Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
It has been a busy week for mobile banking and payments, with an announcement from Firethorn Holdings Inc. about new bank and carrier signings; from Metavante Corp. about a joint venture to launch a U.S. mobile-payments service; from ViVOtech about a new service to allow over-the-air provisioning of event tickets; and from MobileLime about a merger. Here's a roundup: The mobile-banking partnership between AT&T Inc. and software provider Firethorn has begun to bear fruit, with the signing of three more banks and a rollout by another. Also, Firethorn announced on Thursday that Verizon Wireless has agreed to work on mobile banking and payments products using Firethorn's platform, making Verizon the second wireless carrier to adopt Firethorn's technology. AT&T claims 61 million wireless subscribers; Verizon, 59 million. On Tuesday, AT&T and Firethorn announced Wachovia Corp., Regions Financial Corp., and SunTrust Banks Inc. had agreed to offer their mobile-banking program, which they announced in November (Digital Transactions News, Nov. 16, 2006). The bank signings bring to five the number of banks now participating or planning to. BancorpSouth, which has been testing the service with certain customers, said it is rolling it out to its full account base. Synovus Financial Corp. also signed on to the service earlier. Neither the three new banks nor the partners announced a timetable for introducing the service, with Firethorn indicating it would roll it out according to the schedules of each bank. The AT&T (formerly Cingular Wireless) and Firethorn service allows AT&T handset users to perform some of the functions of online banking, including checking bank balances, transferring funds, and paying bills. Firethorn has established a link to online bill-payment processor CheckFree Corp., Atlanta, to handle bill presentment and payment for banks that are CheckFree clients. The service relies on a downloadable application developed by Atlanta-based Firethorn that secures user access and manages the vagaries of multiple device standards so that most mobile phones can be used. AT&T says it plans to have the application built into its handsets later on. It also announced it plans to conduct a “multi-million-dollar” consumer marketing campaign to support the service, though the telecommunications giant did not say when it will launch the campaign. The two partners say their test with BancorpSouth yielded positive consumer reaction, with 30% of users indicating they would pay all of their bills through the mobile service and 83% saying they would recommend it to others. Also on Tuesday, Milwaukee, Wis.-based transaction processor Metavante signaled its entry into mobile banking and payments by announcing a memorandum of understanding to form a joint venture with Monitise Ltd., a U.K. developer of mobile-banking technology. The partners are in talks with banks and wireless carriers to launch a U.S. mobile service later in 2007. Metavante claims 91 of the country's 100 largest banks as clients. Initially, the new service will allow cell-phone users to check balances, transfer funds between accounts, and pay bills. The service, which will be hosted by Metavante, will link to the NYCE electronic funds transfer network, which Metavante owns, to facilitate account-to-account transfers and bill payments. In this way, it will be similar to the Monilink mobile system in the U.K., a joint venture between Monitise and the Link EFT network. Also as part of the joint venture, Metavante will offer its client financial institutions an authentication technology developed by Monitise that allows mobile phones to generate one-time passwords, replacing fobs and other tokens. Meanwhile, ViVOtech Inc., a maker of contactless point-of-sale readers and mobile- wallet applications, says it has signed an agreement with Mobile Candy Dish Inc., a Berkeley, Calif.-based developer of software that allows handset users to download information about movies and other entertainment events. The two companies plan to introduce an integrated application in the second half of the year that will allow consumers to buy tickets and download them to their mobile phones. Users will be able to pay with credit, debit, or gift cards, and then redeem their tickets at the venue with a swipe of their phones near a contactless reader equipped with near-field communication technology (NFC). The product is starting with movie tickets but the partners plan to add sports, concert, and theater tickets this summer. The partners have not announced which banks or mobile carriers they are discussing the service with, though a ViVOtech spokesperson says the companies will start a pilot in June involving an unnamed movie-theater chain. The spokesperson adds an issuing bank will be announced when the pilot starts. Santa Clara, Calif.-based ViVOtech, whose wallet software enables so-called over-the-air provisioning of content such as coupons and tickets to mobile devices, has participated in contactless and NFC payment pilots in the U.S. and overseas. At least three U.S. pilots of NFC technology sponsored by Visa USA and MasterCard Worldwide are in progress or have concluded. Finally, Boston-based mobile payments and marketing processor MobileLime has announced it is merging with Cuesol Inc., a provider of systems that enable self-service shopping at grocery stores. Robert Wesley, chief executive of MobileLime, will be president and chief executive of the combined company, for which a name was not immediately announced.
