Mobile Strategy » Mobile Banking

Zoompass Announcement Falls Short of ‘my’ expectations

Jose HC — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:17:11 +0000

I am not sure I get it at times. I know that the technology is limited and that a lot of the talk that sometimes goes around is more dreaming than real possibilities.

Today’s Zoompass announcement however strikes me more as a step backwards than a forward one. This is what happens when the initiative is carrier-lead instead of bank lead. I realize that these comments are not popular among some of my readers (I know where you work) but as a consumer I am still on the side of banks dealing with my money.

There are two things that dampen my excitement about this announcement:

The first thing is the following phrase: “payment is automatically drawn from the user’s Zoompass stored value account.” This means that you and I have to manage yet another account. However easy this may be for you… for me it is a hassle. I want the money to come out of my bank account directly! Otherwise for me it is just as easy to load my Starbucks card… or my Timothy’s card at the counter from my debit card. Am I missing something here?
The other thing is the little sticker… this could almost get me ranting a la Ewan on Foursquare. But I will not. A sticker to me seems like a step backwards. Although they talk about its attractiveness with phrases like “sleek and appealing sticker” … to me it just isn’t.

Bottom line this does not spell convenience to me.

Managing yet another account and plastering a sticker to the back of my phone.Similar Posts:

Making the Most of Mobile Through Partnerships

Jose HC — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:48:42 +0000

I have commented about this same topic before… to some of you personally. Just wrote a little something over at the other site but thought I would paste it here directly:

… the entire mobile banking landscape will succeed only through partnerships. Banks partnering with other service providers… (but to what extreme? And at what cost to the customer?).

A very important partnership is the one between those that provide services to the banks… Enterprise software providers, mobile app developers, system integrators – the best way to break in and go deep in mobile with a bank will be based on your partnerships with others. This is especially true for startups in the mobile space – go out and seek partnerships with providers who already have entrenched relationships with the big banks.

Success for a lot of startups in this space will be dependent on their ability to forge partnerships and alliances as they tackle the big enterprise clients. The mobile ecosystem is no longer straightforward… it is a complex web of relationships, connections, networks and partnerships.

Leverage who you know to get in where you want to get in. Leverage the relationships that others already possess to get your foot in the door.

You can develop a little app and throw it up on any of the application stores… but to break into the enterprise market (especially in finance, healthcare and government) you need to have more than a fun or cute little mobile app. You need to have much, much more than a Twitter account and recent grad pushing out tweets… you need a mobile strategy.Similar Posts:

Mobile Banking In Canada: CIBC Gets There First!

Jose HC — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:22:52 +0000

Remember that unfinished series about the 12 Reasons Why Canadian Banks Should Really Offer Mobile Financial Services? I don’t have a reason to finish it anymore (even though I may still do so). I wanted mobile banking in Canada… now I have mobile banking in Canada!

Canada your wait is over! CIBC has officially won the race and is the first of the Canadian Banks to offer a full-featured mobile banking application… (H/T to Mobile Manifesto).

CIBC is the first major Canadian bank to offer a Mobile Banking App for iPhone

From the Press Release:

With the launch of the new iPhone app, CIBC provides its clients with among the most extensive choice for banking across Canada with more than 1,070 branches including 7-day a week branch banking, 3,800 ABMS, 24-hour access through telephone banking, and online banking through www.cibc.com.

We have mentioned it here before – the first Canadian Bank to come out with true Mobile Banking would enjoy a competitive advantage in this market. CIBC has moved up as the new innovator in the Canadian marketplace. Often seen as the more conservative of the Canadian Banks this move may very well change that perception and instead be the bank that the others follow. Of course this needs to go beyond this one release: they will have to move from mobile banking to mobile financial services… I assume that will be in the future.

Scotiabank thought they had first mover advantage when they announced back in November that they would offer mobile banking in the Spring of 2010. CIBC instead surprised us with the announcement yesterday!

So … which one works better from a PR standpoint?

A press release announcing a future release?
Or the actual release 3 months ahead of the competition?

I think the answer is found in the quote below from Sonia Baxendale, President, CIBC Retail Markets:

“CIBC is proud to be the first major bank in Canada to offer our clients a Mobile Banking App to make banking with CIBC even more flexible on their iPhone. Whether waiting for the bus, sitting in the bleachers at their child’s minor hockey game, or having a coffee at their local coffee shop, our clients can perform their day-to-day banking transactions conveniently and securely, anytime and from anywhere they can access the internet on their phones.”

