Nationwide has extended its mBanking services into bill payments and account transfers.
The underdeveloped world of mobile banking in the UK grew a little more advanced today as Nationwide Building Society – one of the UK’s mBanking pioneers – has announced improvements to the mobile services available to its customers. In addition to being able to access account balances and mini-statements, customers with a suitable WAP mobile phone or PDA device will now able to pay bills and transfer money from one Nationwide account to another whilst on the move, or standing still.
However, the potential popularity of mBanking services in the UK remains open to question. If the experience of WAP has taught UK firms anything, it is that the Brits are not the quickest people to embrace the technological opportunities available in mCommerce. Within the financial services realm, the slow take-up of mobile services in the UK contrasts sharply with the country’s Scandinavian neighbors. Banks such as Leonia and MeritaNordBanken have substantial numbers of mobile subscribers.
Even given the advent of 3G over the next couple of years, it is unclear whether banking customers in the UK will want any more advanced mobile banking services than those such as bill payment and money transfers that are now being offered by Nationwide. Instead the appeal of mCommerce in financial services is likely to lie in ‘real-time’ applications such as share dealing.
So why has Nationwide extended its mBanking services? There is increasing pressure on big players within the financial services industry to be seen to be offering as advanced a multi-channel distribution network as possible. While the growth of Internet banking in the UK has been driven by the ease and convenience of PC-based banking, it remains to be seen whether UK banks that are launching mBanking services are giving customers what they want, or merely what they feel they should be giving them.
