Mobile banking (also known as M-Banking, mbanking, SMS Banking) is a term used f or performing balance checks, account transactions,

payments, credit application s and other banking transactions through a mobile device such as a mobile phone or Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). The earliest mobile banking services were o ffered over SMS. With the introduction of the first primitive smart phones with WAP support enabling the use of the mobile web in 1999, the first European banks started to offer mobile banking on this platform to their customers[1]. Mobile banking has until recently (2010) most often been performed via SMS or th e Mobile Web. Apple's initial success with iPhone and the rapid growth of phones based on Google's Android (operating system) have led to increasing use of spec ial client programs, called apps, downloaded to the mobile device. Contents [hide] 1 A mobile banking conceptual model 2 Trends in mobile banking 3 Mobile banking business models 3.1 Bank-focused model 3.2 Bank-led model 3.3 Non-bank-led model 4 Mobile Banking Services 4.1 Account Information 4.2 Payments, Deposits, Withdrawals, and Transfers 4.3 Investments 4.4 Support 4.5 Content Services 4.6 Future functionalities in Mobile Banking 5 Challenges for a Mobile Banking Solution 5.1 Handset operability 5.2 Security 5.3 Scalability & Reliability 5.4 Application distribution 5.5 Personalization 6 Mobile banking in the world 7 See also 8 Notes 9 References [edit] A mobile banking conceptual model In one academic model,[2] mobile banking is defined as: Mobile Banking refers to provision and availment of banking- and financial s ervices with the help of mobile telecommunication devices.The scope of offered s ervices may include facilities to conduct bank and stock market transactions, to administer accounts and to access customised information." According to this model Mobile Banking can be said to consist of three inter-rel ated concepts: Mobile Accounting Mobile Brokerage Mobile Financial Information Services Most services in the categories designated Accounting and Brokerage are transact ion-based. The non-transaction-based services of an informational nature are how ever essential for conducting transactions - for instance, balance inquiries mig ht be needed before committing a money remittance. The accounting and brokerage services are therefore offered invariably in combination with information servic

es. Information services, on the other hand, may be offered as an independent mo dule. Mobile phone banking may also be used to help in business situations as well as financial [edit] Trends in mobile banking The advent of the Internet has enabled new ways to conduct banking business, res ulting in the creation of new institutions, such as online banks, online brokers and wealth managers. Such institutions still account for a tiny percentage of t he industry.[citation needed] Over the last few years, the mobile and wireless market has been one of the fast est growing markets in the world and it is still growing at a rapid pace. Accord ing to the GSM Association and Ovum, the number of mobile subscribers exceeded 2 billion in September 2005, and now (2009) exceeds 2.5 billion (of which more th an 2 billion are GSM).[citation needed] This article appears to contain unverifiable speculation and unjustified claims. Information must be verifiable and based on reliable published sources. Please remove unverified speculation from the article. According to a study by financial consultancy Celent, 35% of online banking hous eholds will be using mobile banking by 2010, up from less than 1% today. Upwards of 70% of bank center call volume is projected to come from mobile phones. Mobi le banking will eventually allow users to make payments at the physical point of sale. "Mobile contactless payments will make up 10% of the contactless market by 2010.[3] Another study from 2010 by Berg Insight forecasts that the number of m obile banking users in the US will grow from 12 million in 2009 to 86 million in 2015. The same study also predicts that the European market will grow from 7 mi llion mobile banking users in 2009 to 115 million users in 2015.[4] Many believe that mobile users have just started to fully utilize the data capab ilities in their mobile phones. In Asian countries like India, China, Bangladesh , Indonesia and Philippines, where mobile infrastructure is comparatively better than the fixed-line infrastructure, and in European countries, where mobile pho ne penetration is very high (at least 80% of consumers use a mobile phone), mobi le banking is likely to appeal even more. [edit] Mobile banking business models A wide spectrum of Mobile/branchless banking models is evolving. However, no mat ter what business model, if mobile banking is being used to attract low-income p opulations in often rural locations, the business model will depend on banking a gents, i.e., retail or postal outlets that process financial transactions on beh alf telcos or banks. The banking agent is an important part of the mobile bankin g business model since customer care, service quality, and cash management will depend on them. Many telcos will work through their local airtime resellers. How ever, banks in Colombia, Brazil, Peru, and other markets use pharmacies, bakerie s, etc. These models differ primarily on the question that who will establish the relati onship (account opening, deposit taking, lending etc.) to the end customer, the Bank or the Non-Bank/Telecommunication Company (Telco). Another difference lies in the nature of agency agreement between bank and the Non-Bank. Models of branc hless banking can be classified into three broad categories - Bank Focused, Bank -Led and Nonbank-Led. [edit] Bank-focused model The bank-focused model emerges when a traditional bank uses non-traditional lowcost delivery channels to provide banking services to its existing customers. Ex amples range from use of automatic teller machines (ATMs) to internet banking or

