Day two of the Mobile Commerce Summit ran just for the morning (see Day 1 highlights), but anyone who overslept missed the highlight of the conference: the much-too-short panel discussion on revenue opportunities that started at 8:15 AM and ended at 9:00 (note 1). 

Panel: Mobile revenue opportunities 

• Drew Sievers, founder & CEO, mFoundry
• Joe Salesky, chairman & chief strategy officer, ClairMail
• Cameron Franks, director, Mobile Commerce Americas, Sybase 365
• Jayatsu Bhattacharya, SVP business development, Mobile Money Ventures (Citigroup & SK Telecom joint venture)
• Mustafa Patni, former director of mobile banking, WaMu

Observations from the panel:

• POS payment services: NFC at point of sale
• Value-added services
• Fees for mobile banking services: transaction, monthly, or annual
• Premium accounts with a rich mobile feature set
• Stock/investment trading (Citi Hong Kong is able to charge a premium for mobile trading)
• Bill pay: expedited payments
• Person-to-person (P2P) payments
• Much of the revenues will be indirect, from deepening and improving customer relationship
• Remote deposit capture for businesses
• Merchant advertising: offers to customers as they shop
• Loyalty programs: driving customers to certain merchants with alerts, offers, and discounts
• Lots of cost-saving opportunities: self-service customer service, moving bill payments to on-us transactions, loyalty program management, security, fulfillment, marketing, call deflection

Panel: Smartphone impact on the customer experience 

Armin Ajami, VP retail Mobile channel, Wells Fargo

• Almost half of smartphone users use the mobile Web daily (source: ABI research, Feb. 2009)
• 18% of U.S. consumers have smartphones
• 263,000 apps now available for smartphones, predicted to grow to about 700,000 by 2013
• There are 27 different app stores today
• Mobile-optimized website <wf.com> launched in July 2007, text banking launched Oct. 2007, native iPhone app launched May 2009
• Funds transfer on mobile-optimized websites takes 2 minutes with 5 clicks, no zooming or scrolling vs. 10 minutes via iPhone mobile browser with 7 clicks, 5 zooms, 7 scrolls and 10 minutes

Alain DeSouza, sr. mgr., market development solutions marketing, Research in Motion

• Globally, 12% to 14% of mobile phones sold now are smartphones; in North America, it's now above 20% (22% to 26%)
• Blackberry app store officially launched April 1, 2009
• Not excited about putting NFC chips into handsets (adds cost); will do it when it makes business sense (last year it was a top-5 opportunity, this year more of a top-20)
• P2P transfer is not a killer app, but could be important for adoption
• Be careful not to waste bandwidth in your app development

Note:
1. Note to conference organizers: Never start a session at 8:15 AM after a Thursday night in Las Vegas.

This is a report I've been meaning to write for a few months, but it kept getting pushed back for more pressing (Growing Deposits in the Digital Age) or timely (Year-end Wrap and Forecast) reports.

But a few days ago, we put the finishing touches on the latest Online Banking Report. It will be mailed to subscribers by the end of this week. It's also available online here. There's no charge for current subscribers; others may access it immediately for US$495.

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Mobile Banking 2.0: iPhone Edition
How to build a smartphone app even
your CFO will love

In the report (press release), we outline the reasons why every financial institution should consider an iPhone app, even if it's just a simple surcharge-free-ATM/branch finder like 1st Mariner Bank (iTunes link; see note 1) or a one-screen interface to your mobile website, essentially what Bank of America started with last year. Being on the iPhone is like having a website in 1995. Just by being there, even if it's crappy, you are ahead of the curve. And for the rest of time, you can brag that you were an early adopter of all things mobile.

And the icing on the cake, you get to slap Apple iPhone pictures all over your website. Baltimore, MD-based 1st Mariner, a bank that doesn't appear to even support basic mobile banking (note 2) has the most iPhone-ish website in the land (see screenshots below).

The report also looks at:

• Mobile banking application market (Apple's App Store, RIM's Blackberry App World, and Google's Android Market)
• Mobile banking forecast (U.S.)
• 33 features to consider for your mobile banking app
• Leveraging iPhone hype to increase interest in financial products and services
• Legal issues in mobile banking from our guest columnists at Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel
  

1st Mariner Bank homepage (16 March 2009)
Note: Nice job with the St. Patty's day theme too!

1st Mariner iPhone landing page (16 March 2009)

Notes:
1. The 1st Mariner app, built by PointAbout, identifies the nearest of 16,000 surcharge-free MoneyPass ATMs. It also features other integrated apps for local weather, lowest gasoline prices, accident alerts, traffic (powered by MapQuest), grocery stores, and Zagat restaurant listings (but not reviews or ratings).
2. Ironically, if you navigate to the bank's website on your iPhone, you cannot even see its iPhone homepage graphic (shown above) because the graphic is Flash-based which is not supported by the iPhone's Safari browser

It will be a long time before the new mobile application markets, Google's Android Market and RIM's Blackberry App World, get anywhere close to Apple's App Store in breadth or depth. Currently, there are 162 apps listed across all categories in the Android market and 88 for the Blackberry (North America), compared to more than 25,000 for the iPhone (U.S.).

However, Blackberry already has tied the iPhone in one sub-category, big-name U.S. financial services companies. As of today, each has four. Bank of America is the only one supporting both.    

*Blackberry App World also has an Obopay mobile payments app with ties to Citibank.

Financial institution opportunities: The list of participating financial institutions won't stay short for long. You must support iPhone and Blackberry users, the sooner you do so, the more free publicity you can garner. For more information, see our latest Online Banking Report, published today, Mobile Banking 2.0: iPhone Edition.

Blackberry App World Finance & Banking section
(9 March 2009, 10 PM Pacific)