Mobile Banking
Mobile Banking
Mobile Banking
) is a term
used for performing balance checks, account transactions, payments etc. via a mobile
device such as a mobile phone. Mobile banking today (2007) is most often performed via
SMS or the Mobile Internet but can also use special programs called clients downloaded
to the mobile device.
The advent of the Internet has revolutionized the way the financial services industry
conducts business, empowering organizations with new business models and new ways to
offer 24x7 accessibility to their customers.
The ability to offer financial transactions online has also created new players in the
financial services industry, such as online banks, online brokers and wealth managers
who offer personalized services, although such players still account for a tiny percentage
of the industry.
Over the last few years, the mobile and wireless market has been one of the fastest
growing markets in the world and it is still growing at a rapid pace. According to the
GSM Association and Ovum, the number of mobile subscribers exceeded 2 billion in
September 2005, and now exceeds 2.5 billion (of which more than 2 billion are GSM).
Many believe that mobile users have just started to fully utilize the data capabilities in
their mobile phones. In Asian countries like India, China, Bangladesh, Indonesia and
Philippines, where mobile infrastructure is comparatively better than the fixed-line
infrastructure, and in European countries, where mobile phone penetration is very high
(at least 80% of consumers use a mobile phone), mobile banking is likely to appeal even
more.
This opens up huge markets for financial institutions interested in offering value added
services. With mobile technology, banks can offer a wide range of services to their
customers such as doing funds transfer while travelling, receiving online updates of stock
price or even performing stock trading while being stuck in traffic. According to the
German mobile operator Mobilcom, mobile banking will be the "killer application" for
the next generation of mobile technology.
Mobile devices, especially smartphones, are the most promising way to reach the masses
and to create “stickiness” among current customers, due to their ability to provide
services anytime, anywhere, high rate of penetration and potential to grow. According to
Gartner, shipment of smartphones is growing fast, and should top 20 million units (of
over 800 million sold) in 2006 alone.
In the last 4 years, banks across the globe have invested billions of dollars to build
sophisticated internet banking capabilities. As the trend is shifting to mobile banking,
there is a challenge for CIOs and CTOs of these banks to decide on how to leverage their
investment in internet banking and offer mobile banking, in the shortest possible time.
[citation needed]
These models differ primarily on the question that who will establish the relationship
(account opening, deposit taking, lending etc.) to the end customer, the Bank or the Non-
Bank/Telecommunication Company (Telco). Another difference lies in the nature of
agency agreement between bank and the Non-Bank. Models of branchless banking can be
classified into three broad categories - Bank Focused, Bank-Led and Nonbank-Led.
The bank-focused model emerges when a traditional bank uses non-traditional low-cost
delivery channels to provide banking services to its existing customers. Examples range
from use of automatic teller machines (ATMs) to internet banking or mobile phone
banking to provide certain limited banking services to banks’ customers. This model is
additive in nature and may be seen as a modest extension of conventional branch-based
banking.
The non-bank-led model is where a bank does not come into the picture (except possibly
as a safe-keeper of surplus funds) and the non-bank (e.g telco) performs all the functions.
Especially for clients in remote locations, it will be important to help them deposit and
withdraw funds at banking agents, i.e., retail and postal outlets that turn cash into
electronic funds and vice versa. The feasibility of such banking agents depends on local
regulation which enables retail outlets to take deposits or not.
A specific sequence of SMS messages will enable the system to verify if the client has
sufficient funds in his or her wallet and authorize a deposit or withdrawal transaction at
the agent. When depositing money, the merchant receives cash and the system credits the
client's bank account or mobile wallet. In the same way the client can also withdraw
money at the merchant: through exchanging sms to provide authorization, the merchant
hands the client cash and debits the client's account.
[edit] Investments
[edit] Support
1. Status of requests for credit, including mortgage approval, and insurance coverage
2. Check (cheque) book and card requests
3. Exchange of data messages and email, including complaint submission and
tracking
4. ATM Location
[edit] Interoperability
There is a lack of common technology standards for mobile banking. Many protocols are
being used for mobile banking – HTML, WAP, SOAP, XML to name a few. It would be
a wise idea for the vendor to develop a mobile banking application that can connect
multiple banks. It would require either the application to support multiple protocols or
use of a common and widely acceptable set of protocols for data exchange.
There are a large number of different mobile phone devices and it is a big challenge for
banks to offer mobile banking solution on any type of device. Some of these devices
support J2ME and others support WAP browser or only SMS.
Overcoming interoperability issues however have been localized, with countries like
India using portals like R-World to enable the limitations of low end java based phones,
while focus on areas such as South Africa have defaulted to the USSD as a basis of
communication achievable with any phone.
The desire for interoperability is largely dependent on the banks themselves, where
installed applications(Java based or native) provide better security, are easier to use and
allow development of more complex capabilities similar to those of internet banking
while SMS can provide the basics but becomes difficult to operate with more complex
transactions.
