A mobile banking conceptual model

In one academic model,[1] mobile banking is defined as:

"Mobile Banking refers to provision and availment of banking- and financial services with the
help of mobile telecommunication devices.The scope of offered services may include facilities to
conduct bank and stock market transactions, to administer accounts and to access customised
information."
According to this model Mobile Banking can be said to consist of three inter-related concepts:
• Mobile Accounting
• Mobile Brokerage
• Mobile Financial Information Services
Most services in the categories designated Accounting and Brokerage are transaction-based. The
non-transaction-based services of an informational nature are however essential for conducting
transactions - for instance, balance inquiries might be needed before committing a money
remittance. The accounting and brokerage services are therefore offered invariably in
combination with information services. Information services, on the other hand, may be offered
as an independent module.
Mobile phone banking may also be used to help in business situations
[edit] Trends in mobile banking
The advent of the Internet has enabled new ways to conduct banking business, resulting in the
creation of new institutions, such as online banks, online brokers and wealth managers. Such
institutions still account for a tiny percentage of the industry.[citation needed]
Over the last few years, the mobile and wireless market has been one of the fastest growing
markets in the world and it is still growing at a rapid pace. According to the GSM Association
and Ovum, the number of mobile subscribers exceeded 2 billion in September 2005, and
now[when?] exceeds 2.5 billion (of which more than 2 billion are GSM).[citation needed]
With mobile technology, banks can offer services to their customers such as doing funds transfer
while travelling, receiving online updates of stock price or even performing stock trading while
being stuck in traffic. Smartphones and 3G connectivity provide some capabilities that older text
message-only phones do not.
This article appears to contain speculation and unjustified claims. Information must be
verifiable and based on reliable published sources. Please remove speculation from the
article.
According to a study by financial consultancy Celent, 35% of online banking households will be
using mobile banking by 2010, up from less than 1% today. Upwards of 70% of bank center call
volume is projected to come from mobile phones. Mobile banking will eventually allow users to
make payments at the physical point of sale. "Mobile contactless payments” will make up 10%
of the contactless market by 2010.[2] Another study from 2010 by Berg Insight forecasts that the
number of mobile banking users in the US will grow from 12 million in 2009 to 98 million in
2015. The same study also predicts that the European market will grow from 7 million mobile
banking users in 2009 to 131 million users in 2015.[3]
Many believe that mobile users have just started to fully utilize the data capabilities in their
mobile phones. In Asian countries like India, China, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Philippines,
where mobile infrastructure is comparatively better than the fixed-line infrastructure, and in
European countries, where mobile phone penetration is very high (at least 80% of consumers use
a mobile phone), mobile banking is likely to appeal even more.
[edit] Mobile banking business models
A wide spectrum of Mobile/branchless banking models is evolving. However, no matter what
business model, if mobile banking is being used to attract low-income populations in often rural
locations, the business model will depend on banking agents, i.e., retail or postal outlets that
process financial transactions on behalf telcos or banks. The banking agent is an important part
of the mobile banking business model since customer care, service quality, and cash
management will depend on them. Many telcos will work through their local airtime resellers.
However, banks in Colombia, Brazil, Peru, and other markets use pharmacies, bakeries, etc.
These models differ primarily on the question that who will establish the relationship (account
opening, deposit taking, lending etc.) to the end customer, the Bank or the Non-
Bank/Telecommunication Company (Telco). Another difference lies in the nature of agency
agreement between bank and the Non-Bank. Models of branchless banking can be classified into
three broad categories - Bank Focused, Bank-Led and Nonbank-Led.
[edit] Bank-focused model
The bank-focused model emerges when a traditional bank uses non-traditional low-cost delivery
channels to provide banking services to its existing customers. Examples range from use of
automatic teller machines (ATMs) to internet banking or mobile phone banking to provide
certain limited banking services to banks’ customers. This model is additive in nature and may
be seen as a modest extension of conventional branch-based banking.
