-business at OCBC Bank, the bank's Internet and mobile banking initiatives were not driven internally. Rather, with the organization's emphasis on customer service, it had 'no choice but to enter these platforms', he noted in a phone interview with ZDNet Asia. 'Internet and mobile banking...have created a level of interactivity, or stickiness, with our customers that are not possible on other platforms,' he explained."

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."

Bank of Hawaii. 4th iPhone App from MShift

Over the weekend I learned that Bank of Hawaii launched its iPhone Application. This gives MShift a total of four iPhone applications in the App Store. The other MShift clients are M&I Bank, Golden 1, and Fairwinds.

MShift Sues DI Over Mobile Patent

"MShift, Inc. today announced the filing of a patent infringement action against Digital Insight Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Intuit Corp., as well as against Community Trust Financial Corporation and Community Trust Bank. The action, filed in the United States District Court in the Northern District of California, asserts that the mobile banking technology Digital Insight is providing its customers, such as Community Trust Bank, infringes on MShift's United States Patent No. 6,950,881 (the '881 Patent').

The '881 Patent' is entitled a 'System for Converting Wireless Communications for a Mobile Device' and was awarded to MShift on September 27, 2005. The '881 Patent' is a fundamental patent that covers communications between a mobile device and a network site. The inventions of the '881 Patent' enable mobile devices such as Smartphones to access network sites such as online or home banking sites by means of a conversion and adaptation engine which performs translations between the language of the network site (e.g. HTML) and the language supported by the mobile device (e.g., WAP, HDML, HTML) as required. By dynamically adapting and configuring data from one or more sources for presentation and use via mobile phones, the '881 Patent' describes an innovative conversion engine that defines the modern mobile banking experience." >> Continue Reading

Networks and Devices Seen Fueling Sharp Growth in Mobile Banking

"Mobile banking is gaining traction and the maturity of the infrastructure supporting it might present a new opportunity for credit unions to reach out and touch the millions of consumers who don’t bank online at all.

A new survey of more than 500 mobile phone users found that 60% not currently banking online would be interested in using at least one mobile banking service if it was offered during a typical month.

The same survey also showed that those estimated 55 million non-online banking households in the United States are heavy users of traditional banking channels–with nearly two-thirds of them contacting their financial institution once a week or more through contact centers, interactive voice response (IVR) systems and other more costly channels." >> Continue Reading

Mobile Banking Updates - Oct 18

MShift and San Antonio Credit Union offer Mobile Deposit
"Randolph-Brooks Federal Credit Union is gearing up to offer its members mobile depositing capabilities via any wireless smart phone and service provider. Dubbed mBranch, the service is slated to be rolled out in early 2010."

M-Com Positioned as a Leader in Magic Quadrant for Mobile Banking
"International mobile banking solution provider, M-Com, announced today that it has been positioned by Gartner Inc. in the ‘Leaders’ quadrant of the Magic Quadrant for North American Mobile Retail Banking report. 'In my opinion, our positioning in this report mirrors what our customers and partners have been saying since we first launched mobile payment services in 2002,' comments M-Com CEO and Founder, Adam Clark."

New England Federal Credit Union Selects PSCU Financial Services and mFoundry for Mobile Banking
"Vermont-based New England Federal Credit Union (NEFCU) announced that they have selected PSCU Financial Services and mFoundry to deliver mobile banking to their more than 70,000 members. With over $720 million in assets, NEFCU is the largest credit union in the state of Vermont. "

MShift Mobile Deposit - Thank You

I'd like to take a minute to direct your attention to the MShift banner ad on the right side of the page. This is my way of saying "Thank You" to MShift for their generous donation to FAAN (Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network). FAAN is a charity that is near and dear to my heart as I am the parent of a child with food allergies.

As the banner ad suggests MShift has recently announced the integration of Mobile Deposit into their solution, and was even highlighted by the Wall Street Journal...

"MShift wants consumers to deposit their checks into their bank accounts using their cellphones, and its mobile app lets them do that. Customers sign up with the service and a participating bank, then shoot a cellphone photo of a check and forward it to MShift. The start-up processes it and sends a text message confirmation back to the customer." >> Continue Reading

Summary of Interviews with Mobile Banking Vendors

It's official, I have now published the notes from all 8 of my mobile banking interviews. If you missed the beginning of the series and you're unsure what I'm referring to...please continue reading.

