Results from an m-commerce survey has revealed that 66% of banks consider mobile banking as an excellent way of to enhancing existing customer services

Driven by the excellent opportunity provided by mobile banking to enhance existing customer services, nearly a third of the world's largest financial organizations are planning to launch mobile banking services in the next 12-24 months, according to a recent survey commissioned by Sybase 365, a subsidiary of Sybase.

The survey, which was conducted by the independent research company Loudhouse, pooled the views of 92 of the world's top financial institutions-32 European banks, 30 banks in the United States, and 30 banks from the Asia Pacific region.

Results revealed that 66% of banks consider mobile banking as an excellent opportunity to enhance existing customer service. While provision of such services is considerably advanced in the Europe and Asia Pacific regions compared to the US, growth is projected to be strongest in the US with 53% of the US banks surveyed expecting to launch mobile banking services within the next 24 months.

“Key factors for financial institutions offering mobile banking are not solely commercial such as reducing costs or generating revenue,” said Matthew Talbot, vice president, m-Commerce for Sybase 365. He further added, “Mobile banking provides unique opportunities for customer interaction and retention.”

This broadening momentum should be encouraging for the consumer respondents to mobile banking survey, 33% of whom expressed a desire to deal with finances on the move. A key element in increasing adoption, which is mirrored in the 2007 consumer study, is the level of awareness that customers have of mobile banking services. It appears that banks are responding to the lack of awareness felt by consumers, with 65% of the banks currently offering mobile services, stating that marketing budgets and activities to raise awareness are part of their strategic plan for 2008.

The most common mobile banking services currently available to customers include balance on demand (offered by 87% of banks with mobile banking services), transaction alerts (77%), money transfers (74%) and balance alerts (71%). Of those banks that offer such services, the top reasons for doing so are to improve the customer experience (87%), to extend Internet banking (81%) and to achieve competitive advantage (71%).

The field research for the Sybase 365 Global Mobile Banking survey was undertaken using a Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) system, targeting decision makers within the financial sector responsible for the delivery of mobile and/or Internet banking. The sample comprised top 1,000 banking institutions in the world, of which 92 interviews were conducted in total.

Sandeep Budki
sandeepb@cybermedia.co.in