The operative phrase being – “first major bank in Canada.”Similar Posts:

Carnival of the Mobilists #202: Of Mobile Platforms, Stores, Acquisitions and Banking

Jose HC — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 07:12:36 +0000

After almost a year of following Carnivals and submitting our own entries as well it is a privilege for the Mobile Strategy Blog to host the 202nd edition of the Carnival of the Mobilists! For this week we have thought-provoking pieces, inside scoops, tough questions and overall interesting posts on a variety of topics. All of our writers provide a reflection of what is happening in the market as they discuss Mobile Operating Systems, application stores, Google’s latest acquisition (AdMob), mobile banking and mobile financial services. So let’s get started…

For this edition we welcome back MOpocket which after a long hiatus is back and sharing with us the inside scoop on Windows Mobile 6.5.1. Of special interest to Windows Mobile followers is the answer to the question: Is WM 6.5.1 real? It also includes a bonus high-level explanation on the difference between resistive and capacitive displays.

Enrique Ortiz writes a provocative piece that will surely get BlackBerry fans upset. He proposes several reasons why RIM should drop the BlackBerry OS and go with Android instead.

Over at WIP Jam Thibault interviews the CEO of Handster. What is Handster you ask? A white label provider of appstores for carriers, device manufacturers and other distributors.

MSearchGroove presents a podcast this week that opens up by declaring the exciting month of November – as an all about Android month. It does well in asking the uncomfortable question as to how many Android devices have actually shipped? It touches on Google’s purchase of AdMob and how the giant is in fact buying distribution relationships with mobile publishers more than anything through the acquisition. There is of course … go listen check it out.

This week we welcome Carnival newcomer David Eads from Mobile Manifesto who lives up to his blog’s subtitle of providing strategic insight into mobile commerce with an analysis of Scotiabank and M-Com’s announcement last week that mobile banking will be available in Canada in Spring 2010. David asks some good questions and wonders what will actually be delivered. David’s piece follows where my earlier post on Mobile Financial Services in Canada left off.

If you are new to the Carnival don’t forget to read about it here… If you want to play catchup you can read last week’s Carnival (#201) at Burning the Bacon with Barrett.Similar Posts:

Mobile Financial Services In Canada

Jose HC — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:45:54 +0000

My intent was always to provide a recap of last week’s inaugural Mobile Money Canada conference. I was going to review the event itself, the speakers and even the audience. However much has gotten in the way of doing that for you – even though I feel a certain sense of obligation to provide you with an opinion.

But I am not going to review the event, the speakers or the audience. What I will tell you is that I did not leave the conference with a ‘good’ feeling for mobile financial services in Canada. What’s even worse is that I am not even sure why I have that feeling.

The most important question I wanted insight on was – what’s the holdup in Canada? The real holdup? I was hungry to hear the experts. I was there both as a consumer and as a mobile strategy practitioner. My question was not answered but if I look at the thirteen lessons I walked away with it gives you a pretty good idea as to what the holdup is in Canada. If you want the less cynical recap the link is provided at the end of this post.

Thirteen things I brought back from the conference:

Be leary of experts… they are usually trying to sell you something.
Everyone is an expert!
Don’t trust most of the numbers thrown at you. Be very careful when figures are used and read between the lines. If adoption numbers are not freely offered there is a good chance that adoption is poor.
Too much time is spent trying to build partnerships and alliances…
Too little time is spent on understanding the customer!
Too much time is spent patting ourselves on the back for a mature mobile infrastructure.
Too little time is spent on understanding why the industry is where it is…
The carriers claim (and actually appear offended) when it is insinuated they want to own the mobile financial consumer. Why do you get so defensive anyways? The dumb pipe complex perhaps?
There is much disagreement on the maturity of mobile financial services in Canada.
Some folks will tell you that mobile financial services in Canada are highly advanced (and they say this with a straight face).
However, some financial services insiders tell me their clients are not even close to investing in mobility until they feel more comfortable with the market.
It is hard to know who to believe (since everyone is an expert).
And for lucky thirteen – don’t believe anyone. If you are buying, do the research yourself.

