Trapped in an Elevator? Check Your Bank Balance

What could you do on a smartphone to avoid an awkward conversation in a stuck elevator?  Read email? Check Facebook or Twitter, perhaps?  Log on to your mobile banking app and check your balance or pay a bill? If you answered yes to the third option, you’re not alone.

Mobile banking is ingrained in our lifestyle; Juniper Research predicts that mobile banking users worldwide will reach 530 million by 2013. At the recent SourceMedia Mobile Banking & Commerce Conference, Intuit mobile leaders John Flora, Chris Battles and Omar Green dug into the topic and highlighted the challenges and opportunities for financial institutions as mobile goes mainstream.

Recent Intuit data shows that people who bank online – those signing in from a desktop computer – log in 10 times a month. When you add their mobile phone logins to the tally, the number increases to 18 times a month. That number expands further to 31 times per month, when you add logins from a tablet to the mix. 

“Imagine all that you can do with that type of engagement,” said Flora. 

Data will be the key to creating a more valuable experience for customers moving forward, particularly those highly engaged mobile banking customers.

“Go through the data you’ve been collecting for years and drive insights from that data back out to your customers,” Green said to the attendees.  “Give customers the ability to make smarter decisions about money.”

The ability to make these “smarter decisions” will be necessary to catapult mobile payments fully into the mainstream, the panelists said. Simply put, mobile payment providers will have to provide more value in the transaction. Each panelist offered their own bit of advice.

“Early adopters do it because it’s new and cool,” said Battles. “We have to provide more value in the transaction in order to see mass adoption. Provide intelligence about the transaction. For example, use this account instead of that account. Or, instead of paying with your debit card, use your credit card.” 

“There are more than a dozen ways to pay now with a mobile device,” said Green. “Compare that to a piece of plastic with a mag stripe and you know we have a long way to go in mobile payments. If mobile payment solutions could help you or enable you to make smarter financial decisions, there would be value.” 

“People trust their financial institution with the way they make payments. Think about how your customers adopted checks and then bill pay. Leverage that presence and trust,” said Flora.

The rebroadcast of the panel discussion is available below.