Mobile 2010 Outlook精選：Financial institutions to embrace mobile services

In 2010, consumers and financial institutions will become
even more comfortable with mobile banking and
payments technology.
Consumers continue to adopt the
services, but security is still an issue.
Mobile banking and payments will
continue to give global access to underbanked
and unbanked consumers.
“We believe the mobile banking and
payments industry is a massive market
opportunity that has the potential
to continue to take off in 2010,”
said David Schwartz, head of corporate
and product marketing at Obopay, Redwood City, CA.

“Mobile technology is already impacting the banking industry,
and in the area of payments we believe it can have transformational
consequences for people of all economic backgrounds,”
he said. “Adding mobile payments to the mobile
banking offerings in the market will do for mobile banking
what bill pay did for online banking.
“Mobile banking will be a useful tool that people frequently
take advantage of in their daily lives, and it provides banks
with a sticky service to increase their customer satisfaction
and reduce their churn.
Banking on mobile
The global mobile banking market will hit $202 billion by
2012, per Edgar and Dunn. More consumers will use mobile
banking than online services by 2015, according to Mercatus.
Mercatus also found that banks can improve customer acquisition
by 60 percent by including mobile in their suite of services.
Given the growth the mobile banking and payments sector
has seen in 2009, more developments will be introduced as
the technology continues to improve.
Near Field Communication use has slowly been growing nationwide,
but do not expect consumers to fully embrace the
technology this year.
“This will not be the year for physical-world purchases using your mobile phone in the United States via Near Field Communication,
as chip-prices, handset turnover and point-ofsale
build-out will continue to push the vision of buying a
soda with your mobile phone to 2011 or 2012,” said Ron Hirson,
cofounder and senior vice president of products and marketing
at Boku, San Francisco.
Small businesses and merchants will continue to benefit from
services such as Verifone’s iPhone mobile credit card reader.
Last year saw smaller financial institutions such as Texas’ Frost
Bank and CU*Answers, a credit union organization, roll out
mobile banking services such as alerts.
Macrogrowth to micropayments
It is obvious this sector is poised for growth, but will the carriers
continue to miss out?
The carrier networks do not want to become banks, but consumers
are using micropayment services for virtual goods and
social networks. The huge response to SMS appeals for Haiti
relief efforts are proof.
Obopay’s Mr. Schwartz said in 2010 one of the biggest challenges
companies in this market face will be the adoption and
increased use of micropayment services and keeping up
with demand.
Mike Dulong, cofounder and
senior vice president of business
development at Billing
Revolution, Seattle, said 2010
will be a period of explosive
growth for the mobile
commerce space.
“Consumers will adopt mobile
credit-card-based commerce
much more quickly than market
researchers have forecasted
— this is going to
move very quickly,” Mr. Dulong
said. “Retailers will
scramble to create secure,
c o m m e r c e - e n a b l e d
mobile stores.”