Financial institutions (FIs) are moving beyond the basics to deliver increasingly sophisticated mobile capabilities, according to a recent Forrester survey which evaluated the plans of ten top-tier U.S. banks and credit unions.

“After several years of technology-driven expectations, mobile banking is finally seeing sustained traction in the United States, and banks have rolled out support broad enough to enable consumers with nearly any mobile device to access basic banking functionality,” said Brad Strothkamp, vice-president, principal analyst, eBusiness and Channel Strategy, Forrester Research. “As consumers gain confidence with the channel, their needs are shifting from simple functionality like account balances and ATM locators to transactions like bill payment and account transfers.”

The Forrester survey indicates that FIs are moving to meet these more transactional needs by delivering increasingly robust mobile banking and payment solutions:

• Nine of the ten FIs surveyed already have a mobile banking offering that provides basic account access, and almost all provide ATM/branch locators, transfers between accounts, and bill payment.
• For 2012, these FIs plan to focus on delivering remote deposit capture, actionable alerts (which allow recipients to initiate an action such as a funds transfer in response to an alert about a low balance) and additional payment capabilities.
• Eight of ten surveyed FIs plan to invest in some type of mobile payments in the next 12 months, with person-to-person mobile payments cited as a priority by seven respondents.
• FIs are committed to providing mobile banking and payments capabilities for a range of devices, with a focus on smartphones.
• While none of the surveyed FIs currently offered specialized support for tablets, this was cited as a priority for 2012 by multiple respondents.
• Plans to provide support for mobile point of sale payments vary greatly, with two of the surveyed FIs currently piloting such offerings, three saying they planned to support them at some point and the remaining five saying they had no plans to support mobile point-of-sale payments in the foreseeable future.

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