ClairMail Tosses a Line to Android and BlackBerry Users

Bank Technology News | January, 2010

There’s a stiff battle among tech firms to provide mobile banking that resembles “non bank” mobile apps in design and usability, and ClairMail last week debuted an expansion of its mobile banking technology for Android and Blackberry devices, a move the firm hopes will increase use of its “smart client” system that attempts to simplify management for banks and navigation for users.

First introduced for the iPhone in September, “smart client” fuses a centrally managed mobile Web experience with a small downloadable app which acts as a bridge to the native capabilities of the mobile device that are not otherwise available to the mobile browser, such as push notification alerting, GPS access and NFC capabilities. Messaging, mobile Web and client applications can be delivered in an integrated platform, while installation and updates are minimized for banks.

“It’s a Web app, but it looks and feels like an iPhone application,” says Donald MacCormick, vp of product and engineering for ClairMail, who adds institutions are in early stages of deployment, though he did not disclose specific banks.

Rival S1 would not respond to comment by press time on Friday. An mFoundry spokesperson said feature phones are currently supported via text banking and mobile Web and smartphone platforms are supported via native applications.

The mFoundry spokesperson also said the firm has developed an optimized mobile Web experience for Android, Palm webOK and other devices that support Webkit mobile browsers, and that it plans to deploy enhanced mobile Web support by the second quarter.