2007 Is Looking Like The Year Cell Phone Banking Gets Started
Big banks aren't on board yet. But the infrastructure's being put in place, and Cingular is about to turn up the heat.
Mobile phone banking has yet to hit the United States, but look for a big push in the coming year, as customers already used to online banking buy faster, smarter cell phones and get accustomed to doing more data-intensive tasks on the go. Most banks, though, have a long way to go to provide what customers will soon expect.
Cingular Wireless, the largest cellular service provider in the United States, is trying to kick-start the market through a partnership with software vendor Firethorn Holdings that will let Cingular customers pay bills, check balances, and transfer funds on their cell phones. The Firethorn application sits on a cell phone and connects with Firethorn's servers, which then communicate with the banks' systems. Cingular expects to make the service available early next year, but Firethorn isn't saying if it has any banks signed up.
Synovus, a midsize bank and insurance company in the Southeast, plans to let select customers do mobile banking by the second quarter of next year, with a broader rollout later. It initially will provide bill viewing, bill payment, and money transfers; future services likely will include person-to-person payments, says Garry Hedges, director of payment strategy. "The next generation of banking customers isn't going to conform to traditional channels of branch banking," he says.
Synovus expects Firethorn to strike partnerships with other cellular carriers, and it will use one of their networks to provide the service to customers. Hedges doesn't think it will take much IT infrastructure work to deliver data to mobile devices, since the offering will rely on the same service-oriented architecture that Synovus uses to deliver data for Web banking. |
