Celent's Mobile Peer Networking Event

Celent hosted a banking peer networking event in San Francisco to great success. Fifteen people representing six financial institutions attended, including two with assets of over $100 billion. The topic of the event was mobile banking and we started the day with the much anticipated PowerPoint presentation. Rather than a one-way communication from presenter to audience, this was a dynamic discussion bankers and Celent analysts engaging each other on a variety of mobile topics, from coupons to payments to the interaction of the two. Celent presented on three banks that are doing very interesting things with mobile:

• Hana Bank: with mobile banking, couponing, PFM, private banking, and corporate banking.
• Jibun Bank: a 100% mobile bank that originates deposits accounts and loans via mobile. They also offer foreign currency accounts and P2P transfer.
• BankInter: markets phones preloaded with their mobile broker application and is a virtual mobile network operator (MVNO). Get your mobile phone plan from your bank. They also have a unique approach to security, with a second tier of authentication.

We discussed what these innovative firms were doing and how it might apply to US markets, although three of the six banks attending had global footprints. After that the group went on to discuss security via mobile and how to manage the challenges. No one in the room wanted to see a mobile security breach at any bank. It hurts the viability of the channel. Banks shared their experimentation with fingerprints, facial recognition, and iris scans. All banks limited the functionality of what can be done on the mobile today, but some see the mobile becoming as rich as the internet banking channel once security issues are addressed. Feedback from attendees was very positive so Celent will be holding other bank only peer networking events across the globe. The next event will be November 14^th in Toronto.