Pivotal Year for Mobile Banking: 2009

In an article from Mobile Banker (American Banker) several industry experts are listing 2009 as the year mobile banking officially became commonplace and customers consider it a standard service to be offered by their financial institutions.

Fred Brothers, managing partner of technology consulting firm eCom Advisors, states in the article, "I think we will look back at 2009 as the pivotal year for mobile banking…I don't think people appreciate that yet."

Later in the article Richard K. Crone, the founder of Crone Consulting LLC, states, “Mobile banking and payments are taking off much faster than online banking did.  People are already comfortable with the idea of managing information with phones, and managing financial details feels like a natural next step to many consumers.  With online banking, we had to wait for people to get modems in their computers and sign up for online service and get familiar with the process," he said. "None of that is necessary with mobile banking. All you have to do is to create the service."

And if 2009 was the year when mobile banking became commonplace for people who already bank online,” Crone said, "the next year won't be about bringing Internet banking customers to the mobile. The next year will be about customers who aren't [banking online] at all."

I would agree with Mr Crone.  All the research on mobile banking suggests that up to 40% of your mobile banking users will not come from your current online users.   

The article focuses on mobile banking, but implicitly states a main driver for mobile banking is P2P transfers.   Doug G. Brown, the senior vice president of product innovation at Bank of America Corp, says younger users encourage their parents to use mobile banking because they know that will enable mom and dad to instantly send them money.  

The article also discusses text alerts and mobile payments, so it seems that a convergence is occurring rather quickly as well.  Mobile banking, P2P, mobile payments, text alerts and counting. 

2009 maybe the year for mobile banking, but it also may be the year that the definition of what is mobile banking was expanded.

http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/175_2/mobile-1005739-1.html

Posted on: Tuesday, January 5, 2010