Banking Review

Businesses and mobile banking

Almost twelve months since launching the first mobile banking to market, Suncorp has embraced customer feedback to add new services and features. Both personal and business customers have benefited from the recent upgrades.

Tim Buckett, Suncorp Executive General Manager told Online Banking Review, “Our first goal was to optimise the look and feel of mobile banking for touch devices. The high saturation of touch phones in the market meant we want to deliver a better user experience for these customers.”

Better navigation for normal web enabled phones also feature in the enhanced banking solution. Suncorp mobile banking automatically detects the mobile device and delivers the best version of mobile banking for a customer’s phone. Setting and reviewing future dated transfers, BPAY® and BPAY View® have also been added to the suite of banking functionality available. Bill payment and transfers remain the most popular mobile transactions for both personal and business customers.

“We have seen nearly a quarter of our internet banking customers use mobile banking, which we are pretty pleased with considering the service has been running less than 12 months,” Buckett continues.

New research from ComScore in the US reveals that 35% of Americans are accessing internet based information and services from mobile devices each day. The use of mobile internet usage in the US has doubled in the past 12 months. Low cost data plans that are available with mobile devices in the US is a critical element driving growth.

Free data plans offered by some Telcos and the increasing array of touch screen devices is expected to see mobile banking reach new heights in Australia in 2009. Suncorp mobile banking service now supports the Google HTC Dream phone as well as catering to the vast number of iPhone users.

Business banking customers are emerging as strong supporters of mobile banking. Feedback from Suncorp business banking managers revealed that many businesses were using mobile devices to run their businesses while out of the office. There was an appetite amongst business owners for a mobile banking service that met their needs.

All Suncorp mobile banking customers can now approve business credit payments or bulk payments. A two-to-sign account transaction can now be completed if one party starts the transaction in internet banking and the other party approves via mobile banking. This has decreased the turnaround time for critical business payments.

“Our small and medium sized businesses have higher volumes of payments so mobile banking has been well received. These companies also require the basic functions of transaction downloads, transfers, bill payments and payment setup and approvals. Our larger corporate customers are using mobile bulk payments, eCommerce and merchant facilities,” says Buckett.

Buckett believes that down the line, mobile banking for business customers will come into its own. “We are already seeing PDA devices being turned into mobile payment devices overseas via Bluetooth and barcode technology. Once these trends are proven reliably, Suncorp will definitely explore these options to make business banking even easier,” Buckett explains.

ACMA research found that 98% of Australian SME’s with an internet connection use the online channel to communicate with their customers and suppliers. SMEs found notable operational benefits from using innovative technologies including broadband, VOIP and other 3G technologies.

With SMEs more ready than ever to embrace technology, mobile banking functionality for business customers will become an increasingly important tool in the business banking tool chest of all banks. Growth in mobile banking has exceeded the early days of internet banking take up. Will mobile banking ever overtake the internet banking usage?