Fifth Third Bancorp said it is encouraged by customer reaction to its six-week-old mobile banking service.
"The initial indicators are very positive," said Paul Moore, a senior vice president at the Cincinnati company and its director of alternative delivery. "Our demo is getting a lot of traffic."
Fifth Third has offered a video demonstration of mobile Web banking on its online banking site since unveiling the service at the start of March. A market-by-market rollout of the service was completed on March 19, and since then the company has been surveying customers, Moore said in an interview Tuesday.
More than 75% of respondents to the online survey said they will use mobile banking, and 15% said they will at least consider it, Moore said.
He said that it is too early to disclose details of mobile adoption but that Fifth Third has 1.3 million active online banking customers, and its online banking adoption tracks the national trend. Experts say that about 60% of demand account holders bank online.
Among those who have used the 53.mobi site, almost 30% have gone beyond balance inquiries to check transaction-level detail, and almost 10% performed some kind of money movement between Fifth Third accounts, Moore said.
Fifth Third offers only internal funds transfers so far through mobile banking, not online bill payment or transfers to accounts outside the bank, though the transfer function does include bills due to Fifth Third accounts, Moore said.
VeriSign Inc. announced Tuesday that it is providing Fifth Third's mobile text-message alerts, which Moore said includes notifications of a statement available, a bill due or a balance crossing a customer-defined threshold.
And though the function does not yet include two-way texting, Moore said, "You can immediately log in and act on the notice."
Fifth Third plans to continue to develop its mobile strategy in response to changes in technology and customer feedback, Moore said. "It was important to get a lead offering out there."
