Mobile Channel Focus Day at Net.Finance Conference

As I'm watching the tweets from the Mobile Banking and Emerging Applications Summit in New Orleans this week, it prompted me to highlight some of my impressions from the Mobile Channel Focus Day at Net.Finance back in May. Here are a few of the highlights:

Jeff Dennes, SVP Chief Digital Officer of Huntington National Bank (and formerly with USAA), gave the Keynote address. His presentation was full of interesting observations including:

• The economics of Mobile are compelling. Mobile transactions cost $.08 per transaction versus a branch cost of $4.00 per transaction.




• The expansion of the 4G network over the next 2 years will increase bandwidth equal to a cable modem at home.




• Mobility is driving convergence. The gap between the traditional web and related services is closing, with the increase in smart phones and the movement of the Gen Y's into the workforce.

Secil Tabli Watson, SVP of Internet and Mobile Banking from Wells Fargo discussed using ethnographic data to determine how and when customers are using their mobile services.The results will identified "convenience" as the driver of adoption and use. This will ultimately help them focus future enhancements around this approach.

Jennifer Wilson, SVP Internet Channel Director, BBVA Compass shared her experience with the introduction of ZashPay, a Person to Person payments service from Fiserv. From an adoption perspective, they found that building a web page with a simple enrollment process was key. When they looked at the user base, they found a surprising number of small business customers who were using as an alternative to more expensive ACH services. Given these pilot results, they may develop a mobile invoicing service for their business customers.

Mobile continues to be a hot topic among financial services providers and may prove to be the most signficant game changer in the next couple of years.