With Mobile, Integration is Everything: Q&A With KeyBank's Dean Ilijasic
"In the scramble to meet customer demand for mobile banking, deploying a mobile channel can easily become a siloed exercise. Not so for Cleveland-based KeyBank (86ドル billion in total assets), where emphasis on the tight integration of all channels also drives mobile development. Bank Systems & Technology contributor Anne Rawland Gabriel spoke recently with Dean Ilijasic, senior vice president and director of consumer and small business innovation at Key, about the significance of mobile to the bank's multi-channel strategy and where it plans to go from here."

Capital One Deals Beamed Direct To Your Phone
"Capital One remains one of the most popular card issuers within Outlaw's credit card offers portal. Compare our favorite new credit cards from the bank this month, and apply online, right here. Aside from their customer service, I like the bank's willingness to jump on new technologies and trends before some of the more conservative, slow-moving banks do so. Their new mobile banking & deals app is a prime example of this..."

Upwardly Mobile
"When Tracey Weber first came to our office to shoot a video, a year ago, she proudly showed off the new iPad app her team had just finished developing. She was obviously getting things done despite the classic challenges of working in a large, matrixed organization. She brought along Andres Wolberg-Stok, a smart and articulate colleague who has also shown thought leadership in the industry - every mobile banker of the year needs a strong team behind her. Under Weber's watch, along with being one of the first banks to introduce an iPad app, Citi is among the first to have a Kindle app; it was also the first bank to team up with Google on its mobile wallet, which still has the potential to be a leading mobile payment solution."

Online Banking vs. Mobile Banking
"While PC-based online banking is not much older than a high school student, mobile banking is still in elementary school. With the proliferation of smartphones, however, online banking's younger sibling is quickly catching up to the slightly more established option. Banking through your PC's web browser offers a full menu of services. You can easily and conveniently schedule payments, transfer funds, add new payees, open new accounts, apply for loans, view current and past statements, and access information about specific checks that have been deposited. A PC or Mac allows you to view an extensive array of details and options, giving you full control of your accounts."

MoneyDesktop Signs Seventeen More Credit Unions and will Enhance Member Online Banking with PFM
"Credit unions nationwide are implementing PFM at an increasingly rapid pace as they recognize its critical role in online and mobile banking. Seventeen more credit unions are adding PFM to online banking and all have selected the platform provided by MoneyDesktop, a leader in PFM and an innovator that is redefining the way that people interact with their finances and with financial institutions. Today's announcement is another signal that account aggregation and PFM are must-have components to online and mobile banking."

Monetizing Mobile Check Deposit
"Winston-Salem, N.C.-based BB&T Corp. may be a super-regional, but the bank's acquisitive yet conservative deal-making has garnered it national notice in industry and analyst circles. BB&T has in the last 10 years more than doubled its assets to 174ドル.8 billion, making it one of the largest regionals in the world and the 13th largest bank in the U.S. Taking over the deposits and branches of failed Colonial BancGroup in 2009 from FDIC enabled BB&T to crack the U.S. top 10 in rankings of deposits; the bank has 124ドル.2 billion currently. It also boosted BB&T's presence in Alabama, Georgia and Florida, while giving the institution a foothold in Texas."

UPLEX Global Launches Powerful Secondary Loan Market
"Paul J. Giefing, CEO and Founder of UPLEX Global, today announced the release of a powerful, global, online secondary loan market to allow banks, credit unions, private investors and numerous other financial institutions to efficiently and affordably trade whole loans, loan portfolios and loan participations.

'I’ve found that the old way of buying and selling loans and portfolios has simply become too expensive and time consuming, especially during these challenging economic times,' said Giefing. 'With UPLEX Global, we’ve truly changed the way the way secondary markets work by offering an online ‘broker-less’, paperless platform to efficiently and securely manage loan portfolios. Our technology allows financial firms to maximize time and make more money by putting them in total control of their own portfolios.'”

Mobile Banking Consolidation: Monitise Buys Clairmail For 173ドル Million
"One more sign of the mobile money space continuing to grow up: some significant consolidation underway. Today, the UK-based mobile banking specialists Monitise announced that it is buying Clairmail, a U.S.-based competitor, for 173ドル million, as part of its global expansion.

The combined group says it will serve 13 million customers world-wide processing some 10ドル billion of payments weekly, and will give Monitise a much bigger and direct presence in the North American market: one-third of the top 50 U.S. financial institutions are now clients of the group."