[edit] Bank-led model
The bank-led model offers a distinct alternative to conventional branch-based banking in that
customer conducts financial transactions at a whole range of retail agents (or through mobile
phone) instead of at bank branches or through bank employees. This model promises the
potential to substantially increase the financial services outreach by using a different delivery
channel (retailers/ mobile phones), a different trade partner (telco / chain store) having
experience and target market distinct from traditional banks, and may be significantly cheaper
than the bank-based alternatives. The bank-led model may be implemented by either using
correspondent arrangements or by creating a JV between Bank and Telco/non-bank. In this
model customer account relationship rests with the bank
[edit] Non-bank-led model
The non-bank-led model is where a bank does not come into the picture (except possibly as a
safe-keeper of surplus funds) and the non-bank (e.g. telco) performs all the functions.
[edit] Mobile Banking Services
Mobile banking can offer services such as the following:
[edit] Account Information
1. Mini-statements and checking of account history
 2. Alerts on account activity or passing of set thresholds
3. Monitoring of term deposits
4. Access to loan statements
5. Access to card statements
6. Mutual funds / equity statements
7. Insurance policy management
8. Pension plan management
9. Status on cheque, stop payment on cheque
10. Ordering check books
11. Balance checking in the account
12. Recent transactions
13. Due date of payment (functionality for stop, change and deleting of payments)
14. PIN provision, Change of PIN and reminder over the Internet
15. Blocking of (lost, stolen) cards
[edit] Payments, Deposits, Withdrawals, and Transfers
1. Domestic and international fund transfers
2. Micro-payment handling
3. Mobile recharging
4. Commercial payment processing
5. Bill payment processing
6. Peer to Peer payments
7. Withdrawal at banking agent
8. Deposit at banking agent
Especially for clients in remote locations, it will be important to help them deposit and withdraw
funds at banking agents, i.e., retail and postal outlets that turn cash into electronic funds and vice
versa. The feasibility of such banking agents depends on local regulation which enables retail
outlets to take deposits or not.
A specific sequence of SMS messages will enable the system to verify if the client has sufficient
funds in his or her wallet and authorize a deposit or withdrawal transaction at the agent. When
depositing money, the merchant receives cash and the system credits the client's bank account or
mobile wallet. In the same way the client can also withdraw money at the merchant: through
exchanging sms to provide authorization, the merchant hands the client cash and debits the
merchant's account.
[edit] Investments
1. Portfolio management services
2. Real-time stock quotes
3. Personalized alerts and notifications on security prices
 4. mobile banking
[edit] Support
1. Status of requests for credit, including mortgage approval, and insurance coverage
2. Check (cheque) book and card requests
3. Exchange of data messages and email, including complaint submission and tracking
4. ATM Location
[edit] Content Services
1. General information such as weather updates, news
2. Loyalty-related offers
3. Location-based services
Based on a survey conducted by Forrester, mobile banking will be attractive mainly to the
younger, more "tech-savvy" customer segment. A third of mobile phone users say that they may
consider performing some kind of financial transaction through their mobile phone. But most of
the users are interested in performing basic transactions such as querying for account balance and
making bill payment.
[edit] Challenges for a Mobile Banking Solution
Key challenges in developing a sophisticated mobile banking application are :
[edit] Handset operability
There are a large number of different mobile phone devices and it is a big challenge for banks to
offer mobile banking solution on any type of device. Some of these devices support Java ME and
others support SIM Application Toolkit, a WAP browser, or only SMS.
Initial interoperability issues however have been localized, with countries like India using portals
like R-World to enable the limitations of low end java based phones, while focus on areas such
as South Africa have defaulted to the USSD as a basis of communication achievable with any
phone.
The desire for interoperability is largely dependent on the banks themselves, where installed
applications(Java based or native) provide better security, are easier to use and allow
development of more complex capabilities similar to those of internet banking while SMS can
provide the basics but becomes difficult to operate with more complex transactions.
There is a myth that there is a challenge of interoperability between mobile banking applications
due to perceived lack of common technology standards for mobile banking. In practice it is too
early in the service lifecycle for interoperability to be addressed within an individual country, as
very few countries have more than one mobile banking service provider. In practice, banking
interfaces are well defined and money movements between banks follow the IS0-8583 standard.
