The Banking Anti-Crisis

Still, a survey by an Australian banking group said 93 percent of its New Zealand customers thought mobile banking was the most convenient channel. “There is always a security and convenience trade-off and consumers have to make that choice every day,” Van Dam said.

The platforms Fiserv has been building and deploying in the United States already support Mobile Wallet and near field communications technology. “It’s just a matter of turning it on,” Grimes said.

Grimes added that while no system is perfect, the security concerns of consumers can be overcome. He said mobile banking was pretty secure and that it is only a matter of educating the public. “We did the same thing with online banking and now we have an opportunity to do it with mobile,” he said.

To that end, Fiserv provides marketing support to financial institutions and mobile operators in order to drive adoption. Fiserv provides something else necessary for widespread adoption: customer care support.

“We find as financial institutions look to broaden their reach in the mobile space and implement multiple delivery methods, they have to go to multiple vendors and therefore don’t have the customer care tools across the platform to support the customer,” Grimes said.

So the company provides a single platform with appropriate customer care channels. It lowers the cost to service the mobile channel for financial institutions. It also gives the customer a single company to call for a service that is deceptively complicated.

While mobile banking picks up momentum and is touted by everyone for its convenience, what’s in it for the mobile operator? That’s still up for debate. However, Grimes and Van Dam don’t believe mobile operator revenue will be transactional, meaning operators won’t be able to dip into each transaction for its small but cumulatively meaningful cut.

“They will get revenue, but it may not be transactional. It may be on a per customer basis,” Van Dam said.

Grimes said his company’s goal is to make both the financial institution and the operator successful in mobile banking. However, he said, mobile operators and financial institutions need to consider a broader picture and be progressive with what consumers are demanding and not continue to posture to meet their own needs.

“If all parties are stubborn and difficult, they’ll never get off the ground,” Van Dam said.