Why did Monitise acquire Clairmail?
"The traditional mobile banking category, of performing PC based on-line banking tasks on the phone is stabilizing. The growth of mobile banking is in mobile payments including person-to-person, interbank transfers and the mobile wallet.

The competition in this more broadly defined mobile banking + payments market is heating up fast. PayPal and Square have made merchant as well as person-to-person announcements in the last week. ISIS (with is operator partners) and Google have also announced several new partnerships and function so far this year. These vendors plan a revolutionary approach to mobile payments."

USAA Tops Mobile Banking App UX Study
"USAA wins out when it comes to customer experience and satisfaction with mobile banking offerings. That's according to the 2012 ath Mobile Banking Study, which was recently conducted by financial services research and customer experience strategy development firm ath Power Consulting.

The study combined an online survey of more than 1,500 mobile banking users with hands-on user audits of mobile banking applications from about 240 banks and credit unions. Seventy-three percent of users surveyed claimed high satisfaction with USSA's mobile offerings. Huntington Bank and BB&T ranked right below USAA in terms of in customer satisfaction."

Smart Phones Helping Consumers Manage Their Money
"Using a mobile device to access your bank account is not only convenient, but it appears to be helping consumers better manage their finances. A new Federal Reserve study shows that mobile phones and Internet access are in widespread use and changing the way that consumers access their financial services. According to the study, 21 percent of mobile phone owners have used mobile banking in the past twelve months, and an additional 11 percent think they will probably use it within the next year."

BankAtlantic Launches New On Demand SMS Text Message Banking
"BankAtlantic, Florida’s Most Convenient Bank, announced today the launch of its newest functionality in On Demand SMS Text Message Banking powered by Intuit Financial Services.

BankAtlantic’s free* Text Message Banking service combines a secure banking medium and the ease of sending and receiving a text message. Customers enjoy the convenience of checking account balances, viewing latest transactions, receiving low balance alerts, and making fund transfers to their primary account, using text messages from anywhere, at any time."

Entrust Introduces Advanced SDK, Enables Banks to Embed Transparent Strong Authentication into New or Existing Mobile Applications
"To improve the speed and efficiency in which financial institutions develop and provide customers secure, trusted mobile banking applications, Entrust, Inc., announces the Entrust IdentityGuard Mobile Software Development Kit (SDK) for today's popular mobile platforms, including Apple, Google Android, RIM BlackBerry and Java. This easy-to-use security toolkit helps banks transparently embed Entrust's strong authentication technology into an organization's new or existing mobile-banking application."

TD introduces next wave of mobile convenience
"As part of its ongoing commitment to providing comfortable and convenient customer experiences, TD Bank Group today announced an enhanced and expanded version of its popular mobile app. With more than one million North American downloads - the most of any Canadian bank - the latest version of the TD mobile app now offers several features unique to any Canadian mobile banking and investing app."

Bank of America Windows Phone 7 mobile banking app now available
"Bank of America has launched its own Windows Phone 7 mobile banking application. The application, available immediately, allows Bank of America users to manage their banking accounts straight from Windows Phone 7. Here’s the top features:"

Mybarclaycard now on mobile
"This quarter Barclaycard joined the mobile banking bandwagon and launched a new mobile service for its existing Internet Banking customers. The service can be accessed on most web enabled phones using the Barclaycard Online Banking login details and has been developed to compliment Barclaycards existing online services platform."

Chase Mobile iPad App Updated With QuickDeposit
"Chase released a new update of its Chase Mobile iPad application that sports an optimized interface to take advantage of the tablet’s larger screen real estate."

Bank of Internet USA Launches Enhanced Mobile Banking Experience for Customers
"Bank of Internet USA (NASDAQ: BOFI) announced today an enhanced mobile banking experience for its customers. Bank of Internet's Mobile Banking enhancements allow customers access to their accounts through their mobile phone via two options: Text Message Banking and Mobile Web."

BB&T introduces free Android app
"BB&T Corporation (NYSE: BBT) announced today it has launched a free Android application for both smartphone and tablet users. BB&T is one of only a few U.S. banks to offer a comprehensive mobile banking consumer and small business product suite – mobile Web, text banking, and mobile applications – for a wide range of mobile devices. The app is now available for download on the Android Marketplace. BlackBerry and iPhone apps were released in 2010."

Tyfone offers m-banking service (US)
"Tyfone has introduced its mobile banking service. The service leverages Tyfone’s u4ia mobile financial services platform that enables contactless payments via NFC technology.

Tyfone’s mobile banking service is delivered to banking customers via mobile applications, mobile websites or text messaging. The tool aims to provide users with several features, such as checking balance, account history review, fund transfers, branch and ATM location lookup and bill pay."

