Mobile Banking Updates - Apr 1

UPLEX Global Launches Powerful Secondary Loan Market
"Paul J. Giefing, CEO and Founder of UPLEX Global, today announced the release of a powerful, global, online secondary loan market to allow banks, credit unions, private investors and numerous other financial institutions to efficiently and affordably trade whole loans, loan portfolios and loan participations.

'I’ve found that the old way of buying and selling loans and portfolios has simply become too expensive and time consuming, especially during these challenging economic times,' said Giefing. 'With UPLEX Global, we’ve truly changed the way the way secondary markets work by offering an online ‘broker-less’, paperless platform to efficiently and securely manage loan portfolios. Our technology allows financial firms to maximize time and make more money by putting them in total control of their own portfolios.'”

Mobile Banking Consolidation: Monitise Buys Clairmail For $173 Million
"One more sign of the mobile money space continuing to grow up: some significant consolidation underway. Today, the UK-based mobile banking specialists Monitise announced that it is buying Clairmail, a U.S.-based competitor, for $173 million, as part of its global expansion.

The combined group says it will serve 13 million customers world-wide processing some $10 billion of payments weekly, and will give Monitise a much bigger and direct presence in the North American market: one-third of the top 50 U.S. financial institutions are now clients of the group."

Why did Monitise acquire Clairmail?
"The traditional mobile banking category, of performing PC based on-line banking tasks on the phone is stabilizing. The growth of mobile banking is in mobile payments including person-to-person, interbank transfers and the mobile wallet.

The competition in this more broadly defined mobile banking + payments market is heating up fast. PayPal and Square have made merchant as well as person-to-person announcements in the last week. ISIS (with is operator partners) and Google have also announced several new partnerships and function so far this year. These vendors plan a revolutionary approach to mobile payments."

USAA Tops Mobile Banking App UX Study
"USAA wins out when it comes to customer experience and satisfaction with mobile banking offerings. That's according to the 2012 ath Mobile Banking Study, which was recently conducted by financial services research and customer experience strategy development firm ath Power Consulting.

The study combined an online survey of more than 1,500 mobile banking users with hands-on user audits of mobile banking applications from about 240 banks and credit unions. Seventy-three percent of users surveyed claimed high satisfaction with USSA's mobile offerings. Huntington Bank and BB&T ranked right below USAA in terms of in customer satisfaction."

Smart Phones Helping Consumers Manage Their Money
"Using a mobile device to access your bank account is not only convenient, but it appears to be helping consumers better manage their finances. A new Federal Reserve study shows that mobile phones and Internet access are in widespread use and changing the way that consumers access their financial services. According to the study, 21 percent of mobile phone owners have used mobile banking in the past twelve months, and an additional 11 percent think they will probably use it within the next year."