As mobile banking matures, money movements between service providers will naturally adopt
the same standards as in the banking world.
[edit] Security
Security of financial transactions, being executed from some remote location and transmission of
financial information over the air, are the most complicated challenges that need to be addressed
jointly by mobile application developers, wireless network service providers and the banks' IT
departments.
The following aspects need to be addressed to offer a secure infrastructure for financial
transaction over wireless network :
1. Physical part of the hand-held device. If the bank is offering smart-card based security,
the physical security of the device is more important.
2. Security of any thick-client application running on the device. In case the device is stolen,
the hacker should require at least an ID/Password to access the application.
3. Authentication of the device with service provider before initiating a transaction. This
would ensure that unauthorized devices are not connected to perform financial
transactions.
4. User ID / Password authentication of bank’s customer.
5. Encryption of the data being transmitted over the air.
6. Encryption of the data that will be stored in device for later / off-line analysis by the
customer.
[edit] Scalability & Reliability
Another challenge for the CIOs and CTOs of the banks is to scale-up the mobile banking
infrastructure to handle exponential growth of the customer base. With mobile banking, the
customer may be sitting in any part of the world (true anytime, anywhere banking) and hence
banks need to ensure that the systems are up and running in a true 24 x 7 fashion. As customers
will find mobile banking more and more useful, their expectations from the solution will
increase. Banks unable to meet the performance and reliability expectations may lose customer
confidence. There are systems such as Mobile Transaction Platform which allow quick and
secure mobile enabling of various banking services. Recently in India there has been a
phenomenal growth in the use of Mobile Banking applications, with leading banks adopting
Mobile Transaction Platform and the Central Bank publishing guidelines for mobile banking
operations.
[edit] Application distribution
Due to the nature of the connectivity between bank and its customers, it would be impractical to
expect customers to regularly visit banks or connect to a web site for regular upgrade of their
mobile banking application. It will be expected that the mobile application itself check the
upgrades and updates and download necessary patches (so called "Over The Air" updates).
However, there could be many issues to implement this approach such as upgrade /
synchronization of other dependent components.
[edit] Personalization
It would be expected from the mobile application to support personalization such as :
1. Preferred Language
2. Date / Time format
3. Amount format
4. Default transactions
5. Standard Beneficiary list
 6. Alerts
[edit] Mobile banking in the world
This article may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone or spelling.
You can assist by editing it. (December 2009)

Mobile banking has come in handy in many parts of the world with little or no Infrastructure
development, especially in remote and rural areas. This part of the mobile commerce is also very
popular in countries where most of their population is unbanked. In most of these places banks
can only be found in big cities and customers have to travel hundreds of miles to the nearest
bank.
Countries like Sudan, Ghana and South Africa received this new commerce very well.
In Latin America countries like Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia,
Guatemala and recently Mexico started with a huge success.
In Colombia was released with Redeban.
In Iran banks like Parsian, Tejarat, Mellat, Saderat, Sepah, edbi and bankmelli offer this service.
Guatemala have the support of Banco industrial.
Mexico released the mobile commerce with Omnilife, Bancomer and a private
company(MPower Ventures). Kenya's Safaricom (Part of the Vodafone Group) has had the very
popular M-Pesa Service - mainly used to transfer limited amounts of money, but has been
increasingly used to pay utility bills. Zain in 2009 launched their own mobile money transfer
business known as ZAP in Kenya and other African countries.
[edit] See also
• Mobile content
• Mobile Marketing
• Mobile payments
• SMS Banking
[edit] Notes
1. ^ Tiwari and Buse, 2007, p. 73-74
2. ^ Celent Report: According to figures published by Celent 17 May 2007.
3. ^ Berginsight.com

[edit] References
• Tiwari, Rajnish and Buse, Stephan(2007): The Mobile Commerce Prospects: A Strategic
Analysis of Opportunities in the Banking Sector, Hamburg University Press (E-Book as
PDF to be downloaded)
• Tiwari, Rajnish; Buse, Stephan and Herstatt, Cornelius (2007): Mobile Services in
Banking Sector: The Role of Innovative Business Solutions in Generating Competitive
Advantage, in: Proceedings of the International Research Conference on Quality,
Innovation and Knowledge Management, New Delhi, pp. 886–894.
