Bank of America is gearing up to launch nationwide mobile access this year. The region-by-region rollout begins in Tennessee next month (see note 1 below). Few details are available, but it sounds like WAP banking, similar to Wachovia's approach announced in December. We'll analyze BofA's approach in great detail as more information becomes available. With 21 million online banking accounts, just about anything they do has the distinct possibility of becoming the de facto standard.

As you think about your future mobile offerings, one detail to be wrapped up immediately is registering your .mobi address. While it's too soon to tell if that address ever becomes popular, Bank of America, for one, has staked a claim at that site putting bank info and a zipcode-based ATM/branch locater at its .mobi address, <bofa.mobi> (see screenshot right).

We did a quick search this morning and found no other top-30 retail bank with a functioning .mobi address, at least none using the standard version of the bank's name as the address, e.g., keybank.mobi. Worse, a number of the .mobi addresses appear to be registered to domain-name squatters (see note 2), so it will take time and money to wrest those names away from the original registrants.

So if you haven't already, at least spend $20 and register your bank's .mobi address. For more details on how to launch mobile services, see our upcoming report due out later this week at OnlineBankingReport.com.

Note: 

1. Some Bank of America regions have already posted the features and benefits of mobile banking at the regular website. For example, make sure you have selected "Tennessee" as your state at BankofAmerica.com, then click here to see the mobile banking section (screenshot also shown below). 

2. The following addresses appear to be registered to entities NOT affiliated with the bank: suntrust.mobi, usbank.mobi, nationalcity.mobi, pncbank.mobi, capitalone.mobi, unionbank.mobi, commercebank.mobi, and zionsbank.mobi