Wells Fargo shares mobile banking usage patterns at Mobile Marketing Forum
"Wells Fargo’s mobile customer base is looking increasingly like the overall customer base, a senior executive from the bank told delegates at the Mobile Marketing Forum. The bank’s mobile channels have also found widespread use across different demographics. The channels, however, are extremely popular with out-of-office workers, Generation Y and Millennial consumers, and mobile professionals."

Great Expectations: Global Security Challenge
"Mobile banking, social media, cloud computing. These all are part of the global banking landscape today, and with these innovations come new expectations, says Alessandro Moretti of (ISC)2 and UBS Investment Bank. 'There's an expectation that security will be built-in and be part and parcel of all those factors,' Moretti says. 'On the other hand, there's increased concern over who has access to personal and corporate data.'"

Mobile Banking Ubiquitous Among Large Banks, Chase's Declared Best
"The wide-scale consumer adoption of smartphones has pushed large retail banks to develop phone applications and mobile-formatted websites to help customers manage their accounts: a report released today by Corporate Insight found that all but one of the 16 large banks tracked by its Bank Monitor report offer mobile banking solutions to account holders through at least one delivery option, with many offering and promoting multiple options to clients and prospects."

U.S. Bank AccelaPay Mobile Banking Application Wins 2011 Paybefore Award
"Paybefore has chosen the U.S. Bank AccelaPay mobile banking application as a 2011 Paybefore Awards winner in the Best Virtual or Mobile Prepaid Application category. The awards are presented annually by Prepaid Media, whose Paybefore publications are the leading source of industry information for the global prepaid community."

BB&T introduces free downloadable iPad App
"BB&T has launched a free iPad application that allows more convenient banking access to its on-the-go clients. The BB&T iPad App is one of the first of its kind in the United States that’s not just a high-definition version of mobile banking. It is now available for download on the iTunes App Store."

ABI Research just released their Mobile Banking report card of 29 bank solutions on Reuters.

"The results are as follows:

A - Exceptional: BB&T, Eastern Bank, Fifth Third Bank, Northeast Bank, USAA, Wells Fargo

B+ - Very Good: Bank of America, Chase

B - Good: Capital One, US Bank, Huntington Bank

C - Average: America First, Bancorp South, Citibank, PNC, Wachovia

D - Below Average: Carolina First, 1st Bank, IBC Bank, Mercantile Bank, Regions, SunTrust, Synovus

F - Failing: M&T, Provident Bank

No mobile banking offering: Citizens Bank, Comerica, HSBC, KeyBank"

>> Click here to continue reading

It has been a busy few days in the world of mobile banking so here are the updates...


Bank Atlantic Mobile Banking - Earlier today I received word that Bank Atlantic has now launched their mShift powered browser application. The site is located at ba2go.mobi and includes an interactive demo.

Monitise Americas Announces Additional Customers "The most recent institutions to offer mobile banking and payment services from Monitise Americas and NYCE include: Commerce Bank of Arizona, Tucson, AZ.; Forest Park National Bank & Trust Co., Forest Park, IL.; Industrial Credit Union, Boston; Patriot State Bank, Fuquay-Varina, N.C.; and Wedbush Bank, Los Angeles."

ClairMail to Present with Wells Fargo and BB&T at BAI TransPay Conference and Expo "ClairMail, Inc., the leader in 2-way mobile phone-based customer interaction, today announced that the company's chief executive officer, Joseph Salesky, is presenting at the BAI TransPay Conference and Expo, February 5-7 in Grapevine/Dallas, TX, alongside representatives from Wells Fargo, BB&T and Novantas."

Google and Verizon May Both Win in FCC Auction "With open access assured, there may be more than one winner in the FCC's auction of the 700MHz wireless spectrum. Google and Verizon may have been the competitors as a 4ドル.71 billion bid for the C block triggered the Federal Communication Commission's open-access rules for mobile wireless devices. The winner could be Google, Verizon or another carrier."

Winston-Salem-based BB&T Corporation (NYSE: BB&T - News) today said it has partnered with two California-based mobile banking and payment providers to offer one of the industry's most comprehensive mobile banking services.

BB&T's three-phase rollout of the new service is set to begin next month and is expected to be completed in the first quarter when a full menu of mobile banking options will be available to BB&T clients. The services include two-way mobile messaging, mobile Web access and mobile banking applications

BB&T is the first customer of a newly-formed partnership between ClairMail Inc. of Novato, Calif., and mFoundry of Sausalito, Calif.

Click to read the full press release.