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On-line banking expands ASB and BankDirect are taking the convergence of Internet banking and mobile phone technology to the next level with the expansion of their Internet banking service to the fast growing smartphone and PDA market in New Zealand.Five years ago these banks were the first to introduce Internet banking on mobile phones. "From our experience we know our customers enjoy doing Internet banking on Vodafone or Telecom networks. We're enabling the growing numbers using the smartphone and PDA market to do the same. This is where the future of mobile phone technology is heading, and we're delivering it now," says Clayton Wakefield, Head of Technology and Operations, ASB. The service features the most common functions used on ASB and BankDirect's respective online banking channels, and is available to the bulk of the PDA and smartphone market. This means customers can easily: * Make bill payments * Make online, real-time cheque payments * Transfer money between accounts and credit cards * View their account balances * View mini-statements TUANZ Chief Executive, Ernie Newman, has welcomed the expansion of the service and says ASB and BankDirect have got it right when predicting where the market is heading. "There has certainly been strong growth in the smartphone/PDA market in the past few years, and the other emerging trend is that cellphone handpieces are also increasing in their functionality. The boundaries between simple mobiles and PDAs are blurring and we're moving rapidly towards the PDA-end of this continuum." "Today's mobile phone users will be the PDA users of tomorrow, so ASB and BankDirect are being consistent with where the main technology developments are heading with handsets." Clayton Wakefield says since they first launched a version of Internet banking on mobile phones in 2001, handpieces have acquired increasingly sophisticated functionality. "We've taken advantage of this advanced sophistication. This service looks and feels just like the traditional Internet banking sites and has the associated benefit of paying bills and making online cheques in real time. Transactions on smartphones and PDAs are also protected by our world-class two factor security system which protects transactions over $800, or even lower if the customer chooses." Customers using two factor security on transactions over their smartphones or PDAs will need a Netcode token to provide the 'second factor' security component. "We know our Internet banking customers average around 10 million transactions a month, and they're huge users of mobile phones. It makes sense to expand this service to busy professionals who typically use PDAs and smartphones. This way they have a portable, easy way to do their Internet banking through the technology they conduct the majority of their business on." ASB's Fastnet Classic and BankDirect's NetDirect will be available on the majority of PDAs and Smartphones from today. Customers who are already registered for online banking services can access it straight away. |
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