Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is the latest bank to offer mobile phone banking, following the lead of HSBC, first direct and Alliance & Leicester.

The service will allow 13 million RBS and NatWest customers with debit cards to view account balance and statement information through their mobile.

'We are giving people another easy way to access account information and even greater flexibility in managing their money at any time,' said RBS Group Consumer Banking chief executive Paul Geddes.

Customers can also top up any mobile pre-pay phone and receive SMS balance alerts from anywhere in the world.

Only a handset that is linked to the account can be used to access account information and no data is held on the phone.

There is no fee though there may be a data charge from some network operators.

RBS plan to add extra services including making payments and moving money between accounts.