It is important to have a goal for the mobile channel.  That sounds a bit obvious, but many surveys over the past 18 months have found many financial institutions are moving to the mobile channel simply because their competition is, or they believe their customers want the service.

Keeping up with your competition and giving your customers what they want is rarely a bad thing, but if financial institutions are not careful and do not conduct the necessary research they may miss the mark.   

Simply rolling-out a mobile banking service may not work if you are marketing to the wrong group, or worse yet, implementing a solution that your customers do not like, or know how to use.  

Cost savings should be front and center as a main objective for financial institutions offering mobile banking services.  Not to say that one objective is mutually exclusive from the other, but if you focus on costs savings as the goal for the mobile channel, at least in the short term, you are more likely to understand the demographics that will ultimately drive adoption of the service.

Beyond Online Banking

First and foremost, don’t simply focus on the current online users.  They are likely to skew the statistics and the approach.  These users are technology savvy, younger and more likely to own a Smartphone.

It is expected that nearly 40% of mobile banking customers will not be online users.

According to a white paper published by Fiserv called WP Mobile Banking ROI, Absa, one of South Africa’s largest financial services firms, has twice the number of mobile banking users as it does online users.  
A large portion of these would be users are not online users, and thus are expensive customers to have.  Identifying all the potential users will help focus the effort on what type of solution these customers will find appealing.  

Don’t Be Generic

It is not enough to use industry research and try to apply the results to your customer base.   You must do the research on your own to find out what your particular membership base is interested in, and what they are currently doing.

Your customer base might surprise you.  A mobile banking survey by Callahan & Associates found a variation of mobile Internet usage which revealed that while the usage curve is the same across age levels, the proportion of users who access the Internet via mobile device ranged from 19% to 42%.   Further, some financial institutions discovered similar levels of mobile Internet usage in the 18-49 age group, with a drop in the over 50 segment.  Others found the Internet usage to drop off after age 39.  

Age Groups

Everyone Texts!   

The question of course remains if someone that is 59 is willing to bank via SMS.

Nothing can be assumed about Generation Y and Generation X.   Generation Y is addicted to text messaging, but Generation X is also very technology savvy and has the earning power to afford Blackberrys and iPhones.  From this can you conclude that Generation Y wants SMS banking and Generation X wants Smartphone banking?  To find out, ask your customers.

Race

Even race impacts who might become a mobile banking customer, and which solution might be most appealing.  In the same white paper from Fiserv, Blacks and Hispanics were more likely to use both SMS and the mobile Internet, and to have had wide experience in a variety of mobile functions.  

This demonstrates that, for mobile banking to be successful, it must have specific objectives so the proper research can be conducted, and then the result measured against the appropriate criteria.  

If you can target the marketing and technology solution that meets ‘your ‘customer’s needs, the adoption rates and cost savings can be staggering.   

For a good read please reference the Fiserv white Paper.
http://www.fiserv.com/search.aspx?as_sitesearch=fiserv.com&x=0&y=0&q=mobile+banking+ROI

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Name: Kent McNeil Title: Principal Company: DonRiver View Kent McNeil's Blog