mobile phone banking to provide certain limited banking services to banks custom ers. This model is additive in nature and may be seen as a modest extension of c onventional branch-based banking. [edit] Bank-led model The bank-led model offers a distinct alternative to conventional branch-based ba nking in that customer conducts financial transactions at a whole range of retai l agents (or through mobile phone) instead of at bank branches or through bank e mployees. This model promises the potential to substantially increase the financ ial services outreach by using a different delivery channel (retailers/ mobile p hones), a different trade partner (telco / chain store) having experience and ta rget market distinct from traditional banks, and may be significantly cheaper th an the bank-based alternatives. The bank-led model may be implemented by either using correspondent arrangements or by creating a JV between Bank and Telco/nonbank. In this model customer account relationship rests with the bank [edit] Non-bank-led model The non-bank-led model is where a bank has a limited role in the day-to-day acco unt management. Typically its role in this model is limited to safe-keeping of f unds. Account management functions are conducted by a non-bank (e.g. telco) who has direct contact with individual customers. [edit] Mobile Banking Services Mobile banking can offer services such as the following: [edit] Account Information Mini-statements and checking of account history Alerts on account activity or passing of set thresholds Monitoring of term deposits Access to loan statements Access to card statements Mutual funds / equity statements Insurance policy management Pension plan management Status on cheque, stop payment on cheque Ordering cheque books Balance checking in the account Recent transactions Due date of payment (functionality for stop, change and deleting of payments ) PIN provision, Change of PIN and reminder over the Internet Blocking of (lost, stolen) cards [edit] Payments, Deposits, Withdrawals, and Transfers Domestic and international fund transfers Micro-payment handling Mobile recharging Commercial payment processing Bill payment processing Peer to Peer payments Withdrawal at banking agent Deposit at banking agent A specific sequence of SMS messages will enable the system to verify if the clie nt has sufficient funds in his or her wallet and authorize a deposit or withdraw al transaction at the agent. When depositing money, the merchant receives cash a nd the system credits the client's bank account or mobile wallet. In the same wa y the client can also withdraw money at the merchant: through exchanging sms to provide authorization, the merchant hands the client cash and debits the merchan

t's account. Kenya's M-PESA mobile banking service, for example, allows customers of the mobi le phone operator Safaricom to hold cash balances which are recorded on their SI M cards. Cash may be deposited or withdrawn from M-PESA accounts at Safaricom re tail outlets located throughout the country, and may be transferred electronical ly from person to person as well as used to pay bills to companies. One of the m ost innovative applications of mobile banking technology is Zidisha, a US-based nonprofit microlending platform that allows residents of developing countries to raise small business loans from web users worldwide. Zidisha uses mobile bankin g for loan disbursements and repayments, transferring funds from lenders in the United States to the borrowers in rural Africa using nothing but the internet an d mobile phones.[5] [edit] Investments Portfolio management services Real-time stock quotes Personalized alerts and notifications on security prices [edit] Support Status of requests for credit, including mortgage approval, and insurance co verage Check (cheque) book and card requests Exchange of data messages and email, including complaint submission and trac king ATM Location [edit] Content Services General information such as weather updates, news Loyalty-related offers Location-based services Based on a survey conducted by Forrester, mobile banking will be attractive main ly to the younger, more "tech-savvy" customer segment. A third of mobile phone u sers say that they may consider performing some kind of financial transaction th rough their mobile phone. But most of the users are interested in performing bas ic transactions such as querying for account balance and making bill payment. [edit] Future functionalities in Mobile Banking Based on the 'International Review of Business Research Papers' from World busin ess Institute, Australia, following are the key functional trends possible in wo rld of Mobile Banking. With the advent of technology and increasing use of smartphone and tablet based devices, the use of Mobile Banking functionality would enable customer connect a cross entire customer life cycle much comprehensively than before. With this sce nario, current mobile banking objectives of say building relationships, reducing cost, achieving new revenue stream will transform to enable new objectives targ eting higher level goals such as building brand of the banking organization. Eme rging technology and functionalities would enable to create new ways of lead gen eration, prospecting as well as developing deep customer relationship and mobile banking world would achieve superior customer experience with bi-directional co mmunications. Illustration of objective based functionality enrichment In Mobile Banking Communication enrichment: - Video Interaction with agents, advisors. Pervasive Transactions capabilities: - Comprehensive Mobile wallet

