Banking on text will win over customers, predicts Juniper

Western Europe wil have highest penetration of mobile banking users by 2015, report says

The humble text message is set to play a big role in banks improving their customer service with the rapid expansion of mobile banking, according to a study published by analyst Juniper.

Some 90 billion mobile banking messages a year will be sent by 2015 – three times the current level – says the report Mobile Banking: Strategies, Applications and Markets 2010-2015.

"Our research found that messaging is a win-win for banks," said Howard Wilcox, the report's author.

"They can improve customer service significantly, while simultaneously eliminating the cost of servicing customer enquiries placed with call centres.”

Juniper’s in-depth interviews with mobile banking vendors and 77 banks revealed that there is considerable scope for banks to offer new messaging-based services on top of basic balance alerts.

Banks are seeking to exploit these new process alerts to speed up customer communications during applications for products such as loans and mortgages.

Western Europe will have the highest penetration of users in 2015, says the report.

More than 80 per cent of banks offer some form of mobile banking. However, the report shows that some banks are still to seize the full potential of SMS.

The overall strategy behind alert messaging development is to encourage customers towards self-service, with information delivery by SMS the medium with which most people are familiar.

The report features the Juniper Mobile Banking Technology Strategies Survey of banks across all regions which determined the popularity of SMS, mobile browser, smartphone apps including iPhone and Android and other apps such as Java.