Mobile Computing in the Banking Sector
Nowadays, the banking sector provides the fastest banking transactions and services to the clients with the application of innovative computer systems and modern technologies. Obviously, the intervention of the technological advances has changed enormously the nature of the traditional banking industry worldwide. It even replaced the conventional way of brick-and-mortar banking concept in the financial sector. The mobile computing banking involves the access of banking and finance services by the use of mobile devices. The inception of this modern way of banking stem way back in 1997 when few banks then, sent customers SMS alerts to update them with their bank accounts. Jayaram Kondabagil expressed on his book entitled “ “Risk Management in Electronic Banking: Concepts and Best Practices,” that mobile banking can be possible through digital assistants (PDAs), pagers, cellular phones along with the same applications. Mobile computing banking is also known as M-Banking or SMS Banking; this is most commonly used in checking balances in the bank, applying for credit through a mobile phone. In this connection, the earliest mobile banking services were initiated by the first European banks in 1999. Until such time that Apple’s introduced successfully in 2010 the mobile computing system with iphone together with the quick spread of phones with internet. This special application quickly increased the special bank client programs that can be downloaded to the mobile phones. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_banking)
Moreover, the mobile computing banking consists mainly of mobile accounting, mobile brokerage and mobile financial information services. Most services in the Accounting and Brokerage are transaction-based. The non-transaction-based services of an informational nature like balance inquiries may be needed before transacting a money remittance. On the other hand, the accounting and brokerage services are being provided to the clients in a regular basis with the information services that comes in a module. For some countries line Philippines, Indonesia, China, India and Bangladesh; the use of mobile phones in accessing their bank accounts is comparatively the fastest and convenient to many households since fixed-line communication with many banks in these countries is getting poorer. While in Europe, less than 80 percent of bank consumers are using mobile phones with their bank transactions. Specifically, mobile banking can offer account information such as monitoring mini-statements and checking account history, monitoring of term deposits, access to loan an card statements, mutual funds or equity statements, insurance policy and pension plan management, due date of payment, ordering check books, PIN provision, change of PIN and blocking of lost or stole cards. When it comes to payments, deposits, withdrawals and money transfers, it can be done with domestic and international fund transfers, micro domestic and international fund transfers, micro-payment handling, commercial payment processing, bill payment processing, peer to peer payments, withdrawal at banking agent, and deposit at banking agent. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_banking
According to Pei Zheng and Lionel M. Ni, authors of the book “Smart Phone and Next Generation Mobile Computing,” mobile banking is a better alternative for traditional banking system; since it allows the users to transact banking business quickly. Mobile computing banking has numerous advantages over the brick-and-mortar banking; since it provides banking services to even the most remote areas in the country, as well as to the farthest places in the world. Next tot that, it is safer as to compare with Internet banking, apparently, the occurrence of fraudulent acts is being minimized by mobile banking system because there are safety measures that must be followed before someone can access his or her account. First, a personal identification number (PIN) is required from the user, as well as the secure password is needed in logging in. All bank information transacted between the bank and the client are being encrypted in order to protect completely the information from any scammer. However, the functions and usage of mobile computing banking has also limitations, and they include the limited screen size and battery life of the mobile phone, as well as the processing speed depends greatly on how good is the network signal of the mobile phone. Another limitation of mobile banking is some banks only transact balance inquiries, transaction alerts and service requests in order to protect the clients’ financial data from fraud. In view thereof, one of the challenges that a mobile banking sector is facing now is to develop a more sophisticated mobile banking application through interoperability. The application for interoperability greatly lies on the banks, whether they want to use installed applications such as Java based that can province better security, and it is easier to use as to compare with the internet banking that needs some basic computer skills before accessing complex transactions.
(http://www.ehow.com/about_6721541_definition-mobile-banking.html)
References:
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_banking)
(http://www.ehow.com/about_6721541_definition-mobile-banking.html)
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