I walked into the conference thinking that Canadian banks were simply slow or even negligent for not moving faster on mobile financial services. But I walked out understanding that the Canadian ecosystem is complex, filled with misinformation and really much more immature than I thought. So although the banks are moving quite slowly – I can now see that the carriers and the vendors are not helping the situation. What Canadian Banks (BMO, TD, RBC, Scotiabank, CIBC…) need is a mobile strategy. A road map to help them navigate through the fluff, the noise and the hoopla.

I realize that no one is going to make a decision on a vendor after seeing a couple of presentations and hearing a few panels at a conference … and that is a good thing.

A very good thing.

Now don’t get me wrong… Overall I am still very hopeful. The vendors in the room were all very smart and knowledgeable. They are capable of great things and if they ever actually do meaningful work in Canada I am sure it will be great…

But if you read between the lines of what is going on, you turn some rocks and you ask lots of questions – you will probably agree with me.

What am I missing?
Do you disagree with me? Please do…
Please share your thoughts below…

I do want to thank the organizers for allowing me to attend and for pushing the conversation forward. Their summary of the event can be found here. Hopefully they will still invite me next year and may even allow me to be a partner… it’s nice to have different opinions isn’t it?
Similar Posts:

Mobile Financial Services Week – Submit Your Story

Jose HC — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:18:33 +0000

Next week is the Mobile Money Canada Conference. To coincide with the event and to celebrate the fact that mobile financial services in Canada can only get better I would like to invite you to submit your stories and experiences to this blog. You can even submit your product or service and we will profile them here. Any of the areas under mobile financial services are welcome (this includes mobile money, mobile payments and mobile banking).

Contact me through our contact page or through the comments and we can connect.Similar Posts:

Mobile Strategy Site Visitors and Mobile Themes

Jose HC — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:11:23 +0000

In an effort to understand why some of you visit the Mobile Strategy Blog I have done a quick analysis of the search engine referrals. Of course this is a circuitous analysis because your searches bring you here due to the content and keywords on this site which are indexed by the search engines (mostly Google). This analysis merely helps me to focus further on the main topics or themes that are already bringing you here. The most important outcome of this analysis will hopefully be that it forces me to drop some of the filler that I write when I am either too busy or lazy to give you some good stuff.

The dates of the downloaded stats do not coincide with each other 100%… but they provide sufficient information for our purposes.

The Searches

October 14 to 26
Extracted from Clicky – Link Below

Traffic to the Mobile Strategy Blog comes from three main sources:

Direct Traffic 30.3%
Referring Sites 39.1%
Search Engines 29.8%
Other 0.8%

Direct traffic is just that… those of you who either have this site bookmarked or know the URL by memory.

Referring sites are mostly LinkedIn, Twitter, link backs, blogs I have left comments at or those blogs that have this site in their blogroll (like Enterprise Mobility Matters and Mobile Manifesto).

You know what search engines are. The interesting point here is that 92% of the searches during this time period came from Google, 6% from Bing and 1% from Yahoo.

The Keywords

October 14 to 26
Extracted from Clicky – Link Below

We could slice these in different ways and there are too many (including onesies) that do not add that much value to your searches but that in the right combination still brought some of you here. The top 5 keywords used during searches on this site for this period were the following:

mobile 22%
strategy 9%
banking 5%
application 4%
canada 3%

The top 5 or all of the individual keywords that brought readers over here during this period do not really tell the story so let’s get to the exciting stuff below.

Mobile Strategy Themes

October 14 to 26
Extracted from Clicky – Link Below

This is what I did:

Took the entire list of searches
Filtered out nonsense and mistakes
Classified the remaining ones into main themes

And these are the mobility themes that brought searchers to this blog with their corresponding weights:

Mobile Strategy 33%
Mobile Banking 20%
Mobile Application Development 18%
Mobile Analytics 7%
Enterprise Mobility 6%
Mobile Ecosystem 5%
Mobile Venture Capital 4%
Other 6%

From this I can only assume that visitors to this blog that do not come through searches are also drawn here by the same content and themes. As much as possible we will try and focus on the first three themes (mobile strategy, mobile banking or financial services and mobile application development). However we will also give it our best shot to provide you relevant links and interesting stories on the next four topics which are still very interesting to us (mobile analytics, enterprise mobility, mobile ecosystem and mobile venture capital).

Hope this helps you as much as it did me.
If you want to see something specific here please drop a comment below.

