Banking

You may already have heard something about the great future in store for us with mobile banking? In fact, according to recent research by Juniper Research, the number of consumers using their mobile phones for banking services will reach a staggering 816 million by 2011. In addition, Juniper estimates that mobile banking transactions will increase from 2.7 billion in 2007 to 37 billion in 2011. Before long, it seems, we will be using our mobile phones for just about everything – a wallet, information source and communicator, all rolled into one.

For all the excitement, though, very few of us would boast much knowledge about mobile banking – it’s something for the future. You may be surprised, therefore, to learn that mobile banking is actually here in the UK and is available on many mobile phones right now. The ‘Monilink’ service has been developed for use with a variety of phone networks, including 3, Orange, T Mobile and Vodafone, and is available from several banks such as HSBC, Natwest, Alliance & Leicester and The Royal Bank of Scotland. Register for the service and you can view your statements and bank balance/s via your mobile phone, as well as top up your pay-to-go phone, all via Monilink.

And that may only be the start of it. In Japan, the potential for using mobile devices for financial transactions is no new thing – indeed the Japanese have enjoyed mobile payments for years, enabled by the work of NTT DoCoMo, which introduced built-in chip technology for contactless payments back in 2004. By the summer of 2007, over 21.5 million ‘FeliCa’ phones, including contactless payment technology, had been sold across Japan. According to research, the term ‘Osaifu Keitai’ or ‘mobile wallet’ is now recognised by four out of five Japanese people.

Looking to the East it may seem that we can similarly map out our own future. Before long we will be able to access all of our financial information, as well as pay bills and go shopping, all through just our mobile phone. For all the hype over such technology, however, there are some signs that the future may not be so easily packaged.

Research from TNS on behalf of Fujitsu systems in late 2007, for example, revealed that 65% of 2,500 retail financial services customers across Europe prefer to access banking services online. But only 5% said that mobile banking would be a banking channel of choice. In addition, a significant 53% of respondents still prefer to access their banking services such as a current account by physically going into a bank branch. That seems a far cry from banking on the move, wherever and whenever. In the UK, it seems that we are even more traditionally minded, with the majority of respondents citing face-to-face or voice interaction as their preferred banking method, even above online access.

There’s little doubt that technology will continue to change our lives and more of us, with time, will adopt such services as mobile banking. But for all the hype, there are obviously still some reservations about latest technologies. Perhaps consumers feel that such technologies haven’t been adequately tried and tested, or perhaps there’s just a psychological barrier to mobile banking – despite all the in-built security with such services, there’s still the fear of losing your phone and all your banking details with it.

Technology companies will have to work hard to convince customers that mobile banking is both safe and secure. But if the statistics for future on-the-move banking are anywhere near accurate, then the future for mobile banking has surely only just begun.