By Gemma Simpson, 23 May 2007 00:01
NEWS
High street bank Barclays has launched a mobile phone banking service to extend the reach of its online banking facility.
Customers can access Barclays' online banking systems via a 'Barclays.mobi' link on a web-enabled mobile.
The free service will initially allow the bank's pre-registered 1.9 million online banking customers to check their account balance and statements, with more services to be added shortly.
Customers can view pages from Barclays' online banking service in an updated format - designed specifically to be viewed on mobile phones.
A Barclays spokesman told silicon.com: "The technology has moved on so Barclays can now adapt its browser for mobile banking."
silicon.com Financial Services
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The spokesman added: "People are now using mobile phones for a growing number of things, including banking, so Barclays thought it was the right time to provide this service."
However, there are questions over how popular such services would be. Just eight per cent of online customers in the US who own a mobile phone are interested in using mobiles to check account balances, according to analyst house Jupiter Research. Asaf Buchner, an analyst at Jupiter, said the buzz around mobile banking is fuelled by financial institutions' desire to expand their customer relationships via mobile phones rather than consumer demand.
First Direct and HSBC launched a mobile banking service last year which charges customers a set amount each time they use certain services.
Barclays is the first organisation in the UK to roll out chip and PIN devices to more than half a million online banking customers, and it already offers an SMS text-alert payment confirmation system to combat potential fraud.
Comments
There are 5 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
Take a look at what rural banks in the Philippines are now offering their clients with mobile phones. The mobile phone offers a whole new range of possibilities for customers including mobile phone banking services as well as turning mobile phones into wallets allowing for entire mobile payment platforms that customers at all levels in the society can use.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=wz4HFSNgvuw
2. Ian Paterson
This is quite a novel product from a company called Morse who also provide the service for HSBC and I think RBS is taking up the service soon as well.
3. anonymous
Um - the main barclays ibank website already works on a mobile web browser, so I'm guessing this is just a cut-down version.
4. Disgruntled ex Woolwich Customer
Having just had my current account moved from the Woolwich to Barclays three weeks ago, been without a debit card, been unable to pay in money, lost access to a years online statements with no prior notice, lost standing orders, I can now access my account from my mobile phone. But hang on.. I used to be able to do that from my Woolwich account 5 years ago but it was withdrawn around the time that Barclays took over Woolwich!
5. anonymous
and it's another way of increasing end of year profit margins without actually doing very much
except of course by reducing the wages bill for all those pesky, expensive to maintain counter staff, and please don't tell me they will be retrained to work on the mobile helpdesk as this function will be offshored
now there are a finite number of jobs in this country, and the workforce is expanding, and we keep offshoring jobs reducing the number available...
eventually we will run out of jobs to offshore, probably sometime after we run out of the money to pay all the people who are out of work due to offshoring
little off topic I know, but worth thinking about