Forget luxury.
The smartphone is now ”“ more or less ”“ near necessity.
Gaining steam are synergies between banks, credit card companies and wireless mobile providers in the race to meet consumer demand and exceed electronic expectations.
“These apps are given to the user for free,” said Ian Smillie, mobile applications consultant for AT&T in the New York metropolitan region. “A business is doing all the work, all the coding, the programming and the deployment. They are taking all the cost on themselves just to make their customer more able to use their service and really expecting nothing in the end except a higher utilization of the product the consumer has already got.”
For instance, Wells Fargo Bank N.A. has just broadened mobile banking services for devices Android, BlackBerry and Palm.
This follows the introduction of Wells”™ text banking app, which was extended to a niche beyond the online banking customer.
“We started this whole service for people who were already online bankers with Wells Fargo and one thing we found was there are a whole bunch of people in this world whose lives don”™t revolve around a PC,” said Arah Erickson, senior vice president of Wells Fargo Retail Mobile Banking. “Nurses, construction workers ”¦ there are folks who go to the ATM to check their balance and we realized those people use text banking.”
It was designed for quick and easy access: the website was shortened to wf.com specifically for mobile users.
“In 2007, we did smaller offerings and now we see 3.3 million upwards of active users, so we”™ve seen tremendous growth,” Erickson said. “Once they”™ve used it, a mobile user visits wf.com about seven times a month. But, those using text banking do it 23 times a month.”
The mobile app also melds with advancements in e-commerce to improve a company”™s profit margins.
AT&T just forged a relationship with wireless payments provider Apriva, which will allow a business to process credit card and debit card transactions directly through web browsers on mobile phones.
“Payments in the marketplace now have become key, especially the speed of payment,” Smillie said. “Anyone out of the office taking payment, especially in the trades, have been tied to taking cash. If they can take a credit card out in the field, it totally changes the way they do business. It used to be thousands of dollars to take a credit card in the field and now business owners can do it on the phone they already own, so it”™s a zero capital investment. It”™s a game changer.”
Purchase-based MasterCard Worldwide has also forged an agreement with an e-commerce company called Next Jump to broaden merchant-to-consumer capabilities.
The MasterCard Marketplace app allots a customized shopping platform via mobile access and accepts payment for purchases.
“As we focus on bringing the consistency of the e-commerce environment to consumers”™ mobile devices, the MasterCard MarketPlace Overwhelming Offers app is the latest example of how our collaboration with Next Jump is helping consumers to become smarter, savvier shoppers on their own terms,” said MasterCard”™s Chief Innovation Officer Josh Peirez, in a statement.
That technology goes two ways and allows a business to not only offer a service to its clients, but project a brand image.
“Most banks now have their own application and have developed a mobile web page for mobile devices,” Smillie said. “People are advertising that. They”™re saying things like, ”˜Look how on the road you can manage your accounts”™ and they”™re marketing that. It used to be a niche, where they would say, ”˜Here are the tools if you need them.”™ People are beginning to expect it now”¦it”™s a world of apps and it”™s the world we”™re in now.”