In July, to assist you with 2010 planning, I interviewed the CEO of nearly every mobile banking vendor in the U.S., and asked them a series of questions related to: pricing, ROI, security, adoption, the future of mobile banking and the iPhone. Then, during August and early September I began publishing the information.

CEOs of Mobile Banking

Scott Moeller (MShift)

Adam Clark (MCOM)

Pete Daffern (Clairmail)

Steve Kietz (MMV)

Tripp Rackley (Firethorn)

Lisa Stanton (Monitise)

Drew Sievers (mFoundry)

Cameron Franks (Sybase)

Interviews with Mobile Banking Vendors

I'm proud to announce that the Mobile Banking blog is now half way through the interviews with the top U.S. mobile banking vendors. Here's a recap in case you missed one of the articles:

Scott Moeller - MShift

Adam Clark - MCOM

Pete Daffern - Clairmail

Steve Kietz - Mobile Money Ventures (MMV)

And don't forget to check back over the next few weeks as the Mobile Banking blog will be publishing the interviews with Firethorn, Monitise, mFoundry and Sybase.

Mobile Banking: Scott Moeller of MShift

In July I had the opportunity to interview Scott Moeller (CEO of MShift), and these are my notes from the conversation. To learn more about Scott please click here to visit the MShift.com website.

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

A: Our differentiator is experience and history. We have been building mobile banking solutions since 1999 and two of our U.S. clients, Patelco and Golden 1, have been live since 2000-2001.

A bit of history – in 2000 Mshift received a Series B investment from MTI, the largest supplier of mobile phone content in Japan. And since the U.S. market wasn’t ready, the majority of our revenue from 2001 to 2007 came from 100+ deployments in Japan. This experience helped us to become “lean and mean” because in Japan quality control is huge, and you don’t launch a product as a beta.

Because of this experience, the MShift technology was able to leap generations ahead; for instance, the ability to take information and reconfigure “on the fly” for the device was patented by MShift in 2005. It’s the difference between building a car with the assistance of an assembly line vs. trying to build each by hand. Today we’re able to deploy in days/weeks instead of months/quarters, as our competition.

Q: Who are your key clients?

A: Some of our largest clients are Capital One, M&I, Patelco CU, Golden 1 CU, and North Carolina State Employees CU. Plus, we have over 200 mobile banking deployments in the U.S. today including:
• One Top 5 bank
• Two of the Top 10 banks
• Eight of the Top 25 credit unions

Q: Who are you key partners?

A: We have multiple resellers but I can’t promote the partners because of confidentiality agreements.

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: The only time a mobile banking solution is expensive is when you’re working with a custom design. The MShift installation fee is very minimal because we want to eliminate the barriers to entry. We decided that launching a mobile solution shouldn’t require approval from a budget committee. As of 2009 MShift has also incorporated all 3 channels (Browser, SMS, and Application) into our offering.

For the monthly fee, we believe in “success based” pricing and financial institutions only pay for active users of the solution. You don’t pay when it’s not used and institutions can realize additional benefits for increased usage.

Also, be sure to ask - how will it make me money?

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

A: Credit Unions and Regional Banks like mobile banking because they have fewer ATMs and this is a way for clients to check their balance. We’re currently working to collect tangible data for white papers.

Also, we’ll be revealing new technology in September that will allow FIs the ability to track/data mine all elements of the mobile offering and then produce graphical reports that will be delivered on a monthly basis. This will be HUGE in assisting product managers in presenting a compelling case for the viability of the channel. To learn more be sure to attend Finovate in New York this September.

Q: How many active users do you have across all FI’s?

A: We have roughly 2 million users across our FIs today. We’re in a mass adoption cycle right now and the catalyst was the iPhone. In fact, we have some clients that are seeing adoption increases of 20-25% per month.

Q: What’s your highest client adoption %

A: One of our best performing institutions is BankPlus in Mississippi with adoption near 20%. View the BankPlus 2Go Commercial.

Q: What’s your lowest client adoption %

A: We have a client in San Francisco with adoption near 1.5-2.0% but mobile banking is not a focus and they don’t promote the product.

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

A: For the Gen Y segment you must have mobile banking. This segment is now graduating college, entering the workface and beginning to make money. This is an important segment. We also see data to show that Gen X clients are open to the technology and using it in conjunction with current channels. Finally, the Boomers, we’ve been surprised by how are using the product, and they are also some of the most compelling advocates for mobile banking applications.

