iPhone: the future ATM and ticket taker
By Gareth Powell
The idea that iPhone (or, indeed, any other smart phone with a largish screen) could one day oust the ATM is not that daft an idea. There was a time when streets all had telephone boxes because that is how you made a mobile call.
(You do not have to believe this by Australia Telstra once made a video on how to use a mobile phone. It was never shown publicly. It was not needed.)
As the new generations get use to the fact that a cell phone, especially a smart cell phone, can do damn well anything, then using it to deal with banking details becomes pretty obvious.
Analysts agree this is going to happen which is a bit of a worry. Mark Beccue, senior analyst in Poised for Takeoffconsumer mobility with technology research firm ABI
Research, said, ‘This is the big year in terms of percentage growth … This is the killer app.”
His company thinks 400,000 mobile banking users existed in 2007, a figure that skyrocketed to 3.1 million in 2008. In 2009, the numbers of subscribers will more than double, hitting the 7 million mark. Beccue’s long-term estimate: 32 million by 2013.
The number of U.S. banks offering mobile banking should hit 614 this year, representing about 4 percent of banks in the country, double the 245 that offered the service in 2008, according to financial services research firm Aite Group.
Where can it go from there?
Many years ago a specialized company in England tried to get the people of Slough — not a lovely place. Betjeman wrote, “Come friendly bombs, and rain on Slough” although that was going too far. The idea was you had a card that specially dealt with small purchases – the newspaper, a loaf of bread what have you. It did not work because it was a mobile phone you have to carry with you. Just like all the rest.
But suppose it is built into your mobile. In Hong Kong, Bangkok and London I never use money to get on a train. I just vaguely wave this card thingie at them and most of the time it lets me through.
Could that be translated to mobile phones? Sure. So you get on the train and use your mobile to swipe your ticket. Indeed, in some places you can already do that.
But it can go a lot further.
The Bank of America, which had tried before and got it wrong launched a new mobile banking service in 2007. The bank has doubled its mobile banking customers in less than a year and now has 1.9 million active users of the service, up from 1 million in June. Which is speedy growth and mobile banking is more and more an extension of the bank move into online banking.
What has made the difference is the bigger screens especially on the iPhone.
About 40 percent of Bank of America’s mobile banking customers use the Apple iPhone or iPod Touch. The bank recently upgraded its mobile banking offerings for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Jim Bruene, editor of industry newsletter Online Banking Report says banks ‘can’t not have it. Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citibank are all committed to this platform and that means everyone else that wants to stay on the ground has to.’
Wireless Week is in agreement although it points out for carriers, the benefits of offering mobile banking are somewhat ambiguous. Mobile banking does not make the bank a lot of money at the moment but when contactless payments and the multi-mode mobile wallet become a reality – and they will, the most surely will all those little micropayments will add up.
Strange what is still needed is an NFC chip which is like an RFID chip which works with contactless readers. There is also a problem with security but that has always been a concern.
The service has been touted as a way to reach out to the 100 million-plus Generation Y consumers in the United States for whom mobile banking is an expectation, not an extra.
Nick Holland, senior analyst at Aite Group put it very neatly when he said, ‘Mobile banking is training wheels for other services down the line.’
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