Customer Education: - Test drive for demos of banking services Connect with new customer segment: - Connect with Gen Y Gen Z using games an d social network ambushed to surrogate bank s offerings Content monetization: - Micro level revenue themes such as music, e-book dow nload Vertical positioning: - Positioning offerings over mobile banking specific i ndustries Horizontal positioning: - Positioning offerings over mobile banking across a ll the industries Personalization of corporate banking services: - Personalization experience for multiple roles and hierarchies in corporate banking as against the vanilla b ased segment based enhancements in the current context. Build Brand: - Built the bank s brand while enhancing the Mobile real estate . [edit] Challenges for a Mobile Banking Solution Key challenges in developing a sophisticated mobile banking application are : [edit] Handset operability There are a large number of different mobile phone devices and it is a big chall enge for banks to offer mobile banking solution on any type of device. Some of t hese devices support Java ME and others support SIM Application Toolkit, a WAP b rowser, or only SMS. Initial interoperability issues however have been localized, with countries like India using portals like R-World to enable the limitations of low end java base d phones, while focus on areas such as South Africa have defaulted to the USSD a s a basis of communication achievable with any phone. The desire for interoperability is largely dependent on the banks themselves, wh ere installed applications(Java based or native) provide better security, are ea sier to use and allow development of more complex capabilities similar to those of internet banking while SMS can provide the basics but becomes difficult to op erate with more complex transactions. There is a myth that there is a challenge of interoperability between mobile ban king applications due to perceived lack of common technology standards for mobil e banking. In practice it is too early in the service lifecycle for interoperabi lity to be addressed within an individual country, as very few countries have mo re than one mobile banking service provider. In practice, banking interfaces are well defined and money movements between banks follow the IS0-8583 standard. As mobile banking matures, money movements between service providers will naturall y adopt the same standards as in the banking world. On January 2009, Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) Banking Sub-Committee, chair ed by CellTrust and VeriSign Inc., published the Mobile Banking Overview for fin ancial institutions in which it discussed the advantages and disadvantages of Mo bile Channel Platforms such as Short Message Services (SMS), Mobile Web, Mobile Client Applications, SMS with Mobile Web and Secure SMS.[6] [edit] Security Security of financial transactions, being executed from some remote location and transmission of financial information over the air, are the most complicated ch allenges that need to be addressed jointly by mobile application developers, wir eless network service providers and the banks' IT departments. The following aspects need to be addressed to offer a secure infrastructure for financial transaction over wireless network : Physical part of the hand-held device. If the bank is offering smart-card ba

