The articled featured an interesting set of data that is surprising and encouraging:

Eighty-nine percent of the community bankers polled in a nationwide survey said they are considering some form of enhancement to their existing platform. That includes 54% looking to design a mobile application for a smartphone, such as an iPhone, and 35% planning to add some type of functionality to their existing platform. At the same time, 9% of bankers said they were going to change their provider, and 4% were discontinuing the service altogether.

What surprises me, is the overall focus on mobile within the community bank space. While mobile certainly remains an untapped space for a lot of financial institutions, I would assume that improving their online banking platform would be of higher priority at this point. Then again, if the trend is shifting toward mobile, is online banking that important  for today’s bank customer?

Some data to consider in regards to whether mobile is a smart focus for community banks:

• 66 million users in North America will be mobile banking customers in 2015, according to an ABI survey.
• 70 percent of smartphone users had used at least one mobile banking and/or payments service in the past three months, according to a survey by Data Innovation.

So what do you think? Is mobile banking worth the hype? Should community banks be focusing on mobile, or is there another area they should be putting their resources toward?

Not everything is as rosy as MasterCard claims though, as the iPhone application – which has been available for about a year – getting mixed reviews. Some users complain of the application not working properly outside of the U.S. where it appears to be outdated.

One reviewer, identified only as Scott-USA, said the iPhone app “is just OK for use in the U.S. and Canada, but for finding ATMs in other countries this app seems to be outdated and almost useless.”  Scott, who said he is a frequent Bangkok, Thailand, visitor, said he used ATM Hunter to locate machines near JW Marriott, Sheraton Grande and Four Seasons hotels. “The app came back with no ATMs found,” Scott writes.

This begs the question of financial institutions rushing to push out applications and not focusing on the maintenance and upkeep. An idea is only as good as its execution, and this story is a perfect example of a company focusing on convenience, but overlooking critical steps.

In hindsight, the ‘ATM Hunter’ is a great resource for MasterCard’s customers. The lack of continually testing the application after its release is disheartening, as a lack of functionality is a sure recipe for customer frustration. Hopefully MasterCard will continue to provide updates to the application.

USAA, already known as a leader in the social space, is taking mobile banking to another level by introducing a technology that allows its systems to recognize individual mobile phones. The technology, which is currently awaiting approval in Apple’s iTunes site, looks to simplify the log-in process. Currently, customers enter three pieces of information: username, password and PIN. The new process would only require a secure four-digit PIN.

As more and more customers trend toward mobile banking, it’s vital for financial institutions to create a more user-friendly platform for its mobile customers. As USAA is showing, you don’t need to sacrifice security or function to accomplish this. If you’re a financial institution, what are you doing to provide a positive experience for the increasing trend of mobile banking?

USAA’s application is expected to be available for Android users in April.

For the official release, please visit their Newsroom.

There’s been a lot of commentary on the debate of whether retail branches will remain relevant. With the shift toward online and mobile banking, the requirement of a financial institution having physical branches continues to become less important. As the link above mentions, what this feature does is allow from BBVA Compass to serve more customers, in more locations and with less staff.

Imagine the possibilities of how retail banking may change in the coming years. Will banking consist of sitting in a private office, somewhere in an office building and conducting your banking business via video screens? While I don’t expect retail branches to go away anytime soon, there is definitely a shift toward transacting business via mobile devices and interactively.

Your thoughts? Would you welcome this technology or is banking still a traditional transaction? What do you think the future of retail branches is?

*Link to American Banker article can be found here.

The CEO Mobile application allows access to Well’s Commercial Electronic Office (CEO) portal services, in which users can monitor balances, approve payments, review intraday transactions and administration functions.

In a time where many business owners are constantly on the go and away from computer access, more are turning to mobile access. Wells Fargo, a leader in mobile banking, introduced the CEO portal in 2007 and has continually updated and improved the platform.

As I mentioned in previous posts, mobile banking and allowing customers 24/7 access, regardless of the vehicle, will continue to be an increasing trend as we head into 2010 and beyond. Those institutions that allow seamless technological integration of their products and services will see an increase in customer retention and market share.

A huge opportunity, as MTN will be the first of its kind in Rwanda, which has around 1.5 million cell phone users.

Mobile banking continues to be an emerging trend, and a lot of testing and trial seems to be taking place within African countries. While there seems to be a few obstacles, we’ll see how this trial turns out for MTN.

A link to the announcement can be found here.

A few key features of Mobile Wallet:

• Check an account balance
• View account transaction history
• View rewards information
• Transfer funds between accounts
• Access current US Bank offers

To find a list of phones that Mobile Wallet is currently compatible with, click here. Additional phones are being added weekly.

This looks to be a great move for U.S. Bank as it propels them into a leading and innovator role in mobile banking. The only downfall right now is the lack of being able to locate branch locations via Mobile Wallet. It’s clear that mobile banking is the leading trend in banking. Financial institutions looking to capture and sustain additional market share will be forced to enter the mobile space. Banking on the go is the way of the future, those who are proven leaders will see increased growth, while those who are late to the space of fail to adopt will likely see continued stress.

For additional information, please visit U.S. Bank’s Mobile Wallet site at www.usbank.com/mobile.

*Disclosure – I’m a current U.S. Bank employee, however, I do not work in their mobile or innovation department. I had no contact or knowledge of Mobile Wallet prior to it’s public launch. These views are my own and are not of U.S. Bank or their mobile banking department.