Banking Review

M-Com signs Washington Mutual

New Zealand based mobile technology company M-Com has signed its first US client.

America’s 6th largest bank, Washington Mutual, will use M-Com to deliver an end-to-end mobile banking and payments platform, beyond the basic WAP site on offer from many of the bank’s competitors.

The bank has 17 million customers, with around 5 million online banking users. M-Com head of marketing Serge Van Dam told Online Banking Review the bank is hoping to reach non-online banking users with the offering, a strategy that proved highly effective for New Zealand institution Kiwibank.

The service is planned to go live early next year, making Washington Mutual relatively late to market. Van Dam says this was one of the key reasons the bank chose M-Com which is yet to open an office in then US and has built most of its customer base in New Zealand.

Van Dam says the M-Com java application will help the bank differentiate and future-proof its mobile banking offering.

Australian banks continue to stall on mobile banking, with many arguing the future of mobile banking won’t be simply porting online banking to a mobile device.

I’m not so sure. With the impending local launch of PayPal Mobile consumers could soon be demanding at least simple services such as account balance data or a wider range of SMS alerts to help them manage their spending.

Mobile banking guru Brandon McGee has summarised a recent US mobile banking roundtable discussion here, arguing “Mobile banking does have inherent value. By adding another service to the relationship the client is less likely to defect.”

Likewise Hannes Van Rensburg makes a strong case for mobile banking, using the success of South Africa’s First National Bank as an example.

What do you think? Are Australian banks adopting a “head in the sand” approach, or just formulating a strategy that will stick?