Mobile News

Essentially, BT Genie is three businesses–a web-based portal, a mobile-based (WAP) portal and an online network operator. The web-based presence shows how portals can allow operators to compete for the fixed ISP market. Revenue sharing is different with different content partners. The Genie website was launched in September 1997–two years later the portal itself was launched. In January 2000 the WAP portal went live and its performance demonstrates quite how important the mobile internet space is to telecoms operators. There are over one million registered users accounting for more than 25 million page impressions per month. UK banking partners are Egg, Halifax, NatWest, HSBC and Lloyds TSB. More telling is the wholesale value-add provided from such mobile portal provision:

* Genie customers on BT Cellnet yield 35% more postpaid ARPU than the average BT Cellnet base

* BT Cellnet churn reduced by half since introduction of Genie

* Genie customers on BT Cellnet are yielding a 78% more prepaid ARPU than the average BT Cellnet base

* Genie customers account for 10% of BT Cellnet mobile-originated revenue

* 35% of customers are non-BT Cellnet.

Source: BT Cellnet `IBC Mobile Portals Conference’ October 2000

Key to Genie’s success is its billing system–unmetered mobile internet access at GBP20/month is available through various postpaid tariffs and a prepaid option will shortly be available.

Although the issue of portal control is unclear in terms of branding, the ability to access banking services through them represents a triumph of service over technology. The Genie portal witnesses the convergence of fixed and mobile internet channels through basic services such as voicemail and email: unified messaging and cross-device subscriber identity will work in tandem with customised menus to provide the personalisation key to multi-channel banking.

However, even operator strategy within portal development is far from clear cut. Orange has indicated that the multi-access portal will not be the centrepiece of its future non-voice mobile strategy–the portal Orange.net will form only part of the OrangeWorld concept, which comprises various units such as OrangeBank, OrangeMall and OrangeTravel. Yet the alternatives of aggregation and portal access for banking services polarise the ambitions of banks and operators in banking service provision because the portal is an entry point for mobile internet access, and operators (who own the billing relationship with the mobile user) are better placed to exploit it. For banks the advantage of using aggregators is revenue generation since the content is purchased and brand dilution is avoided, yet direct association with portal providers allows the opportunity to align with an internet powerhouse or strong mobile operator brand–even if this entails emphasis on value creation rather than revenue opportunity. For operators, portal services provide a logical opportunity to build on existing customer base, provide m-payments and differentiate services. As such the mature mobile financial portal space is likely to encompass a variety of models:

* Banks providing services to independent portals (eg NatWest/MViva)

* Banks also recognised as mobile portal (eg Bank of Montreal)

* Mobile operator portals with banking services (BT Genie)

* Fixed internet players able to leverage existing customer base (eg AOL, Yahoo!).

Personal mobile financial portals will come of age with the provision on an XML-based integration framework that enables portal services across different devices. Ireland-based Macalla Software’s Mobility WAP product supports such a framework–clients include AIB Bank and Ulster Bank.

Current trends for integrating mobile financial services within a mobile portal lay stress on stockbroking and advice/ information services as catalysts for personalisation and user-centricity. A cross section of the services offered by France-based application developer Fingo reveals the delineation of financial services, which are based on a multi-standard solution (WAP, EPOC, Windows CE and Palm Pilot/OS). This accommodation of device specificity allows the mobile internet start up to use partnerships to mobilise financial content providers and enrich mobile operator value-added services.