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

A: Balance is number one followed by requests for transaction history and bill payments. We see some clients using the product 8-12 times per month but the average is near 3-4 times per month. For speed SMS is very valuable, but we believe this is likely to fade in coming years.

Q: What security elements are incorporated into your application?

A: Mobile banking is as secure, if not more secure, than the traditional online banking applications. There’s also specific security that Mshift has built into the solution for the mobile users; plus, another level of security built into the Mshift architecture, but we can’t disclose the details.

There are concerns with the idea that clients are carrying around small computers. Viruses, worms and malware will become more compelling to hackers as platforms grow in size, but the key is making sure to enable access without creating a bunch of road blocks. Too many road blocks will hurt adoption

Q: How likely are biometrics to become a component?

A: Biometrics might be incorporated into hardware for healthcare or defense applications but it won’t be as important for mobile banking. Today ATM transactions only require a 4 digit PIN.

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

A: The iPhone is a “game changer.” This is the first time that the average consumer could access the web from their mobile device. Now the mobile device is used as a phone but more often used for text, web, calendar and more. Remember, we’re the last generation to understand the world BEFORE the internet. My 3 ½ year old son is teaching himself how to spell with a $0.99 app. When the app store hit – the opportunity was realized. It allowed MShift to focus on the U.S. market.

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

A: My biggest surprise is that we no longer need to educate banks on the importance of mobile banking – banks GET IT! We were initially afraid that banks might skip mobile during the recession but they haven’t. Sales have become incredibly easy. Mobile banking is now a necessity.

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

A: Today when we leave home we need our phone, wallet and keys but that will change. The mobile wallet will become more prominent, but it will take five years to evolve. This could also impact Visa and Mastercard. The carriers and/or FIs could give them a run for their money.

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

A: To become more successful banks need to work in conjunction with their vendor and do a better job of leveraging their data. Also, you do need all 3 mobile banking channels so that the customers can decide which solution they want to use. The mobile browser (i.e. MShift) will be relevant for years – it’s umbrella coverage. Downloadable solutions are in high demand today, and SMS is really important today but will be greatly diminished in 3 years.

Budgeting for Mobile Banking?

We are on the cusp of the 2010 budget season, and I decided to launch an initiative to make your lives a little easier. Starting tomorrow I'll begin publishing my notes from interviews that I've conducted over the last month with presidents, CEOs and directors of the largest mobile banking vendors in the U.S. During the interviews I asked questions related to: pricing, ROI, security, adoption, platform differentiators, key clients, key partners, demographics, usage, the future of mobile banking and the iPhone. To be fair I'll publish my notes in the order in which the interviews were performed:

1) Scott Moeller - MShift
2) Adam Clark - MCOM
3) Pete Daffern - Clairmail
4) Steve Kietz - Mobile Money Ventures
5) Tripp Rackley - Firethorn
6) Lisa Stanton - Monitise
7) Drew Sievers - mFoundry
8) Cameron Franks - Sybase

Also, as you may have noticed over the last few months, the Mobile Banking Blog has been working hard to raise money for the St. Jude Childrens hospital; yet, our success has been limited a tough economy. Until now! Today, I'm proud to announce that a mobile banking vendor has offered to make a donation to the charity in exchange for the placement of a banner ad on the site and I've gladly said - YES. The St. Jude Children's Hospital is the premier research center for pediatric cancer, and St. Jude is the only center where "no child is ever denied treatment because of the family's inability to pay." >> Learn More

New CEO at mShift

Additionally, I've also learned that mShift has a new CEO.

Scott Moeller - Chief Executive Officer
"As Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, in 2009, Mr. Moeller returns to the roles he held with the company at it's inception. A decade earlier, in 1999, Scott founded MShift Inc., and under his leadership, the Company was able to raise two series of strategic investments, via investment groups in Japan and Taiwan." Learn More >>

#1 in Mobile Banking - 2008 Awards

While last year was certainly challenging, I believe there were also a number of significant accomplishments within the mobile banking industry. That said I'd like to offer up the following awards for 2008:

