Plenty of scope for creative mBanking apps

Stuart Corner
Monday, 31 May 2010 17:08

Your IT - Mobility

Australia's banks have been quick to introduce iPhone applications, but to date, despite the hype, these only mimic existing net banking apps. A Sybase survey suggests there is scope, and demand for much more.

Back in March the Westpac Bank issued a press release: "Banking [is] now truly mobile for business'¦Paying bills, transferring cash to your friends and family, even paying staff and fixing up GST are all possible anywhere anytime with the latest update of Westpac Mobile Banking released over the weekend." Westpac crowed.

Westpac's general manager ATM and online banking, Harry Wendt. boasted: "In a first for a major bank in Australia, customers using a business banking profile can pay bills like GST and run payroll from their iPhone in addition to viewing balances."

In reality all that Westpac had done was to make existing online banking functionality more compatible with the screen-size limitations of the iPhone: anyone willing to struggle with viewing a standard browser page on the iPhone could do all those things.

Westpac claimed to have been at the forefront of banking innovation for more than two decades, and promised that it would "continue to update the functionality of mobile banking this year and broaden the range of supported devices."

If it really means this, it would to well to heed the results of Sybase 365's latest 'Global Mobile Acceptance & Usage Report' that looks at mCommerce and mobile CRM.

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