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Friday, July 20, 2012

Mobile's Competitive Advantage

By Michael Scheibach, Executive Editor, BankNews

Perhaps we can learn a bit from across the water in the U.K. about the impact of mobile banking.

According to a new report by Rackspace Hosting, a cloud-computing service provider, an impressive 63 percent of financial institutions reported that providing customers with mobile apps is now considered "crucial" to having a competitive advantage.

Other findings from the survey of U.K. financial institutions:

-- 20 percent have introduced a mobile app in the last 12 months.
-- 17 percent are in the process of developing apps for customers.
-- 19 percent are developing apps for private clients.

According to the report, these findings confirm "the banking sector's wider progressive attitude and desire to dominate the mobile payments industry."

At the same time, however, the report says 27 percent of respondents do not have any mobile strategy. The percentage of U.S. banks may actually be higher than this, which is unfortunate and short-sighted.

Mobile banking is, or will soon be, an expected channel by customers, just as online banking is considered a requisite service.