Top 10 Mobile Banking Mistakes

There’s plenty of great information out there for consumers about the dos and don’ts of mobile banking—password protect your device, use caution with what apps you install on your phone—but there are also plenty of mistakes financial institutions make when it comes to mobile. 

Let’s look at what may be considered to be the top ten.

By Danny Tang, Worldwide Channel Transformation / Front Office Solutions Leader, IBM Global Banking & Financial Mkts

10. Not going for 100% mobile banking adoption  The adoption rate for mobile banking should be 100% of those customers who have a mobile phone. And yet, many banks choose to limit themselves by requiring users to activate in online banking or enroll at a local branch. This reflects the fact that mobile is still an afterthought for many banks.

9. No Balance Between Security vs. Usability  Can’t we have both? It’s remarkably easy to lose your mobile phone, which makes it especially important for banks to safeguard user information. While banks should absolutely secure mobile banking beyond just ID and password, it shouldn’t be impossible to use, either. Does it really make sense to ask users who their favorite teacher was in elementary school, or require everyone to carry another device just to log in to mobile banking on their smartphone? Risk-based authentication, geolocation, biometrics—these and many other technologies are available to help banks find the right balance between security and ease-of-use.

8. Cutting Corners in Education  Should we assume that all smartphone users are smart? This is especially true for security. No technology today (that I know of) can prevent a user from writing down his/her ID and password on a paper attached to the back of the phone. An educated user is your best defense against fraud and loss of privacy. If you teach customers the value of security features—and how to use them—they’ll be happy to see those authentication layers instead of cursing at them.

7. No Consistency in User Experience Across Platforms  Does your Android app look like it’s from a different planet than your iPhone app? People shift between platforms, and lack of consistency is confusing—and annoying. Banks should invest in a MEAP (mobile enterprise application platform) to help teams ensure a consistent user experience between environments. A MEAP such as IBM Worklight can enable write-once-deploy-across-many-platforms that both saves cost and improves user satisfaction.

6. The “X2 Button” Tablet App  If your iPad app strategy is to tell users to push the X2 button, you’re missing an opportunity to provide customers a richer banking experience. You’re also providing an interface that’s downright clunky. Tablets aren’t going anywhere soon, so don’t waste the screen real estate your clients have paid a premium for—invest in a tablet-friendly user experience with dedicated features such as spending analysis and retirement planning.

Bank Marketers Should Focus on Metrics That Matter

Early in my career, heading a bank marketing department, I remember the frustration of my department being viewed as a cost center as opposed to a revenue contributor. Part of the problem was that it was easy to see the marketing spend each month as part of the bank's expense reports. I also didn't have the measurement tools at my disposal to provide analysis in many cases.

Jump forward two decades and the tools for marketing measurement are plentiful, but the challenges for measurement have also increased exponentially. In many cases, however, it is not so much the ability to measure as it is that most bankers are not speaking the same language that the CEO and CFO want to hear.

At a time when legislation has dramatically impacted the bottom lines of most banks, CEOs and CFOs are interested in metrics that frame marketing investment and results in terms like revenue, profitability and growth. And more often than not, they want results in terms of incremental improvement over business as usual.

Mobile Banking Summit Illustrates Topic is Hot

You don't need to look any further than the attendee list to realize the importance of mobile banking to our industry. Not only is almost every major institution in attendance at this year's Mobile Banking and Emerging Applications Summit, but the number of participants has increased by more than 50% according to officials from SourceMedia.

The program kicked off Sunday with a workshop by David Eads, Founder & CEO of Mobile Strategy Partners LLC where he discussed the basics of getting a Mobile Banking strategy off the ground. He also shared the first of a wave of industry statistics that made it clear to the SRO attendees that this year and next will be pivotal to the mobile banking industry. He also shared keys to developing a business case for introducing mobile banking. He emphasized that while cost reduction (mainly from offloaded balance inquiry calls) could many time justify the investment in mobile banking by itself. a drop in attrition and an increase in revenue from increased interchange and cross-sales will also improve the ROI.

Growth in Deposits Presents Opportunities and Risks

The American Banker today had an article detailing the recent trend of low cost deposit growth experienced by the major banks in the fourth quarter of 2009. According to KBW Inc.'s Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, the top 40 banks experienced a deposit growth rate of 8% in the quarter, with only a couple large banks intentionally allowing higher-cost deposits inherited during acquisitions to run off during the year.

Even though interest rates remain extremely low, consumers were still saving at a rate of 4.7% as a percentage of disposable income in November, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis primarily due to uncertainties in the marketplace and due to the view of banks being the safe harbor for funds accumulated during a time of reduced spending.