#1 Text Mobile Banking - Clairmail

#1 Browser Mobile Banking - mShift

#1 Mobile Banking Wallet - Firethorn

#1 iPhone Mobile Banking - mFoundry

#1 3-Channel Mobile Banking - MCOM

#1 Mobile Banking News & Information - Bank Systems & Technology

#1 Mobile Banking Adoption - Bank of America

#1 Mobile Banking Marketing - Bank of America

#1 Overall Mobile Offering - JP Morgan Chase

#1 Mobile Banking Innovation - Citi/Mobile Money Ventures

#1 Business Mobile Banking - Wells Fargo

#1 Mobile Banking Research - Tower Group

#1 Text Banking Aggregator - Verisign

#1 Mobile Payments - First Data

#1 Mobile Banking Development Tool - Device Anywhere

#1 New Mobile Banking Technology - Mitek

Chase Mobile Banking from mShift

It's official. Chase has launched their browser-based mobile banking solution at Chase.mobi

This is in addition to their existing solutions:
* Chase Text Banking
* Chase Cards Downloadable Application




Also note - this is a huge WIN for mShift the technology provider. To date mShift has signed more institutions than any other vendor, and now they can also add a Top 5 FI to their resume.

Mobile Summit & Updates for Week of 6/23

I'm just returning from the 2nd Annual Mobile Commerce Summit, and I'd like to take a moment to thank Emily Otani and the team at SourceMedia. The mobile banking content was fresh, the speakers were first class, and the venue (Caesars) was the ideal location.

I'm still organizing my notes so you'll have to wait a few more days before I share any of the content; however, there are still lots of newsworthy items. For instance...

Mobile Money Ventures and Android
"Mobile Money Ventures, a joint venture of Citi and SK Telecom, has announced that its solution for mobile financial services is compatible with Android, a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications."

BECU Signs On with Firethorn
"Firethorn Holdings LLC, a Qualcomm company, today announced that it has added BECU (formally known as Boeing Employees' Credit Union) to its growing roster of financial institution customers."

Mastercard and Obopay Join up for P-2-P
"MasterCard is partnering California-based Obopay to provide an on-demand person-to-person (P2P) mobile payments service to its US cardholders. The service - offered via MasterCard's P2P money transfer system MoneySend - will enable issuing banks to provide a mobile payments service to cardholders on all credit, debit and prepaid MasterCard-branded products."

Delta Mobile an mShift Design (http://mobile.delta.com)
"Delta Air Lines Inc. has hooked up with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) at New York's LaGuardia Airport to let Delta fliers use their Web-enabled mobile devices to check-in and get an electronic boarding passes."

iPhone Effect on Mobile Banking
"Mobile banking has had its fits and starts, and it has a long way to go before most consumers try it, let alone make it second nature. But let’s face it: There’s no one in the banking industry like Steve Jobs."

ABSA Reaches Half Million Mobile Banking Clients
"After a cautious beginning a few years ago, Cellphone Banking is starting to deliver on its promise of putting ‘your bank in your pocket’, and allowing you to transact anywhere you go. Absa Bank this week celebrated its first major milestone for this emerging banking channel, reaching half-a-million Cellphone Banking customers. Absa’s Managing Executive for Digital Channels, Christo Vrey, says that with 38 million cellular subscribers nationwide, there is a great opportunity for the mobile channel to become the primary banking interface for many South Africans."

Mobile-banking apps with mobile carriers
"Financial institutions are looking to mobile banking as a way to round out their banking options, providing their customers and members more convenient ways to bank. And wireless carriers are offering more ways to get on the mobile-banking bandwagon, connecting FIs to their networks. “It’s a bit of ‘Gold Rush,’” said Nick Holland, a senior analyst at Boston-based Aite Group. 'Mobile banking is almost not an option.'"

13 Credit Unions Deploy mShift Mobile Banking

MShift has announced the deployment of thirteen Credit Unions in recent months. This takes the total number of deployments executed in the past two and a half years to just over 65. The following thirteen credit unions have been deployed by MShift:

1. Alaska USA FCU (Anchorage, AK - $3.5 Billion)
2. Bellco CU (Greenwood Village, CO - $1.7 Billion)
3. Bethpage CU (Bethpage, NY - $3 Billion)
4. Eastman CU (Kingsport, TN - $1.9 Billion)
5. IBM Southeast Employees FCU (Boca Raton, FL - $690 Million)
6. Miami Firefighters FCU (Miami, FL - $70 Million)
7. New Mexico Educators CU (Albuquerque, NM - $828 Million)
8. Northwest FCU (Herndon, VA -$1.5 Billion)
9. Proponent FCU (Nutley, NJ - $380 Million)
10. Purdue Employees FCU (West Lafayette, IN - $539 Million)
11. Randolph Brooks FCU (Live Oak, TX - $3 Billion)
12. State Employees Credit Union of Maryland (Baltimore, MD - $1.7 Billion)
13. Utah Community CU (Provo, UT - $580 Million)

Mobile Banking from Capital One - mShift

I am pleased to have the opportunity to share some very big news that surprisingly did not make the mainstream media.

