SMS provider VeriSign announced today that Fifth Third Bank is using it’s SMS alerts services to send updates to the banks online banking customers. Fifth Third Bank has over 1.3 million active on-line bankers, who can now receive text alerts for events like new statements, payment due notices, or their account balance falling under a certain amount. With recent figures showing that consumers are unwilling to do their banking over the mobile Internet, can SMS fill the gap and provide banking on the go?
From the release:
“At Fifth Third Bank, we continuously seek new ways to enhance the customer experience,” said Paul Moore, senior vice president and director, Alternative Delivery at Fifth Third Bank. “The text alert functionality provided by VeriSign enhances our mobile offering and gives customers an actionable and practical way to utilize mobile banking.”
“Fifth Third Bank is another forward-thinking financial institution that leverages the mobile channel to provide convenience and better service to customers,” said Michael Campbell, senior vice president of worldwide sales and marketing for VeriSign Messaging and Mobile Media. “Today, mobile banking is not an option, but a mandate for financial service institutions that want to deepen customer relationships and remain competitive. Through our mobile banking solution, we continue to enable banks to reach that leadership status and make anytime, anywhere banking a reality for customers.”
What we think?
Can SMS ever provide real mobile banking services? It’s perfect for receiving updates and alerts, but can customers actually text messages to perform account functions like withdrawals or money transfer? Despite the recent explosion in enterprise SMS services, I’m confident the answer is no. Security issues would make it impossible – oh, I’m sure the actual transfer process for a text message perfectly secure. But if your handset can be used to affect your bank account, then the actual security measures for your phone become much more important – even if you use a security measure like SMS receipts. Most users would probably not bother, even if the service were available. It just makes your phone an even more valuable item to steal.
So, where do you go from there? Michael Campbell himself admites that mobile banking is not currently an option. The best financial institutions can hope to do it send regular updates via text. But banks want to go mobile. The success of on-line banking has been indisputable – mobile is the next logical step. And, frankly, the services exist. Consumer education is the big barrier to mobile banking, and that’s something the banks will have to take care of themselves.
