Wachovia Corp. has unveiled an online banking system for mobile phones, using software developed internally.
Wachovia Mobile went live in mid-September, and Wachovia began promoting it Tuesday. It is being used by about 250 people a day - a far cry from the 1 million customers who access the online banking site every day, but enough to indicate significant interest in this emerging channel, the company said.
Wachovia is one of the first U.S. financial companies out of the gate with a service that many banks plan to launch in the near future. It offers basic online banking features, such as the ability to check account balances, but in a way that accommodates the smaller screens of browser-capable cell phones and personal digital assistants.
"It was a very pleasant surprise to our customers" who already banked online from their mobile devices despite Wachovia's lack of support for that channel, said Ilieva Ageenko, the Charlotte company's director of emerging applications.
"Customers were already doing that from their wireless devices," using the browsers built into some phones to access Wachovia's Web site, she said. "Initially the experience was not friendly" because the site was meant to be used from a computer, she said.
Wachovia developed the technology, for which it says it has a patent pending, to enable people to access a stripped-down version of its site designed for the Web browsers on wireless devices. The initial software is designed for Windows Mobile 5's Pocket Internet Explorer browser and for BlackBerry devices, and Wachovia is working on a version for devices that use Palm OS.
The software does not require users to download or install any additional software, though it works only with wireless devices that can support the same security features the company uses at Wachovia.com, such as 128-bit encryption. The underlying Web site uses software from Corillian Corp. of Hillsboro, Ore., which has its own approach to mobile banking that Wachovia chose not to use.
Ms. Ageenko stressed that this is just the first phase of Wachovia's strategy for mobile devices, and that later changes would be made based on customer feedback. The support for Palm OS devices is one example of this, because its customers are already requesting it. However, in the future it may work with a vendor to provide more sophisticated features.
Many vendors are working on software to support mobile banking. Firethorn Holdings LLC, which has announced Synovus Financial Corp. of Columbus, Ga., as a customer, works with carriers to download banking software to phones. Others, like ClairMail Inc., use text messages to send and receive banking instructions.
Ms. Ageenko did not name any specific vendors, but said Wachovia chose to develop its own software because third-party versions were still unproven. "We didn't want to go with an immature product," she said. "We want to provide reliability."
Wachovia Mobile lets customers check balances and account activity, as well as transfer money among accounts in the same household. Wachovia may flesh out the payment capabilities of its mobile site, for example by offering bill payment services or transfers among accounts owned by people in different households, she said.
PayPal Inc. introduced a mobile financial service this year, PayPal Mobile. The San Jose unit of eBay Inc. enables people to use their phones to purchase products using a code that appears on print advertisements. Users send the code by text message to authorize a debit to their PayPal account.
Though the service works through text messages, making it compatible with even simple cell phones, it is not available to customers of Cingular Wireless LLC because the carrier has yet to approve the short codes PayPal uses to receive payment instructions.
"We are at the beginning of the beginning for mobile banking," said George Tubin, a senior analyst at TowerGroup Inc., a Needham, Mass., unit of MasterCard International.
Though mobile banking was attempted years ago, those versions were unsuccessful because "it was too early," he said. "People weren't as comfortable with online banking," and were not ready to make the leap to banking from phones.
Mobile phones have become more sophisticated, more widely used, and better able to support financial services, making the concept more plausible today, Mr. Tubin said.
As more banks deploy mobile versions of their Web sites, he said, they "will start off the way Wachovia is doing it" and "roll out with simple capabilities at the beginning and expand the way the market wants."
The focus on a simple first phase is important, he said. "We have to be careful not to load it up with too many services that really aren't necessary, especially at the beginning."
But there is still demand for better payment capabilities or mobile banking services that work on simpler phones, Mr. Tubin said. "Like anything else, different banks will take different approaches."
And even though many of the mobile banking vendors have not announced their customers yet, "they really are around the corner," he said.
"We're at the beginning of the rollout of mobile," he said. "It's certainly going to happen."