Get Clicky
Of the four different analytics programs (non-mobile) that I use here my favourite is Clicky Web Analytics. If you are interested in checking it out you can use my little code – here Get Clicky.

Mobile Money Canada Conference – November 10, 2009

Jose HC — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:33:14 +0000

This is exciting for me. I will be attending and hopefully writing, interviewing and even offering some mobile strategy advice and services to those seeking it. The event organizers have stated the following three goals for the conference:

Stimulate the growth of a nascent, but promising, Mobile Money industry in Canada
Educate business and technology execs that need to know about Mobile Money
Showcase the leading Canadian mobile money services and technology vendors serving this market

So what exactly is Mobile Money Canada?

… it is the first event focused exclusively on showcasing and building the Mobile Money industry in Canada. Mobile Money Canada will be held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on November 10, 2009 at the Metro Toronto Convention Center.

The event will bring together mobile network operators, financial institutions, consultancies, and Mobile Money solution vendors, to discuss, debate, and develop strategies to accelerate the growth of Canadian Mobile Money.

Mobile Money Canada is intended for executives that need to rollout Mobile Financial Services and wish to learn best practices from industry veterans. The event is also for those wishing to meet the leading solution vendors that have proven offerings that can help to accelerate and de-risk Mobile Financial deployments.

Lots of exciting speakers and a packed agenda which I am really looking forward to.

From our series on Mobile Financial Services and Mobile Banking on this blog you know that we will find the topics below – to be covered at the conference – very interesting.

Mobile Banking

* What is the value proposition of Mobile Banking in Canada?
* Case Study: The business case and ROI of Mobile Banking in the developed world.
* How do financial institutions successfully build, deploy, and scale Mobile Banking solutions and services?
* Who are the solution leading vendors in the Mobile Banking sector and how do they help banks succeed?

Mobile Money Transfer & Payments

* Why will Mobile Money transfer matter to Canadians?
* What is the business case for Mobile Money Transfer & Payments in Canada?
* How do Banks and Mobile Network Operators profit from Mobile Money transfer services?
* How will lessons from the developing world drive the evolution and adoption of Mobile Money Transfers in Canada?
* What does the future have in store for remote and contactless payments in Canada?

Mobile Marketing & Advertising

* What are the leading ways to market and advertise through the mobile channel?
* How can mobile coupons drive increased revenues for Mobile Operators and Retailers?
* What are the platforms available to power Mobile Marketing campaigns?
* Buy versus Build? What to think about when deciding whether to build a custom mobile marketing solution or license an offering from a vendor?

If you are going to be there and want to meet up please drop me a line.

You can find the conference website here or you can register for Mobile Money Canada here.

Similar Posts:

Mobile Banking In Canada (Reason 2): Mobility is Personal, Intimate and Present

Jose HC — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:42:45 +0000

This post is part of the series we began in August entitled: 12 Reasons Why Canadian Banks Should Really Offer Mobile Services. As a Canadian consumer of financial services I want those services on my mobile now! This is all part of my own little push to get it done.

Unlike other channels, the mobile channel does not require a customer to go somewhere; nor does it require a bank representative to go to the customer. The mobile channel is with the customer. It is on a belt, hanging from a backpack, at a bedside table, in a purse or on a desk. It is always close enough so as not to miss the next phone call, email or text message.

Today a mobile phone is both a business productivity tool and a fashion accessory… it is a cultural lifeline and an emergency hotline. Over two-thirds (72%) of Canadian households have access to a wireless phone in a country where 98% of its people live in an area with wireless coverage. The mobile channel represents a unique opportunity to financial services providers due to its personal nature (my phone, my pictures, my address book, my emails, my songs, my themes, my ringtones) as well as its immediacy (close enough for me to hear it or feel it).

Mobility and banking on a mobile device is not just another banking delivery channel. It is more than the simple delivery of content to a mobile individual and it is certainly more than the push of existing services to a mobile form factor. Mobile financial services is about empowering the financial services consumer and placing the control back into their hands. It is not about data and it is not about the delivery of that data. It is about a person in a mobile context. The question then becomes – what does this person need in relation to their finances while mobile? And …how can this person relate to their financial assets and the bankers that hold those assets… while mobile?

In Canada ownership is more personal than ever before… with 70% of Canadians personally owning their wireless phones, while the remaining 30% had access to their wireless phones through employers, self-employment or someone else in the household. There was also a marked growth in the use of wireless phones for personal purposes. An interesting number in this category is that almost half of the respondents (46%) have used their wireless phone to help them out of an emergency situation.