sed security, the physical security of the device is more important. Security of any thick-client application running on the device. In case the device is stolen, the hacker should require at least an ID/Password to access th e application. Authentication of the device with service provider before initiating a trans action. This would ensure that unauthorized devices are not connected to perform financial transactions. User ID / Password authentication of bank s customer. Encryption of the data being transmitted over the air. Encryption of the data that will be stored in device for later / off-line an alysis by the customer. One-time password (OTPs) are the latest tool used by financial and banking servi ce providers in the fight against cyber fraud[7]. Instead of relying on traditio nal memorized passwords, OTPs are requested by consumers each time they want to perform transactions using the online or mobile banking interface. When the requ est is received the password is sent to the consumer s phone via SMS. The password is expired once it has been used or once its scheduled life-cycle has expired. Because of the concerns made explicit above, it is extremely important that SMS gateway providers can provide a decent quality of service for banks and financia l institutions in regards to SMS services. Therefore, the provision of service l evel agreements (SLAs) is a requirement for this industry; it is necessary to gi ve the bank customer delivery guarantees of all messages, as well as measurement s on the speed of delivery, throughput, etc. SLAs give the service parameters in which a messaging solution is guaranteed to perform. [edit] Scalability & Reliability Another challenge for the CIOs and CTOs of the banks is to scale-up the mobile b anking infrastructure to handle exponential growth of the customer base. With mo bile banking, the customer may be sitting in any part of the world (true anytime , anywhere banking) and hence banks need to ensure that the systems are up and r unning in a true 24 x 7 fashion. As customers will find mobile banking more and more useful, their expectations from the solution will increase. Banks unable to meet the performance and reliability expectations may lose customer confidence. There are systems such as Mobile Transaction Platform which allow quick and sec ure mobile enabling of various banking services. Recently in India there has bee n a phenomenal growth in the use of Mobile Banking applications, with leading ba nks adopting Mobile Transaction Platform and the Central Bank publishing guideli nes for mobile banking operations. [edit] Application distribution Due to the nature of the connectivity between bank and its customers, it would b e impractical to expect customers to regularly visit banks or connect to a web s ite for regular upgrade of their mobile banking application. It will be expected that the mobile application itself check the upgrades and updates and download necessary patches (so called "Over The Air" updates). However, there could be ma ny issues to implement this approach such as upgrade / synchronization of other dependent components. [edit] Personalization It would be expected from the mobile application to support personalization such as : Preferred Language Date / Time format Amount format Default transactions Standard Beneficiary list Alerts

[edit] Mobile banking in the world Mobile banking is used in many parts of the world with little or no infrastructu re, especially remote and rural areas. This aspect of mobile commerce is also po pular in countries where most of their population is unbanked. In most of these places, banks can only be found in big cities, and customers have to travel hund reds of miles to the nearest bank. By 2012, it is estimated that there will be 1 .7 billion people with a mobile phone but not a bank account and as many as 364 million unbanked people could be reached by agent-networked banking through mobi le phones.[8] In Iran, banks such as Parsian, Tejarat, Mellat, Saderat, Sepah, Edbi, and Bankm elli offer the service. Banco Industrial provides the service in Guatemala. Citi zens of Mexico can access mobile banking with Omnilife, Bancomer and MPower Vent ure. Kenya's Safaricom (part of the Vodafone Group) has the M-Pesa Service, whic h is mainly used to transfer limited amounts of money, but increasingly used to pay utility bills as well. In 2009, Zain launched their own mobile money transfe r business, known as ZAP, in Kenya and other African countries. In Somalia, the many telecom companies provide mobile banking, the most prominent being Hormuud Telecom and its ZAAD service. Telenor Pakistan has also launched a mobile banking solution, in coordination wi th Taameer Bank, under the label Easy Paisa, which was begun in Q4 2009. Eko Ind ia Financial Services, the business correspondent of State Bank of India (SBI) a nd ICICI Bank, provides bank accounts, deposit, withdrawal and remittance servic es, micro-insurance, and micro-finance facilities to its customers (nearly 80% o f whom are migrants or the unbanked section of the population) through mobile ba nking.[9] In a year of 2010, mobile banking users soared over 100 percent in Kenya, China, Brazil and USA with 200 percent, 150 percent, 110 percent and 100 percent respe ctively.[10] Dutch Bangla Bank launched the very first mobile banking service in Bangladesh o n 31 March, 2011. This service is launched with Agent and Network support from mobil e operators, Banglalink and Citycell. Sybase 365, a subsidiary of Sybase, Inc. h as provided software solution with their local partner Neurosoft Technologies Lt d. There are around 160 million people in Bangladesh, of which, only 13 per cent have bank accounts. With this solution, Dutch-Bangla Bank can now reach out to the rural and unbanked population, of which, 45 per cent are mobile phone users. Under the service, any mobile handset with subscription to any of the six exist ing mobile operators of Bangladesh would be able to utilize the service. Under t he mobile banking services, bank-nominated Agents perform banking activities on be half of the banks, like opening mobile banking account, providing cash services (receipts and payments) and dealing with small credits. Cash withdrawal from a m obile account can also be done from an ATM validating each transaction by mobile phone & PIN instead of card & PIN . Other services that are being delivered through mobile banking system are person-to-person (e.g. fund transfer), person-to-busin ess (e.g. merchant payment, utility bill payment), business-to-person (e.g. sala ry/commission disbursement), government-to-person (disbursement of government al lowance) transactions.