Huntington Launches Text Banking

It's official! An inside source just confirmed that Huntington Bank has launched their text banking solution.

Of the Top 25 banks in the U.S. Huntington is only the 5th to publicly promote text banking, and only the 3rd to build a custom solution in-house.

This new service was designed to compliment Huntington's existing mobile banking solution, and is further proof of their commitment to providing their clients with anytime, anywhere access to their financial accounts.

Additionally, Huntington has coupled the solution with an industry leading microsite containing two custom designed interactive demos.

To learn more visit huntington.com/mobile, visit their mobile banking site at mobile.huntington.com, or check out the images below.

Huntington Text and Mobile Banking

Mobile Banking Updates - Jan 27

Online Banking Report Publishes Forecast
"A new research report from Online Banking Report examines current and future usage of online banking, mobile access and bill payment. The forecast covers U.S. adoption from 1994 through 2018."

Strong Consumer Interest in Mobile
"More than three-quarters of consumers want access to their bank account balances and other information at all times, and many are interested in using their phones to handle their finances, according to a survey report published Monday by Monitise Americas LLC."

ClairMail Appoints Pete Daffern as New CEO
"ClairMail, Inc., the leader in 2-way mobile banking and payment solutions that enable complete control over finances from any mobile phone, today announced the appointment of Pete Daffern as new Chief Executive Officer. ClairMail founder Joe Salesky will continue with the company as Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer."

Mobile banking service closes second stage funding
"MoBank, a new mobile banking service founded by former First Direct and Egg bankers Steve Townend and Dominic Keen, has successfully raised three-quarters of a million pounds in its second stage of funding."

Mobile Banking Updates - Jan 25

Viewpoint: Mobile Solution to Problem of Stagnant Growth
"So where do U.S. and global institutions go for growth? The Internet, via mobile technologies, will allow U.S. banks to make reasonable margins on unbanked consumers and will even allow them to reach out to global populations in ways previously unimagined."

Cellphones as Credit Cards? Americans Must Wait
"The technology exists, and, in fact, people in Japan have been using it for the last five years to pay for everything from train tickets to groceries to candy in vending machines. And in small-scale trials around the world, including in Atlanta, New York and the San Francisco Bay Area, nearly everyone has liked using this form of payment."

BlackBerry, iPhone Moves by Bank of America
"B of A claims 1.8 million active mobile banking customers."

100 Free iPhone Apps That Will Make You Smarter
"By now, you’ve hopefully realized that your iPhone is more than just a communication tool. This list of 100 free apps will prove to you that it’s also an outlet for learning other languages, playing games, discovering new music, being more productive at work, and a lot more."

Symbian Virus Targets Mobile Banking Service
"Anti-virus vendor, Kaspersky Lab says that it has detected a new malicious program capable of controlling a user’s mobile phone account. Last week, Kaspersky Lab experts detected the new malicious program for Symbian that targets customers of an Indonesian mobile phone operator."

Sybase buys payment firm for m-commerce push
"Sybase quietly acquired a mobile payments supplier last year, it has emerged today, paying an undisclosed sum for paybox Solutions of Germany."

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 >>

Peter Daffern Joins Clairmail?

I have not been able to find an official press release, but the word around the industry is that Peter Daffern has been appointed the new CEO of Clairmail.

Again, I don't have a lot of details but I was able to find a Peter Daffern on LinkedIn and he appears to have similar credentials...CEO of a software company (Purisma) located in San Francisco.

Let me know what you've heard -

Have a Plan for Text Banking?

If you're still unsure if text banking should be a part of your mobile solution check out these numbers:

* Verisign predicts..."a record of more than 1.4 billion mobile messages are expected to be delivered nationwide on Inauguration Day"

* Latest figures in the UK - 17.7 billion SMS/MMS messages in Q2 2008.

* Over 12 mobile banking transactions conducted every month per consumer.

And, if you're not sure where to start here are 3 alternatives:

Clairmail

Sybase

M-COM