• Tiwari, Rajnish; Buse, Stephan and Herstatt, Cornelius (2006): Customer on the Move:
Strategic Implications of Mobile Banking for Banks and Financial Enterprises, in:
 CEC/EEE 2006, Proceedings of The 8th IEEE International Conference on E-Commerce
Technology and The 3rd IEEE International Conference on Enterprise Computing, E-
Commerce, and E-Services (CEC/EEE'06), San Francisco, pp. 522–529.
• Tiwari, Rajnish; Buse, Stephan and Herstatt, Cornelius (2006): Mobile Banking as
Business Strategy: Impact of Mobile Technologies on Customer Behaviour and its
Implications for Banks, in: Technology Management for the Global Future - Proceedings
of PICMET '06.
• Owens, John and Anna Bantug-Herrera (2006): Catching the Technology Wave: Mobile
Phone Banking and Text-A-Payment in the Philippines
Mobile phone tracking
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Mobile phone tracking tracks the current position of a mobile phone even on the move. To
locate the phone, it must emit at least the roaming signal to contact the next nearby antenna
tower, but the process does not require an active call. GSM localisation is then done by
multilateration based on the signal strength to nearby antenna masts.[1]
Mobile positioning, i.e. location based service that discloses the actual coordinates of a mobile
phone bearer, is a technology used by telecommunication companies to approximate where a
mobile phone, and thereby also its user (bearer), temporarily resides. The more properly applied
term locating refers to the purpose rather than a positioning process. Such service is offered as an
option of the class of location-based services (LBS)[2].

Contents
[hide]
• 1 Technology
○ 1.1 Network Based
○ 1.2 Handset Based
○ 1.3 Hybrid
• 2 Examples of LBS technologies
• 3 Operational purpose
• 4 Bearer interest
• 5 Privacy
• 6 See also
• 7 References
• 8 External links

[edit] Technology
The technology of locating is based on measuring power levels and antenna patterns and uses the
concept that a mobile phone always communicates wirelessly with one of the closest base
stations, so if you know which base station the phone communicates with, you know that the
phone is close to the respective base station.
Advanced systems determine the sector in which the mobile phone resides and roughly estimate
also the distance to the base station. Further approximation can be done by interpolating signals
between adjacent antenna towers. Qualified services may achieve a precision of down to 50
meters in urban areas where mobile traffic and density of antenna towers (base stations) is
sufficiently high. Rural and desolate areas may see miles between base stations and therefore
determine locations less precisely.
GSM localization is the use of multilateration to determine the location of GSM mobile phones,
usually with the intent to locate the user [3] .
Localization-Based Systems can be broadly divided into:
• Network based
• Handset based
• Hybrid
[edit] Network Based
Network-based techniques utilize the service provider's network infrastructure to identify the
location of the handset. The advantage of network-based techniques (from mobile operator's
point of view) is that they can be implemented non-intrusively, without affecting the handsets.
The accuracy of network-based techniques varies, with cell identification as the least accurate
and triangulation as the most accurate. The accuracy of network-based techniques is closely
dependent on the concentration of base station cells, with urban environments achieving the
highest possible accuracy.
One of the key challenges of network-based techniques is the requirement to work closely with
the service provider, as it entails the installation of hardware and software within the operator's
infrastructure. Often, a legislative framework, such as E911, would need to be in place to compel
the cooperation of the service provider as well as to safeguard the privacy of the information.
[edit] Handset Based
Handset-based technology requires the installation of client software on the handset to determine
its location. This technique determines the location of the handset by computing its location by
cell identification, signal strengths of the home and neighboring cells or the latitude and
longitude, if the handset is equipped with a GPS module. The calculated location is then sent
from the handset to a location server.
The key disadvantage of this technique (from mobile operator's point of view) is the necessity of
installing software on the handset. It requires the active cooperation of the mobile subscriber as
well as software that must be able to handle the different operating systems of the handsets.
