Seeking to cater to its consumers who do not have Apple Inc. iPhones or Google Inc. Android smartphones, TD Bank NA last week launched a mobile-banking application for Research In Motion Inc.’s BlackBerry devices.
The Portland, Maine-based bank’s mobile-banking applications for iPhone and Android phones have been available since August, and customers also were asking for a BlackBerry version, a bank spokesperson tells PaymentsSource.
The bank declined to speculate how many of its customers use a BlackBerry device.
Consumers may download the bank’s free application to their BlackBerry phones from the BlackBerry App World store, the spokesperson says.
The application enables customers to pay bills; check deposit, loan and credit card balances; transfer funds; find branch locations and ATMs; view pending transactions and account histories; contact the bank’s live customer service center; and enroll in TD Debit Card Advance.
TD Debit Card Advance is an automated overdraft-protection service offered to holders of personal checking accounts. The opt-in service enables the bank to approve an ATM withdrawal or debit card purchase when not have enough funds available in the account.
BlackBerry sales may be dropping, but that does not mean consumers are not using the devices, notes Ron Shevlin, senior analyst with Boston-based Aite Group LLC. The majority of consumers actually have a BlackBerry device, even beating out the amount that have iPhones or Androids, Shevlin says, citing recent Aite research.
“In reality BlackBerry sales are lagging, but the installed base of BlackBerry customers is pretty high,” he notes.
Additionally, the bank’s “America’s most-convenient bank” tag line would not be true if it was unable to deliver mobile-banking capabilities to its entire customer base, Shevlin adds.
Starbucks Corp. also is embracing BlackBerry devices for mobile payments, but for a specific reason. The Seattle-based coffee retailer believes many of its customers come in on the way to work with their work BlackBerry devices. So in September it launched a mobile application to enable BlackBerry users to link Starbucks prepaid cards to their phones and to make purchases by bringing up a barcode on the screen readable by special scanners at the registers (
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