mBlox has announced the results of its study into the types of mobile services offered by UK banks and credit card providers. The survey showed a gap in mobile services currently on offer, with 84% of UK banks and credit card providers not offering SMS transactions or balance alerts as part of their customer service offering.
When we at Juniper conducted a global study of nearly 80 banks, we drew similar conclusions – some banks have still to seize the potential of SMS. In fact we found that just over half of them offer some level of SMS based service – meaning that just under half don’t – compared with the 84% for the UK from the mBlox study.
No doubt there are local market considerations in some cases why SMS is not being pursued more, but overall we believe that SMS in particular represents a significant opportunity for banks to both improve customer service and to reduce costs, whilst at the same testing their customer base’s response to the use of their mobile devices for this application. Banks seeking to deploy mobile banking need to consider SMS to make services widely available: however user friendly smartphone apps are, they are only available to the current minority of mobile phone owners who have smartphones. SMS also complements mobile web and app based services.
Whatever the percentages say, the growth of mobile banking is part of a wider picture in the development of banking services. It is part of the trend towards making services more personal – as explained in this video report from CNBC World Business.
Tags: CNBC, mBlox, mobile banking, sms
