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Bank on Your Cell Phone
AnonGirl writes "Big banks are launching mobile banks to 'keep customers and generate more payment revenue down the line.' Citibank is working on two pilots: one with Obopay, and the other for contact-less payments. AT&T phones will have Wachovia already installed in their phones by fourth quarter 2007. The downside: 'Even though banks are not charging for their service, carriers do charge for accessing data through their phone.'"
I live in Europe and I've had my bank in my mobile phone for several years now (can't actually even remember how long). Making payments, checking balances, getting information. I also use my mobile to get the security confirmation code when using the online internet banking.
True, the mobile does not have all the functions of internet banking, but it is good enough to transfer money to your friend who just paid the bill in a pub when you forgot your money at home. You just need to make sure you punch in the right number of zeros, in case you had more glasses to drink.
The Danish bank http://www.jyskenetbank.dk/ easily works with Mobile Phones, and has done so for some time, at least a year, and probably for several years. Their official list of supported operating systems include Macintosh, Linux and Windows 3.1, and the homebanking system features all the usual stuff.
I can even use my mobile phone to design a new picture for the front side of my next Visa card, in case I don't like any of the standard visa credit card looks, that the bank provides.
And why does it work? They use standards-compliant HTML code, an OS independent authentication system and use few bytes per page view.
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back in the day (1998), I designed a mobile banking product for the palm pilot for the consultancy I worked for - the idea was that you could sync the palm pilot using IR through the front windows of the high street bank securly. needless to say, it never sold. for those that developed palm apps; it uses the palm prc identifier "BANK" !!!
The bank I'm working at now is going down the mobile banking route. Here in the UK the operator of one of the largest cash machine (ATM) networks LINK is producing a national white labelled system so that all banks can buy into it at low risk. One of the problems with this is that with some 2 factor authentication schemes using the mobile phone will end up losing "a factor" and will have to use other 2 factor schemes such as one time passcode schemes or the APACS CAP EMV Cards with a card reader.
The problem with the mobile devices is their security of static data - as much blogged by mikko at f-secure
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In Portugal and most european countries the service doesn't depend on the telco (we like the common carrier stuff). The bank provides a mobile site (the same way they offer the usual site) and you use it (it's also available by sms/voice). If someone didn't want to compete/change it was probably the banking industry.
A Norwegian bank called sparebanken-hedmark (www.sparebanken-hedmark.no) has done this for about a year. They were also one of the first Norwegian banks who started with online banking. Thats actually quite funny since they are a regional bank in a region perceived as slow when it comes to development. I also see that there has been some comments on security, and the Norwegian bank is working closely with a Norwegian college and their programme of master study to ensure the security. Good to see that the big banks are following in an inevitable trend.