On Friday, Capital One launched their mShift powered mobile banking solution.

Below I have included the full press release and two additional screen shots, but for a number of reasons this story is much more than just another headline.

First, this announcement propels mShift to the "Elite Provider" status. Now, some will argue they've been a top-tier provider for sometime since they have quietly amassed 62 clients. However, in the minds of many you need at least one nationally recognized mega-bank. For mShift that client is Capital One - they have now arrived.

Next, the Capital One product brings to market a handful of components that are new to the mobile banking offer. If you read the copy in the first image below you will see that Capital one is offering a $50 bill pay guarantee. Then, please refer to the second image below and notice that Capital One is also offering Bank-to-Bank money transfers. For security purposes they must be accounts that have existing linkages, but this is a very powerful feature for a mobile banking product.

Finally, I will offer that this further validates the browser-based solution as a significant contender in the mobile banking space. Critics will scoff at the notion, but the fact is that many institutions are launching browser solutions because they are secure, convenient, and provide a familiar banking experience.




Capital One Selects MShift Mobile Banking Platform.

Santa Clara, CA. January 11th, 2008. MShift announces that Capital One has chosen its Mobile Banking platform. Capital One joins more than 60 US financial institutions who have selected MShift Inc. to provide a customized Mobile Banking Solution.

MShift is the leading provider of Mobile Banking in the US, providing secure mobile solutions in the financial and retail markets since 1999. MShift currently powers over 80% of the mobile banking solutions deployed in the US today.

The MShift Mobile Banking solutions work with all types of mobile devices, across all carriers. Account access is very secure, as all account information data is encrypted with a minimum of 128 bits TLS, and no user data is stored on the mobile device.

"We are pleased to partner with Capital One in this venture,” says Awele Ndili, President and CEO of MShift. “Mobile Banking has become a key differentiator for financial institutions. Capital One continues to demonstrate innovation and leadership by choosing to offer mobile banking to their 50 million customers in the Americas.

About MShift

MShift®, Inc. is the leading provider of Mobile Banking solutions. The MShift® Mobile Banking Solutions offer the widest array of features, including Bill Payment, Presentment, Transfers, Account Summaries, History, ATM locators, and much more. MShift Mobile Banking can be accessed from all carriers and device types, including cell phones, iPhone, Blackberry, Palm® and Pocket-PC PDAs, pagers, WAP, SMS, and voice devices. MShift also provides the only available Facebook Banking application – online banking directly tied into the Facebook environment. MShift’s Facebook banking application won the Online Banking Report’s “Best of the Web” award for 2007.

MShift (www.mshift.com) is headquartered in San Jose, California and can be reached via (408)437-2740 or via email at info@mshift.com.

Aloha - Bank of Hawaii

Let me take just a moment to apologize to Bank of Hawaii and mShift for a post that I wrote on 8/13. I stated that Bank of Hawaii had launched their mobile solution (which is true) but also wrote that, "the bad news is that it doesn't seem to be working." As it turns out I was wrong. The problem was "user error" because I was not entering the url correctly. The ironic part is that I remember verifing the url at least half a dozen times, but being a creature of habit, I was typing (http://www.mobile.boh.com/ - which returns a503 error code) instead of the actual url of (http://mobile.boh.com/).

That said, I will hold to my comment that, "the mobile solution, much like online banking, is a very fickle platform." For years I've known that the "www" is not necessary, but out of shear habit I continue to enter it each and every time I surf the net.

The good news is that the Bank of Hawaii site is live and looks great. Plus, as Al Landon (Chairman and CEO) states, "Bank of Hawaii was the first to offer online banking in Hawaii. Now we're pleased to be the first in the state to introduce mobile banking for our customers."