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The payments industry has spent years convincing itself of a digital wallet future that seems inevitable, but the end game is undeniably far off.
April 8 -
U.S. Bank announced Thursday that it's launching Mitek's Mobile Photo Bill Pay service to its retail customers.
March 7 -
What mobile trends do bankers and analysts expect to see unfold not only in the coming year, but farther out? How are banks responding to these trends and what new mobile features offer the most promise? Join the evolution toward a more mobile future.
March 1 -
Spending forecasts suggest mobile is a top priority for banks in 2013.
March 20
Let's have a race. You use your smartphone to make a bill payment the old-fashioned way – by manually entering your information and biller details – while I use my smartphone's mobile-imaging capability to extrapolate that data from a payment slip. Sure, I'll probably win, but not by much.
In the time that it takes for me to line up the shot of the payment slip, your honed speed-texting skills would have carried you through a good portion of the information input process. You'd finish just a couple of minutes, if not seconds, behind me. If one corner of that payment slip was too dark or out of focus and I needed a retake or two, you actually might have won.
Now, let's race again. You'll go deposit a check at the ATM while I use my smartphone's mobile check deposit feature. Even with a few retakes, I would beat you by a long shot.
Mobile check deposit rightfully garnered a high level of customer demand. However, there will be much less clamor revolving around
The technology fails to deliver a substantial difference in convenience for mobile customers, resembling the struggles faced by the mobile payments industry. Aditya Bhasin, senior vice president of digital banking at Bank of America, told me, "My credit card is, and always has been, very mobile." You can swipe your card and be on your way out the door before I can verify my identity through my mobile payments app.
Mobile photo bill payments are in the same type of situation. Because they lack game-changing qualities, there's less pressure on banks to offer this capability. Banks that have been reluctant to jump on board the mobile-payments bandwagon know what I mean.
Other types of new innovations in mobile banking are treading down the same path as mobile photo-based bill pay. Recently, voice recognition has made its way into
Although such innovations are fascinating and destined to be part of the future of mobile banking, they can be set aside for now.
Since there's no rush to deploy mobile photo-based bill pay, why not explore other technology that delivers greater value to customers and your institution? For example, money management tools, by the likes of
Simon Zhen is a financial writer and research analyst for
