Innovation's true power can appear as a subtle revelation, unveiling itself in something as benign as a line of data on a usage report.
"Two of our biggest days within the first few months of offering corporate mobile banking were the day after Thanksgiving and New Years Day. And they were the two biggest days for usage of wires and wire approvals," says Don Jenkins, vp and senior product manger at PNC, which offers both retail and corporate mobile banking, which launched last fall. "The offices weren't even open, and people were away and still able to get business done. That proves the point right there."
The point Jenkins is referring to is the full-bore arrival of mobile banking as a mature channel, after years of false starts, R&D, sales pitches and prognostications. Banks are ready to offer expanded mobile services, and customers are getting comfortable with the channel.
"Mobile allows you to take friction and time out of the equation for customers," says Dominic Venturo, whose early and successful embrace of contactless payments, prepaid mobile and location-based technology has made the U.S. Bank chief innovation officer for payment services BTN's Mobile Banker of the Year.
U.S. Bank's bold plays demonstrate the next gen is now, and examples of shrewd mobile plays can be found everywhere. USAA and Citi are among the banks tapping mobile remote deposit capture to give consumers a way to deposit checks; while BofA, Chase and Wells are tapping GPS functionality to help consumers find branches-a gateway for future use of mobile and GPS as part of merchant rewards for shoppers, a move that U.S. Bank is planning to make later this year via a pilot program that matches coupons to consumers' locations inside a retailer. On the corporate side, Standard Chartered Bank is providing business clients with access to trade finance and letters of credit, while Wells Fargo makes practically all of its corporate functions available on its CEO Mobile app.
Innovation's also coming from a number of technology providers that are playing in the mobile space. It's coming from companies like FaceCash, a mobile payments firm that's using bar codes and an image of the actual user for security; Zenius, which is developing a software suite to enable an open architecture that reaches across all mobile platforms, merchant POS and back-end systems to anticipate the growth in mobile payments that's sure to accompany the development of NFC; First Data's new mobile vouchers, which enable merchants to deliver special offers through mobile devices; and a host of others.
"It's now becoming the norm, not a rarity, for people to be using their devices to enable their buying decisions," says Brian Shniderman, principal and head of U.S. payments for Deloitte Consulting.
These advances in functionality demonstrate sophistication far beyond balance inquiries and SMS alerts to a much meatier mix of deposit services, location-based marketing and loyalty rewards.
"There's no reason why a mobile banking customer should have to walk into a branch to deposit a check, when the technology for mobile deposit is there and consumers have already shown a willingness to use it," says Ron Shevlin, an analyst at Aite Group.
Adoption numbers also portend a vigorous future. Forrester Research says mobile banking adoption in the U.S. doubled between 2007 and 2010, and by 2015 one in five adults will be using mobile banking. And Deloitte predicts robust penetration of mobile payments in the U.S.
