Mobile News

Although this post aims to emphasize the cooperation between banks and operators that characterizes the development of the mobile channel, focus will be maintained on basic banking services and mobile payments only. As such, this embryonic stage of mobile commerce activity can be better assessed by appropriating mobile banking within banks’ multi-channel distribution mix, while m-payments, the key enabler for mature mobile functionality, emphasizes the need for partnership (between bank, operator and credit card company) so vital to m-commerce deployment. Indeed, m-payments offer greater potential for differentiation: the prospect of the wireless wallet supersedes the basic offer of mobile banking, which is often an extension of a bank’s internet channel. By the end of 2008 just under half of Europe’s top financial services are anticipated to offer mobile services, with roughly 35% in Asia Pacific. All markets have witnessed early adopters, although development considerations in terms of technology (SMS, WAP, XML) and device (mobile terminals, handheld devices, PDAs) render mobile banking a non-standardized application. Mobile broking is deemed the `killer application’ within the suite of mobile financial services due to its dependency on the time-sensitivity that mobility provides. The mobile channel offers customers the best opportunity to react swiftly to changing market conditions and mobile broking can use SMS for `pushed’ alerts and WAP for stock and option trading. However, mobile banking could well be considered the most reliable indicator of how ready the end user is for personalized services, whether controlled by bank or operator, because of the universality of basic banking services.

Mobile banking thus can be seen to straddle the initial stages of value-added service delivery-information and basic transactions. Current offerings centre on information delivery (account balance check, mini-statement, credit limit check etc). Additional services include bill payment and inter account transfers but personalization is limited to notification of key alerts such as share price movement or receipt of funds. M-payment heralds the third stage of service evolution towards complex transactions, which culminates in the mobile `lifestyle’ portal and its fulfilment of high added-value information. Control of the trusted mobile portal could be assumed by banks, operators and existing portal providers: partnerships will be crucial to the seamless enhancement of mobile banking services in order to offer consolidated content, equipment and network services.