[edit] Security
Security of financial transactions, being executed from some remote location and
transmission of financial information over the air, are the most complicated challenges
that need to be addressed jointly by mobile application developers, wireless network
service providers and the banks' IT departments.
The following aspects need to be addressed to offer a secure infrastructure for financial
transaction over wireless network :
1. Physical part of the hand-held device. If the bank is offering smart-card based
security, the physical security of the device is more important.
2. Security of any thick-client application running on the device. In case the device
is stolen, the hacker should require at least an ID/Password to access the
application.
3. Authentication of the device with service provider before initiating a transaction.
This would ensure that unauthorized devices are not connected to perform
financial transactions.
4. User ID / Password authentication of bank’s customer.
5. Encryption of the data being transmitted over the air.
6. Encryption of the data that will be stored in device for later / off-line analysis by
the customer.
Another challenge for the CIOs and CTOs of the banks is to scale-up the mobile banking
infrastructure to handle exponential growth of the customer base. With mobile banking,
the customer may be sitting in any part of the world (true anytime, anywhere banking)
and hence banks need to ensure that the systems are up and running in a true 24 x 7
fashion. As customers will find mobile banking more and more useful, their expectations
from the solution will increase. Banks unable to meet the performance and reliability
expectations may lose customer confidence. There are systems such as Mobile
Transaction Platform which allow quick and secure mobile enabling of various banking
services. Recently in India there has been a phenomenal growth in the use of Mobile
Banking applications, with leading banks adopting Mobile Transaction Platform and the
Central Bank publishing guidelines for mobile banking operations.
Due to the nature of the connectivity between bank and its customers, it would be
impractical to expect customers to regularly visit banks or connect to a web site for
regular upgrade of their mobile banking application. It will be expected that the mobile
application itself check the upgrades and updates and download necessary patches (so
called "Over The Air" updates). However, there could be many issues to implement this
approach such as upgrade / synchronization of other dependent components.
[edit] Personalization
1. Preferred Language
2. Date / Time format
3. Amount format
4. Default transactions
5. Standard Beneficiary list
6. Alerts
What's the most revolutionary cell phone in the world today? Hint: it's not Apple's new
iPhone. It may not run iTunes or switch seamlessly to Wifi, but an ordinary, hand-me-
down phone can be revolutionary (pdf) when used as a virtual bank. "Yawn," the gadget
geeks will say—mobile payment options are old hat in places like Japan, where mobile
phones linked to credit/debit cards have become as much a part of the culture as sushi.
But mobile banking, or m-banking for short, is about more than just added convenience;
it's about giving millions of poor people in developing countries access to financial
services for the first time. And that could change the world.
The World Bank estimates that in many countries, over half the population—"the
unbanked"—has never had a bank account. The poor tend to be terrified of banks, since
they're often humiliated or ignored when they try to enter them. That means they can't
leave their savings anywhere safe, pay a bill without walking the cash to the office, or
prove that they're credit-worthy. Meanwhile, mobile phone penetration is through the
roof, especially in Africa. In 2000, fewer than 8 million Africans had a mobile phone - now
over 100 million do. That's one in nine. Now, anyone with access to a cell phone has a
place to keep his or her savings without needing a traditional bank account. We won't see
millionaires suddenly emerging from the shantytowns just because they're "banked," but
even a small nest egg needs a safe resting place.
At the moment, enthusiasm for m-banking has outrun its implementation. For one thing,
regulators break out in a cold sweat at the thought of all the overlapping issues involved.
But there are success stories. Leading the way is the Philippines, with over 3.5 million
users split between G-cash and competitor SMARTmoney. South Africa is the other
heavyweight, with MTN Mobile Banking and Wizzit both entering their second year of
operations. In Brazil, m-banking may even surpass Internet banking in just five years.
And on January 22, SafariCom, partly owned by Vodafone, is set to expand its M-Pesa
pilot to all of Kenya.
These telecom companies aren't offering m-banking out of the kindness of their hearts.
They like m-banking because it's a way for them to attract new customers by doing what
they already do well—processing millions of tiny transactions. Banks aren't as interested,
because they don't expect to profit from poor clients who won't be taking out a mortgage
anytime soon. But the telecoms could start siphoning away bank customers who don't
need all the bells and whistles.
quality
In engineering and manufacturing, quality control and quality engineering are used in
developing systems to ensure products or services are designed and produced to meet or
exceed customer requirements. Refer to the definition by Merriam-Webster for further
information [1]. These systems are often developed in conjunction with other business and
engineering disciplines using a cross-functional approach.
Quality control is that branch of engineering and manufacturing,which deals with the
assurance and failure testing in design and production of products or services,to meet or
exceed customer requirements