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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.'"
AT&T phones will have Wachovia already installed in their phones by fourth quarter 2007.
I guess the "ph" in iPhone will get a strange emphasis with people's accounts "mysteriously drained" for some reason.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
It hasn't been that long since Paris Hilton's cell got hacked and everyone got to see what she kept on her phone; maybe AT&T has better security on this stuff - but I'd bet not.
I don't think this is going to turn out well...
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.
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.
I agree with you today, but I'm not sure how I'd feel a year from now. I recently bought a Treo and have an unlimited data plan with Sprint. More and more I find myself using it to do things I normally do on the computer. I frequent Wikipedia, IMDB, Google News, and so on. Heck, I even found myself browsing Amazon a bit with it. The reason I'm using the phone instead of the computer? I'm often away from it. Amazon, for example, is great to peek at if I'm at a store and I find something I might want to get. I'll get a review and an idea of if the price is roughly in the right ballpark.
Okay, I'm probably not thrilling you with my tales of my mighty Treo browsing experience, but hear me out. I often get hit with an idea to do something when I'm away from the computer, and the Treo's awfully available. Sometimes I'll be out and about and realize I haven't paid my credit card bill yet. Well, that's when I notice how limited it can be sometimes. I've found out that the silly site they use won't support it. That's a bummer, I end up having to remember to take care of it when I get home. That's all fine and dandy, nothing wrong with that, except it's crunch mode where I work right now. My mind is full of tasks and I have precious few hours in the day to handle my home expenses. My point is that I can see the appeal of something like this if it's handled well and securely. Necessary? Nah, but there are people out there it has the potential to be convenient to.
I'm tired and I'm not sure how clear I'm being, so I'll put it a little more concisely: Yes, I am in front of a computer enough to take care of bills. However, I also find my phone is available at times when my computer isn't. It's not a cure for cancer, but it's semi-interesting to somebody like me who finds spare time to be a bit pricey.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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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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
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.