iPhone already making an impact

Those of you in Australia, particularly Melbourne and Sydney, will know the hype and subsequent sales of iPhones at Optus, Vodafone and Telstra stores over the weekend was hard to ignore. The launch of the 3G phone had much lead up coverage and consumer excitement, to the point where I personally witnessed the queue outside Melbourne's T-Life store in the Bourke St Mall. When I asked if I could just go in the store for a look (not at the iPhone) I was told to join the queue by the security people on the front door - I was waiting for some line like 'not in those shoes', as if it was some desirable night club ... not sure if Telstra will ever reach those heights.

And so the conversations and work begins on iphone ready internet banking (and other related functions).

ANZ have already launched something capable of working with the iPhone (has their java app failed then?) - this from their press release: "The initial functionality available to iPhone users visiting anz.com will include the tailor-made webpage and the choice of functions including Contact us, Locate us, and View Regular anz.com, as well as the ability to use the normal ANZ internet banking service. Over the coming weeks and months the purpose built iPhone banking service will be expanded to include View account balances, View your transaction history, Transfer between your accounts and Pay anyone." Baby steps for ANZ, but platform and compatability/rendering issues will be the first hurdle.

Commsec are allowing trades using the iPhone - "CommSec clients with iPhones can login anywhere, keep up to date with market news and prices, research companies and their performance, monitor their stock portfolio, and buy and sell shares." Interesting point made in the press release - "Rather than just accessing a website through the iPhone, the new purpose-built CommSec iPhone Edition enables customers to make the most of iPhone touch-screen functionality." This is an important distinction to make, to ensure we know they've taken the unique user experience of the iPhone into account, not just the fact that its a mobile. There's a demo you can watch here.

Jim at Netbanker gives us a good overview here on Kiwibanks iPhone offering, and also reveals the initial customer reaction of the BofA solution (and some background on BofA and Paypal apps). Again, an interesting point - "Their main complaint: it's not really a native app, just a front door to the bank's existing mobile site." This again emphasises the importance of the context and environment of the experience is as important as the task and functionality on offer - they must be aligned.

How important is this speed to market for the bank brands, to be associated with one of the most anticipated products in years... to finally get their IB platforms to meet REAL mobile phone standards??

NAB gets busy with SMS banking and Online Statements now live

NAB has launched its SMS banking service, where regsitered users can check account balances, request mini statements, and transfer funds between their accounts. This will add the the convenience SMS already brings to our lives... and looking forward to browser based banking on the mobile!

I've also noticed the arrival of online statements in internet banking - all you nab customers log in, click 'view statements' and have a look! Lots of activity at NAB (not quite as much as Westpac and StG obviously!). Read about all the new nab internet and mobile features here.

eMarketer tracks the growth in mobile

eMarketer again has some interesting stats on the future of mobile - note the gains in mobile broadcast tv (20 times), games (2 times), video (3 times) and gambling (2 times). Decline for streaming tv is also interesting. Jump on board broadcast tv and vidoe for mobile!!!!

FT Business of Mobile Conference

The FT Business of Moble conference, May 19 & 20 in Brussels looks pretty interesting. Good speakers from Orange, Skype, Yahoo, Intel, Blomberg, BBC, MTV, NBC, etc. Themes include Understanding Mobile Media Consumption, Delivering Mobile Content, Lessons in Mobile Marketing, Tomorrow's Mobile Partnerships, etc. Looks like FT have an interesting calendar of events this year too.

Mobile and Mass Affluent explored

Some interesting stuff from BAI Strategies:

Mobile Banking: Sooner Rather than Later
Although big questions still remain regarding vendors and platform approach, banks need to consider mounting a mobile banking service sooner rather than later to stay competitive, according to Greg Schratwieser, president and CEO of Fairfax, Va.-based ICI Consulting.

To win Mass Affluent, Change Bank Culture
What will it take for banks to establish stronger ties with mass affluent customers? "A change of culture" would help a lot, according to William H. McCracken, CEO of Atlanta-based Synergistics Research Corp.

Mobile Banking: Is This Time For Real?
Banking by cell phone failed to catch on earlier in the decade but this time may be different, according to roundtable participants interviewed in the latest issue of BAI's Banking Strategies. The technology is better, for one thing, and cell phone adoption vastly expanded. Still a question mark: the business case for banks.

Bulk update on the world of Customer Experience & Innovation

From Bruce Temkin, Guru of CX at Forrester: I just wanted to alert you about a new piece of research that I’m very excited about called “The Business Impact Of Customer Experience.” It establishes a link, objectively, between customer experience and consumer loyalty. You can read more about it in my blog: "Customer Experience Matters".

