Merced School Employees Federal Credit Union members now can pay bills using their mobile phones through a recent agreement the Merced, Calif.-based institution made that provides them access to Fiserv Inc.’s Mobile Money service.
Mobile Money enables members to transfer funds between accounts, check account balances, and receive payment notifications and account-balance and -transfer alerts on Research in Motion Ltd.’s Blackberry, Google Inc.’s Android, Motorola Inc.’s Razor and Apple Inc.’s iPhone, according to Calvin Grimes, Fiserv product manager, Mobile Money.
“Mobile-phone users can check balances with SMS text messaging, and they can activate the phone’s mobile browser to pay bills and transfer funds by connecting to the credit union’s online-banking site,” he says.
The credit union has integrated Mobile Money into its online-banking platform. The institution also uses Portico, Fiserv’s account-processing software.
Mobile Money helps financial institutions cut costs, proponents say. It costs financial institutions about $4 to answer a customer’s balance-inquiry question at a teller window compared with about 8 cents when an inquiry is made from a mobile phone, according to TowerGroup Inc., a Needham, Mass.-based consulting firm.
Mobile banking and mobile payments also appeal to Generation Y consumers ages 18 to 29 who will represent 28% of the U.S. population by 2018, according to TowerGroup. The credit union launched mobile-banking and mobile-payment services to serve Gen Y members’ needs, Nancy Deavours, the credit union’s CEO, said in a statement.
Grimes attributes the growing interest in mobile banking to more consumers purchasing smartphones. “Three years ago, we would not have been talking about this because most smartphone owners were businessmen who could afford them,” he says.
The credit union is a $371 million financial institution serving high school and college students and employees in California’s Merced and Mariposa counties. Fiserv is based in Brookfield, Wis.
