| By Jim Bruene on June 11, 2010 4:43 PM | Comments (2) |
Logging in to my Bank of America credit card account today, I received a full-page promotion for the bank's new text-messaging service.
Even though my mobile phone was already enrolled, the bank served the following interstitial encouraging me to to enroll:
Bank of America's interstitial promotion after logging in to online banking (11 June 2010)
I chose the "enroll now" link in the lower left above and was taken to this page:
Mobile enrollment landing page (secure site)
Evidently, I'd already enrolled, which I should have remembered considering I'd blogged about it two months ago.
However, if you arrive at this page, as I did, expecting to enroll in text banking, it's a bit confusing. It would be helpful to see a bolder statement that "you are already enrolled." It would also be nice if they provided the short code (692632) to quickly test your phone to verify enrollment. To find that info, you must click the small "Text Banking Guide" link.
Relevance for NetBankers: If you are unable to screen out existing users, make sure you communicate clearly so customers don't waste their time re-enrolling.
Note:
1. I don't know if BofA's text messaging is down, or if it's something related to my account, but I am getting no response to my text-message queries (bal, menu) to the bank's short code (3:41 PM, 4:12 PM, and 4:32 PM Pacific time, June 11).
2. For more information, see our Online Banking Report: Selling Behind the Password (published April 2009).
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If you have an AT&T phone, that was the source of your problems on the 11th. There was considerable interuptions to the AT&T service on Friday.
Mobile baking concerns me a bit as far as security. I am comfortable on the banking end, but not my phone- I feel like there is just not enough security on the phones end in order to use it. Also, what happens if you lose your phone with all these text messages on them related to your bank account? Perhaps for an emergency situation if you need to transfer funds or check on something, but for the most part I still do not see the appeal in banking on your phone.