BANK OF AMERICA PARTNERS MIT FOR BANKING RESEARCH LAB: Bank of America is investing up to $25 million over five years in a collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to create a banking research and development laboratory.

SCOTIABANK PILOTS SOCIAL NETWORK FOR STAFF: Canada's Scotiabank is using technology from Microsoft to introduce an internal Web 2.0 social networking platform aimed at encouraging information sharing and collaboration among its staff.

CITI INTRODUCES MOBILE SERVICES TO CARDHOLDERS WITH FIRETHORN: Citi is teaming with m-banking outfit Firethorn to provide its credit card customers with access to real-time account information via their handsets.

Indonesia aspires to be a cashless society: "Services provided by the banking industry have now taken a leap to the next level, creating a society where cash distribution between various parties is minimal. The benefit of this cashless society system will result in major efficiencies in costs and minimize the risk of handling and distributing cash. We are pleased to announce that this year's APCONEX will address all these initiatives," adds Pak Pramono.

Consistency – The Key to a Great Customer Experience…Every Time: Many companies fail to provide a consistent experience because they focus on one customer touchpoint while completely overlooking others. How often have we heard about an otherwise four star hotel stay ruined by the one star service? The truth is nothing hurts your brand more than failing to provide a consistent experience across all customer touchpoints.

Customer Experience Calculators: So what kind of impact is the Customer Experience having on your business? Find out by first figuring out some of the facts you should know about your customers (but probably don't).

Suncorp beats us all to mobile browser banking!

The way of the future is upon us, and its called Suncorp mobile banking! From The Australian:

"SUNCORP has launched a browser-based mobile banking service (demo), beating rival the Bank of Queensland (BOQ) to the punch.

Suncorp developed the technology in-house, according to a company spokesperson. It is the first time Australian banking customers will be able to conduct transactions using the browser on their phones - similar to how web banking works. BOQ recently announced the same functionality would be available to its customers in the coming months."

This is the new direction - and the most obvious, easiest to implement etc - that mobile and internet banking will take. The first bank to build and test an iPhone banking app will be sitting at the front of the queue in my opinion.

Loans by text message send Swedes into debt

From NineMSN:

Fire off a simple text message, wait 15 minutes and presto, 300 euros (A$500) land in your account; the simplicity of obtaining SMS loans in Sweden is increasingly luring youths into debt.

"The first (SMS) loan was given in the middle of March 2006," said Janne Aakerlund, a spokesman for Sweden's debt recovery agency Kronofogden, adding that the first bill collectors were sent out just three months later.

Since then, the number of un-repaid text message loans has soared: in 2007, Kronofogden was tasked with collecting debts from 20,000 such loans, 35.9 percent of which were granted to people aged 18 to 25."

Article continues...

Bank of America ramps up iphone banking capability

Bank Of America have really embraced the iphone in their mobile banking capability, with this site to explain how it will work. A great execution of the small screen banking opportunity. Apple even talk about in their roadshow on enterprise applications (about 20 mins in).

Other Apple iPhone apps of interest:
Wesabe
Buxfer
Postbank
ExpenseBank

Modu a new evolution in mobiles

This looks pretty interesting - Modu, a tiny mobile phone that pops into interchangeable "jackets" to become a bigger, smarter phone - or into other gadgets to connect them to the internet. Read the review here.

NTT Docomo continue their visionary films

Japanese mobile market leader NTT Docomo have released another look into the future with this film, The Road to Hokusai's Waterfall:

"Mobile phones have evolved to become indispensable tools that have changed the way we lead our lives, and they are certain to continue to evolve and play an even greater role in both business and everyday life.This video depicts the near future of mobile communications as we at DoCoMo envisage it - a future in which people of all ages can enjoy richer, safer, and more convenient communications lifestyles than ever before.We hope that you’ll enjoy this, our vision for people-friendly technology that will help to bring us all closer together. "

Crazy.

Big banks getting on mobile network

This article in The Age talks of the move into mobile banking:

"AUSTRALIANS are quickly deserting bank branches and soon won't even need a computer to do their banking, now that the big banks are rolling out mobile phone banking services.

National Australia Bank and ANZ this week announced the impending launch of their mobile offerings, both of which will allow customers to check balances, view mini-statements and transfer funds between their accounts via SMS."

Short article continues...

NAB to launch SMS Banking

NAB has released details to the market on its new SMS Banking product, to come to market in April 2008. Visit this page (linked from nab.com.au) to pre-register for the new service and check out the demo.

The SMS banking service will allow personal banking customers to check account balances, request mini account statements, make funds transfers between linked accounts, and will be available on NABs new range of Everyday Banking accounts, NAB credit cards and selected savings and investment accounts.

