Pressure for Mobile Banking Spurs Faster Deployment Technology

In an indication of how fast mobile banking is developing as a mainstream product for financial institutions, Fiserv Inc. this week released a version of its Mobile Money software that could let banks deploy a mobile-banking service in three months or less. The new version, called Mobile Money FastTrack, is a response to demand from client institutions, the Milwaukee-based processor says. “The mobile financial services landscape is changing weekly as an increasing number of financial institutions enter the market,” says Calvin Grimes, mobile product manager at Fiserv, in an e-mail message to Digital Transactions News. “Financial institutions without a current solution want to respond quickly.” The FastTrack version follows the company's introduction of Mobile Money last year, with both versions having been developed by M-Com, an Atlanta-based technology vendor. Grimes says implementation time for the original product varies “widely” by user, since installations are customized. Still, the faster-to-market version retains features of the so-called enterprise edition, including a function that displays screens automatically customized for the user's mobile phone. It also relies on all three access channels?text messaging, downloadable application, and mobile Web?that have emerged over the past year or so for mobile banking and payments. Also, the new version is integrated into Fiserv's online-banking and bill-payment services. Compared with the enterprise version, the advantage with FastTrack is that it “combines the essential functionalities in a packaged solution, which is helpful for financial institutions that are new to mobile financial services and might not know which features they should request in a solution,” says Grimes. Charul Vyas, analyst of emerging technology at TowerGroup Inc., says banks are feeling increasing pressure to adopt mobile banking and to roll out a service quickly, despite countervailing cuts in technology budgets brought on by the economic downturn. “A lot [of banks] are feeling the need from the customer-demand standpoint,” she says. Vyas attributes this demand to the fact that customers are increasingly pushing for control over their finances. “Mobile is a great way to get that control 24-7,” she says. The number of active users of mobile banking in the U.S. will reach 10 million this year, more than twice the 4.9 million achieved in 2008, according to research Vyas and TowerGroup released last week (Digital Transactions News, May 29). That number will nearly double again, the firm predicts, to 17.8 million next year. “Banks are seeing strong uptake,” says Vyas. FastTrack is available as either an in-house or hosted service and allows users to perform a range of banking functions, including balance inquiries, account transfers, and bill payments, as well as receive account alerts and respond to them. Other payment capabilities could be added “as the market matures,” says Grimes. The texting and mobile browser channels, Fiserv says, can be rolled out in 90 days or less by “many financial institutions.” Fees include an unspecified implementation fee, paid upfront, as well as a monthly charge for each active handset on the system.