Mobile Banking Set For Growth

Driven by the excellent opportunity provided by mobile banking to enhance existing customer services, nearly a third of the world’s largest financial organizations are planning to launch mobile banking services in the next 12 to 24 months. That’s one of the key findings of a recent survey commissioned by Sybase 365, a subsidiary of mobile messaging company Sybase.         
The survey, ‘Mobile Banking: The Second Wave. Global Mobile Banking Survey 2008’, was conducted by independent research company Loudhouse in February, among 92 of the world’s top financial institutions, including 32 European banks, 30 banks in the US, and 30 banks from the Asia-Pacific region.
Results revealed that 66% of banks consider mobile banking an excellent opportunity to enhance existing customer service. While provision of such services is considerably advanced in European and Asia-Pacific regions compared to the US, growth is projected to be strongest in the US with 53% of US banks surveyed expecting to launch mobile banking services within the next 24 months.
“Key factors for financial institutions offering mobile banking are not solely commercial, such as reducing costs or generating revenue,” says Matthew Talbot, Vice President, mCommerce for Sybase 365. “Mobile banking provides unique opportunities for customer interaction and retention.”       
Sybase 365 says this broadening momentum should be encouraging for the consumer respondents to its 2007 mobile banking survey, 33% of whom expressed a desire to manage  their finances on the move. A key element in increasing adoption, which is mirrored in the 2007 consumer study, is the level of awareness that customers have of mobile banking services. It appears that banks are responding to the lack of awareness felt by consumers, with 65% of the banks who currently offer mobile services stating that marketing budgets and activities to raise awareness are part of their strategic plan for 2008.
The most common mobile banking services currently available to customers include balance on demand (offered by 87% of banks with mobile banking services); transaction alerts (77%); money transfers (74%): and balance alerts (71%). Of those banks that offer such services, the top reasons for doing so are to improve the customer experience (87%); to extend Internet banking (81%), and to achieve competitive advantage (71%).

Mobile Banking Under the Spotlight

Juniper Research has released its report, ‘Mobile Financial Services, Banking and Payment Markets 2007-2011’, which assesses the current and future potential of mobile financial services applications and services, forecasting users, traffic and transaction values for the total mobile financial services market, and within mobile banking and payment sectors across eight key geographical regions until 2011.
The 168-page study includes one-on-one interviews with mobile operators, banks, credit card and infrastructure companies, as well as handset & MFS (mobile financial services) vendors. It also explores the success of NFC (near field technology) trials and provides company profiles for many key players.
The report also offers an examination of the opportunities and threats facing all members of the MFS chain, offering analysis and forecasts for companies hoping to maximise revenues within key sectors of the mobile financial services industry, including mobile banking, financial information services (messaging), funds transfer, bill presentation and payment, and account management and customer service.
The report considers the current and future market size for MFS; the strategy for financial institutions, mobile network operators, credit card networks and new entrants; the main market drivers for MFS; the technologies being adopted for MFS; whether customers are ready for the “ATM in their pocket”; and how the developed world is embracing MFS.
The report costs £1,490 for a single-user PDF or hardback copy; £1,990 for a multi-user licence; or £2,990 for an enterprise-wide licence. You can get more details here.   And a free Whitepaper here.

eLeader Debuts M-banking Solution

Smartphone software specialist eLeader has unveiled a mobile banking solution that it says enables banks to offer rich and highly usable mobile retail banking services to a wide range of devices. The company says the solution, eLeader.MobileBanking 4G, advances the state of the art in the mobile banking field through an “unparalleled user experience, coupled with solid security and a rich feature set”.
eLeader has taken a comprehensive approach to device support, developing native, fully tailored versions for Symbian OS (S60, UIQ), Windows Mobile (Standard and Professional), Nokia Series 40 and RIM Blackberry, along with a Java version for feature phones based on other platforms. A native iPhone version is due soon.
The company notes that tailoring to each major platform allows for vastly improved usability and advanced features, adding that the solution is compatible with over 95% of phones currently available on the market.
A C-level Executive of a large European bank, which is currently implementing eLeader’s m-banking solution, says:
“The challenge for banks is to deploy mobile banking services in a way that's relevant to customers' needs and habits, and that they will actually want to use. Being tightly integrated with each device platform means that eLeader’s application is instantly familiar and intuitive. There's no learning curve, because it behaves exactly like the phone's built in applications. It really is a pleasure to use compared to existing mobile banking offerings, and even PC based banking.” 
eLeader.MobileBanking 4G provides a highly secure platform for mobile banking services, offering multi-factor authentication, strong 128bit encryption during transmission, and resistance to phishing attacks that have plagued traditional online banking services. The solution is fully customisable to banks' requirements and brand image, is network-operator independent, and easily deployed. The solution is
readily localizable to regional cultures, and is already available in over 10 languages.