Will CommBank and Westpac now join ANZ and NAB in this space?

ANZ begins mobile banking release in Australia

ANZ hit the press last week and over the weekend with the news its releasing a mobile banking platform this year. ANZ is understood to be trialling the service among a small group of customers and plans to roll out commercially in the next couple of weeks. ANZ has put up a website containing all the information about mobile banking, but spokeswoman Katherine Rellos refused to confirm the news or specify a time frame for rollout.

Read more at The Australian.

UPDATE - Feb launch coming says Australian IT. The impending launch, first reported in The Australian yesterday, will take place on February 11. The service will be free of charge until December 31 and any fees to be imposed would be reviewed thereafter. There are two parts to the service - TXT Banking uses SMS to deliver a customer's account balance(s) and the last five transactions, while M-Banking will enable the transfer of money between a customer's accounts or to other bank accounts in Australia.

Zion, Nokia, Virgin & Vodafone step it up

4 little things, quite different but didn't warrant their own post:

Zions Direct Ebay Page
Netbanker has brought to our attention the Zions Direct Ebay page, with some good analysis - not much point in me doing so when Netbanker does it well - "While not the first bank to experiment with eBay auctions (see note 1), Zions Direct is the first to open a dedicated site within eBay and the first to sell "new-account vouchers" (see screenshots below). Apparently the vouchers, listed in the gift certificate category, skirt eBay rules against auctioning financial services. The buyer of the certificate can redeem them for a cash deposit into their Zions Direct brokerage account. Zions Direct also auctions CDs every week directly on its website (see previous coverage here)."

Nokia NSeries gets Serious
Nokia are really ramping up the internet access in their handsets, creating small PCs with phones attached. The N82 is the total phone, with internet, music, photos, video, maps and games all possible in incredible capability, whilst the N810 tablet is their iPhone equivalent - big screen, internet access, good movie player.

Virgin site continues to evolve
The interesting Virgin company portal now has a page called Top 10 Tasks, both helping customers access the top tasks across the Virgin group, and showing the breadth of services available. I also like the Virgin Views nav - see top right.

Vodafone doing some more interesting innovation things
Vodafone are always creating beautiful online pieces - Vodafone Journey is probably the stand out - and their Innovation home page is showing some interesting items on Second Life and mobile services. This page on their corp site is related, and potentially confusing...

Wells Fargo Mobile Strategy Looks at All Customer Segments

From BankTech:

"Wells Fargo Mobile, the bank's retail offering, allows individuals to transfer money among their Wells Fargo accounts in real time; receive account activity information for all their Wells Fargo products, including loans and cards; view past transactions; and receive alerts. The small business solution provides a similar experience, with the added abilities to check cash positions and assign different degrees of access for accounts.

According to Eskander Matta, an SVP in Wells Fargo's Internet services group, the small-business m-banking offering was a natural next step for the bank since there is a great deal of overlap between its consumer customers and small business clients. The bank is offering the services to customers as both a browser-based solution, with which users enjoy an experience similar to what they see online, and as an SMS-based solution, with which customers and the bank interact via text messaging, Matta continues. "

Article continues...

BankTech also reports on the increase in mobile banking adoption.

Skype Mobile set to 'blow your mind'

From Fast Company:

"If you are feeble of constitution, beware: the following review asks the reader to reconcile two drastically disparate technology abstracts -- mobile phones and Skype -- in a way that might cause temporary insanity. But I mean "insanity" in, like, a good way.

That's because the new 3 Skypephone, powered by a small software company called iSkoot (in partnership with British phonemaker 3), performs a remarkable little trick that could change the way cell phone service (and pricing) is understood amongst the next generation of mobile talkers."

Article continues...

2008 UK-consumer barrier to MOBILE BANKING

Again from Finextra:

In 2007 the word that seemed to be most misused, abused and confused is INNOVATION.

2008 will be the year that barriers to technology will be understood, documented and better planned for after the wild wild west innovative gun-slinging that saw many news
announcements by UK Retail Banks, Private Banks, Asset Management firms and the software providers that powered their spending engines.

One example of innovative technology and business offering, that may or may not take off in 2008, is mobile banking by both consumers and High Net-Worth individuals.

Article continues...

Banco Sabadell launches 2D mobile advertising campaign

From Finextra:

"Spanish banking group Banco Sabadell has teamed with Telefonica to launch a marketing campaign that uses bi-dimensional code technology (2D code) to deliver promotional videos on customers' mobile handsets."

Article continues...

PayPal goes mobile in Aus

PayPal have just gone mobile in Australia, offering merchant payments now, and will offer person to person payments early next year. See the info here. It's a browser based service - customers go to m.paypal.com.au and login to their PayPal account.