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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 Argentina, and I've had this for a long time already. There are 2 ATM networks here. Link and Banelco. Link is usually used by government-owned banks, and Banelco for private banks. Banelco is years ahead of links in a lot of features, including mobile banking: a Java app where I can check account status, movements, balance, make transfers, pay bills, whatever. Citibank Argentina uses Banelco so yes, if I were a Citibank customer I'd have this feature too (but I am a customer of Standard Bank, formerly --2 months ago-- BankBoston. It was the last BankBoston in existence -- Fleet or Bank of America didn't rename it, so 2007 was the last time the brand "Boston" was used. Not a nice way of ending a bank that operated in my country (1790) since it was even a country (only in 1816 we had independence from Spain). Also Standard is so boring with their white-on-blue logo :)
Oh, yes, Standard, like Boston (and HSBC, Citi, BBVA, Santander,...), uses Banelco. So I do have this feature (and a Visa debit card). And I use it quite often.
Well most stuff in the real world has pretty poor security. The thing that stops thieves is that whole "youll go to jail if you do this" thing. I mean how easy is it for a waiter to copy down your credit card number when he goes back to run it? Or take a quick cell phone picture when the guy in front of you in line hands the clerk his credit card. And yet somehow people still use their credit cards. I suspect that it is because we have this cool thing called law enforcement in this country that deters people from committing crimes. It wont be any easier to steal your info now than it was then.
If anything I would trust this more because it actually has the potential (if implemented well) to be far more secure than a number printed on the front of the card for the world to see. Even if they are broadcasting data unencrypted it will still be more secure than regular credit card use because the difficulty of electronic eavesdropping is much higher than the difficulty of reading a number on a card.
So when this became commonplace in Japan, it wasn't news.
And then when it became commonplace in Korea and Singapore, it still wasn't news.
And then when it became commonplace in Europe, it still wasn't news.
And then when it became common in Latin America (at least cities I've been to), it still wasn't news.
But now... the USA is catching up! And that's *news* folks!
And quite rightly. There weren't any barriers to the adoption of techs like this in asia etc., whereas in the US there has been a powerful, entrenched telecoms industry with no impetus to compete or change. If that barrier is becoming less effective then that could have important implications.
The question is, is it just 'technological osmosis', or is there an actual change in the balance of power...
Disclaimer: I don't even have a mobile (that works), so it's possible the barrier to progress is actually me.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
First mobile payment system was developed already over decade earlier in Finland. In beginning of 90's there were tests and small trials with smart cards and mobile phones. Most got out from using a smart card for micropayments, but it wasn't usable in many places and it didn't catch fire. Japanese kind of a recycled the idea of smartcards adding RFIDs to mobiles few years back.
'Internet banking' thru mobile browser has been there since Nokia 7110 introduction thru WAP in 1999. And before that via SMS.
US is stone age of mobile technology because US carrier monopolies and Motorola.
In India, we've had this since 1999 or 2000. Initially the service was using SMS ('text messages' to u americans) codes sent to a predefined number.You can query account balance, summary of transactions, stop payments, cheque book requests and so on-for eg send 'BAL' to get your account balance. For security, you have to register your mobile number with the bank first-via a signed paper form. A few banks have even launched WAP portals ever since more users began to use GPRS/EDGE services. And the latest innovation from ICICI Bank is a J2ME application that sends the control SMSes on your behalf (so you don't have to remember them each time). Oh, and not just banking- SMS services are very common. TV channels frequently ask users to vote on various issues by sending an SMS. You can book movie tickets, airline/railway tickets, check booking status and departure schedules, choose to be alerted via SMS of any delays. The flip side-SMS spam offering credit cards, loans and insurance in addition to regular operator spam for content downloads.
"..One hosts to look them up, one DNS to find them, and in the darkness BIND them."
The cell phone companies have a huge untapped market for customers that's completely inaccessible because of the massively high price of data plans.
Once a provider starts offering a plan that either gives me a reasonable amount of data bundled in with my calling plan, or allows me to trade my talking minutes for the equivalent amount of data (I'd imagine that their costs would work out to be the same, given that everything's digital and is most likely routed alongside IP traffic).
The problem is that cell providers in the US have an awful habit of nickel-and-diming their customers out of every little fee they can find. There's *NO* reason why a teeny-tiny text message should cost the same as a minute of talk time.
Some day, one of the companies is going to realize this, and within two years (because of the stupid abusive-contracts-that-really-should-be-illegal) they'll have captured a huge share of the market. The service industries in America really need to learn to treat their customers like humans.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose