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Mobile banking — accessing your bank account, paying your bills, and transferring money over your cell phone/mobile device — has started to pick up this year.
It's been pretty popular overseas, and now names like Citibank, AT&T, Verizon and Bank of America are starting to push it in the U.S.
In the September issue of Money magazine, the Trend Spotter column says that you should hold off banking from your cell phone for the time being.
VERDICT Not yet. Unless you have a PDA, you can get most services in an easier way. Call the bank's 800 number to check balances; sign up to be alerted by text message when a certain check clears. You can't pay last-minute bills, but with luck you're not so late you can't get to a computer in time.
Alright, I understand the text message and bill pay answer, but who wants to call to find out your balance? I hate dealing with those annoying voice recordings.
But like I've said before, I'm not a power cell phone user, so I don't think I'd use mobile banking much. Plus, all of my bills are set up to be automatically paid, so I don't run into last minute crises.
If I was to transfer money, I probably wouldn't use my checking account — I'd use PayPal.
What do you think? Is mobile banking ready for prime time?
Getting your account balance on your phone should be as easy as texting a quick sms message to your bank requesting a text message response with your balance.
Companies like ClairMail are partnering with banks to provide this sort of functionality.
Vipera MoBank allows banks to offer mobile banking services through SMS, WAP and through a rich client (Java MIDlet).
http://www.viperanetworks.com/content/view/48/107/