According to a recent study by the financial service strategy firm Mercatus, LLC, mobile banking users are a significantly growing segment of the population. In fact, one in five consumers are using mobile banking, and most of these users are of the younger generation.
According to April Clobes, Vice President of Marketing and E-Commerce for Michigan State University Federal Credit Union (MSUFCU), they launched mobile banking in March 2009 and have seen a growing number of users each month. While users have primarily accessed their accounts via their mobile phones to do balance inquiries, she has seen an exponential increase in consumers utilizing mobile banking to do transfers between accounts, pay bills, locate branches and search for ATMs.
Some more sophisticated online systems will include online bank statements, balance alerts and even stock trading. It’s clear that this has become more than a trend and will reshape the way that consumers do business. MSUFCU optimized their landing page for mobile users. This was done by decluttering the landing page and including important information to mobile users, such as contact information, rates, and hours of operation. According to Clobes, in 2010 MSUFCU has planned more website content that is optimized for mobile users to make it easier for them to access the information they need and allow for more transactions.
When considering adding a mobile banking feature, there are three important points to keep in mind:
1. Speed – Mobile phone commercials talk about 3G networks that would have you believe that access to the internet is instantaneous. However, there is still a significant delay in retrieving data from many handheld devices. Making the site easier to access means streamlining the landing page to what is important to the customer and cutting out all the clutter, especially images. While mobile devices have come a long way—in terms of having advance web capabilities like JavaScript—it is still notoriously difficult to get the same look and feel as the financial institution’s website. A mobile device does not allow for the same screen width as a computer, so when you have transaction information that customers are trying to access, it’s best to stack the lines instead of formatting them across the screen—it’s easier for the customer to read. For example, instead of having a ledger, the data would stack for easy viewing:
Transaction Date: December 13, 2009
Check #: 1152
Amount: $53.47
Vendor: Gas Company
Balance: $2,964.63
2. Unique site – Streamlining the current website is the first step in making online banking mobile-friendly. If there are enough resources in the financial institution, making a mobile-specific website is often the best way to go. There are two steps in making this happen. The first is to create a specific mobile URL that customers can access. The second step is encoding your current website to redirect the visitor to the mobile site. This will help those with slower smartphones to access the information they need as quickly as possible. There is one exception that financial institutions may encounter, and that is the iPhone. Because of the size of the device, an iPhone is able to load entire pages in proper format. According to a June study by Forrester, iPhone users are more likely to access the internet from their phones than other smartphone users by 78 to 38 percent, respectively. Designing for iPhone users is important, but it’s also important to not leave out the other smartphone users. Most people accessing their accounts while on the go will enjoy the redirect feature, so it’s important to have a person that can code the website information properly to accommodate both web and mobile users.
3. Security – As with accessing accounts online, security is key. For the most part, mobile banking is considered safer because most viruses that capture passwords and personal information are done through software that is developed for computers rather than mobile phones. Hackers are advancing as fast as the current technology, and they target online accounts each day with emails that are considered “phishing” emails, which try to gain information through posing as a financial institution. There are also malicious SMS text messages on mobile phones that are named SMiShing. Alerting customers to these potential security issues will help to mitigate the attacks and will elevate the bank’s image as a knowledge-leader looking out for its customers.
Account access is only the beginning of mobile banking. Financial institutions can optimize their mobile users’ interests to help market to them. Mobile marketing is becoming the next best thing and can work for financial institutions. Imagine being able to send a text message on rates for savings accounts and having customers act instantly while away from their computer. This is the wave of the future; however, it requires current action on the part of financial institutions to get their mobile banking up and running and to continue to optimize their website for mobile users. More than just a convenience of the current day and age, mobile banking should be considered the banking method of the future.
