Finacle Blog:Mobile Banking 2.0

Mobile banking as we know it has run its course. Most banks offer basic information and transaction services over a mobile platform, which have been accepted by some customers and ignored by most. The trick to achieving large-scale adoption, à la the ATM, is usability and easy experience, and this is where mobile banking must go next. If you want people to pick up their handset rather than trudge across to the nearest ATM, you need to give them a well-rounded mobile banking offering which fulfils most of their personal financial management requirements, including cheque deposit, a significant miss in the current avatar. More importantly, such an offering must be the last word in convenience.

Incidentally, some markets have already set off on this path. In the US., the Mobile Remote Deposit Capture facility to deposit cheques by sending a camera-phone image to the bank via mobile instead of the paper instrument is fast catching on. Positive Pay, which allows issuers to accept or reject a cheque with typographical errors after seeing its digital image, is another example of a value-adding mobile banking feature.

What are the other possibilities for Mobile banking 2.0? A real alternative to branch and ATM banking must deliver most, if not all of their services - hence, mobile banking must replace the advisory element of branch banking with simple tools which help users compare various financial products to decide what works for them, and take this to its logical conclusion by fulfilling the purchase. It should further enable lifestyle by facilitating purchase of digital and information goods, delivering context-relevant offers and information etc. This means technology vendors must be more innovative in their Mobile banking product development, approaching it from a consumer perspective, rather than a technology perspective. I'd go so far to say that the present obsession with computers is clouding the thinking around mobile innovation, because most developers overlay their experience with the PC and Internet onto the mobile. And that's where we could go wrong, because mobile banking must not be viewed as an evolution of Internet Banking (which is already quite sophisticated), but rather a simple, user-friendly, out and out consumer product, which - to turn the argument on its head - may be the gateway to online banking!

With pricing of the channel usage and security taken care of, I believe that there are no real barriers to adoption of mobile banking other than its current lack of usability. Hence, the mandate for Mobile banking 2.0 is clear:
• Keep it simple
• Offer what customers want
• Leave out what they don't!
And once you've got more customers on-board mobile banking 2.0, I bet you'll see several of the same faces on your Internet channel as well !

Comments

I totally agree with you. The current trend also seems to be heading towards offering a suite of services via Iphone/Android apps etc rather than offering one-off services.

For all other phones, a light weight mobile site seems to be the way to go.

Posted by: Chetan | February 6, 2011 8:08 AM