Click on the images to see a gallery of graphs.

If the mobile channel is so personal and can provide the perfect delivery mechanism for financial service organizations … why isn’t it leveraged in Canada the way it should?

Why is the Canadian financial services consumer deprived of this experience?

(Please note all figures are from the 2008 Wireless Attitudes Study from the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association -
September 12, 2008)Similar Posts:

Mobile Banking In Canada (Reason 3): Technology Is NOT An Obstacle

Guest Author — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:00:02 +0000

This post is part of the series we began a few weeks ago: 12 Reasons Why Canadian Banks Should Really Offer Mobile Services. We are a little bit out of order and we are presenting Reason #3 ahead of #2… and that’s because we have a special guest author and we could not wait any longer. David Eads is the founder of Mobile Strategy Partners and an expert in mobile commerce and mobile banking who blogs over at the Mobile Manifesto: Strategic Insights Into Mobile Commerce.

———————————–

Canada is still waiting for mobile financial services. Technology isn’t the problem.

Most of the big banks have offered mobile web based banking at one point or another. There have also been a number of mobile payment pilots, most notably at RBC. So far, long after the pilots complete, we’re still waiting for announcements of a broader rollout.

Canada has all the infrastructure in place. In many ways, Canada’s infrastructure is better suited to mobile financial services that in the United States, where mobile financial services is flourishing.

For example:

Canada’s Interac Association provides a single, straightforward mechanism to connect financial institutions to merchant point-of-sale systems.
Enstream is a consortium created by Rogers, Bell, and TELUS specifically to facilitate mobile financial services in Canada.
Unlike the U.S., open lines of communication generally exist between the banks and wireless carriers. Nadir Mohamed, the CEO of Rogers, sits on the board of TD Bank Financial Group. George Cope the CEO of Bell Canada and the former CEO of TELUS is on the board at BMO.
Canada leads the world in Blackberry smartphone ownership. Blackberry devices are well suited for mobile applications like financial services. In fact, Facebook just announced it has 12 million mobile users in Canada. Facebook usage is technically similar to mobile financial services.

So, why are we still waiting?

I personally think the market dominance of a few large banks is a major contributing factor.

Canadian banking is dominated by five large institutions: RBC, TD, BMO, CIBC, and Desjardins. In the U.S., there is more market fragmentation that encourages more competition. The U.S. behemoths like Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citibank must use their size to perform a preemptive strike on regional banks like M&T, PNC, and Huntington. Community banks and credit unions like Delta Community Credit Union with assets as small as US$1bn have announced plans for mobile banking. In Canada, the banks have the option to watch a handful of other banks and play wait-and-see.

Secondly, I think the iPhone delay is another major factor.

The long wait for the iPhone in Canada, the concern about data plans afterward, and Rogers-exclusivity, have also slowed the adoption of mobile applications. Mobile commerce consistently shows 2/3 of all usage coming from iPhones. First Canadians had to wait for the iPhone and now limiting iPhone usage to only Rogers subscribers limits the market to roughly 1/3 of the Canadian market at best.

iPhone users have a history of demanding what they want (like opening the iPhone to applications). The delay of iPhones in Canada simply put off the inevitable demands by consumers to their institutions.

The customer requests are visible on Twitter:

georgewenzel @RBC Any chance of you guys getting an iPhone-optimized mobile online banking site up and running? The current mobi site sucks on an iPhone.

stephenweppler @RBC any news on a iPhone app from RBC, the mobile banking site is horrible….?

fuzzylion Dear TD Bank – it’s seriously about time that you get a mobile app or at least a WAP version of your online banking website.

As the demands increase, banks will respond. And if the past is any indication of the future, once one bank releases a well-liked mobile application the rest of the banks will follow. Other financial institutions will join in once the market is tested and the benefits are proven.

Unfortunately, organizations that wait risk losing customers forever to the leaders.

Furthermore, followers that rush their efforts risk releasing failed applications which will likely result in:

Further accelerating customer churn to their competitors
Exponentially increase the difficulty and costs of adoption in the future; users that have had a bad experience are probably reluctant to try it again
Costs associated with the having to do the work again (and again) and the lost opportunity.

These folks are smart people. I suspect we’ll see mobile offerings from these institutions soon.Similar Posts: