Mae West said it best: “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.” For banking, that “thing” applies to mobile banking services.
Take how even smartphone-equipped consumers have a hankering to do no-data-plans-required mobile banking, for example. In other words, though consumers can use mobile apps for banking, sometimes they prefer to do something simpler, like text banking.
That notion bubbled up in a conversation Bank Innovation had with Bank of America Corp.’s SVP of Mobile Channel Design and Planning Marc Warshawsky this week. Indeed, Warshawsky explains there’s a customer population that uses both BofA’s smartphone app and text banking functionality, depending on the circumstance.
Perhaps a consumer wants to quickly check his account balance, suggests Warshawsky. Texting the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank to get that figure is quicker than signing into a mobile banking app, he explains. But, to pay bills, that’s more of a smartphone app’s sensibility, he says.
And this is one reason why BofA says it wants to provide customers the broadest banking access possible, which currently happens to mean debuting and enhancing a bunch of apps. Indeed, the bank recently introduced an app for the Windows Phone 7, an announcement that marked only the beginnings of a larger mobile app upgrade plan in the coming weeks, Warshawsky tells Bank Innovation. A number of BofA’s mobile banking apps have gotten — or will soon get — upgrades. Plus, Warshawsky tells Bank Innovation that deploying mobile remote deposit capture is on its roadmap, though an official launch date is not yet disclosed.
“We intend to offer [the capability] in the future,” says Warshawsky, adding BofA has already had “good” tests with the functionality.
At the heart of BofA’s mobile plans is driving convenience to consumers.
“Mobile brings convenience to lives by helping [consumers] manage and control their finances as they go through the day,” he says. “2011 stands to be an exciting space in mobile [regarding] the next generation of mobile payments and the like.”
In determining how to keep up with the excitement, Warshawsky stresses whatever BofA brings to market has to address a real customer need.
“We want to listen to our customers and deliver services that resonate with them,” he says. “Just because you can do [something], doesn’t mean you should do it unless you can help customers out in some way.”