Typically, smart phones, such as one based on Symbian, Windows Mobile, iPhone / iPhone OS,
or Android, would be able to run such software.
One proposed work-around is the installation of embedded hardware or software on the handset
by the manufacturers. This avenue has not made significant headway, due to the difficulty of
convincing different manufacturers to cooperate on a common mechanism and to address the
cost issue. Another difficulty would be to address the issue of foreign handsets that are roaming
in the network.
Well, let us find an example to demonstrate the Network based location tracking algorithm:
According to global GSM structure and ETSI, the GSM service providers information flows
through the control channel and the control channel is free to access. Interestingly, all the present
GSM modem/mobiles (Telit, SIMCOM, HTC, Nokia etc.) are coming with some extra feature to
monitor the neighbouring cells and its RSSI value. Theoretically you should get 1+6=7 cell
information (1 home cell ID, 7 BCCH info+ 7 RSSI). If you know the location of 7 cells, it is
possible to get a mobile phone location with very high accuracy (<100 meters).
[edit] Hybrid
Hybrid positioning systems use a combination of network-based and handset-based technologies
for location determination. One example would be Assisted GPS, which uses both GPS and
network information to compute the location. Hybrid-based techniques give the best accuracy of
the three but inherit the limitations and challenges of network-based and handset-based
technologies.
[edit] Examples of LBS technologies
• Cell Identification - The accuracy of this method can be as good as a few
hundred meters in urban areas, but as poor as 35 km[4] in suburban areas and
rural zones. The accuracy depends on the known range of the particular
network base station serving the handset at the time of positioning.
• Enhanced Cell Identification - With this method, one can get a precision
similar to Cell Identification, but for rural areas, with circular sectors of 550
meters.
• U-TDOA - Uplink-Time difference of arrival - The network determines the
time difference and therefore the distance from each base station to the
mobile phone.
• TOA - Time of arrival - Same as U-TDOA, but this technology uses the
absolute time of arrival at a certain base station rather than the difference
between two stations.
• AOA - Angle of arrival - AOA mechanism locates the mobile phone at the
point where the lines along the angles from each base station intersect.
• E-OTD - E-OTD is similar to U-TDOA, but the position is estimated by the
mobile phone, not by the base station. The precision of this method depends
on the number of available LMUs in the networks, varying from 50 to 200 m.
• Assisted-GPS - A largely GPS-based technology, which uses an operator-
maintained ground station to correct for GPS errors caused by the
atmosphere/topography. Assisted-GPS positioning technology typically falls
back to cell-based positioning methods when indoors or in an urban canyon
environment.
• Hybrid - As mentioned above, hybrid positioning systems use different
methods depending on which signals are locally available.

[edit] Operational purpose

In order to route calls to a phone the cell towers listen for a signal sent from the phone and
negotiate which tower is best able to communicate with the phone. As the phone changes
location, the antenna towers monitor the signal and the phone is roamed to an adjacent tower as
appropriate.
By comparing the relative signal strength from multiple antenna towers a general location of a
phone can be roughly determined. Other means is the antenna pattern that supports angular
determination and phase discrimination.
Newer phones may also allow the tracking of the phone even when turned on and not active in a
telephone call-. This results from the roaming procedures that perform hand over of the phone
from one base station to another.[5]
[edit] Bearer interest
A phone's location can be uploaded to a common web site where one's "friends and family" can
view one's last reported position. Newer phones may have built-in GPS receivers which could be
used in a similar fashion, but with much higher accuracy.
[edit] Privacy
Locating or positioning touches upon delicate privacy issues, since it enables someone to check
where a person is without the person's consent. Strict ethics and security measures are strongly
recommended for services that employ positioning, and the user must give an informed, explicit
consent to a service provider before the service provider can compute positioning data from the
user's mobile phone.
In Europe, where most countries have a constitutional guarantee on the secrecy of
correspondence, location data obtained from mobile phone networks is usually given the same
protection as the communication itself. The United States however has no explicit constitutional
guarantee on the privacy of telecommunications, so use of location data is limited by law.
With tolling systems, as in Germany, the locating of vehicles is equally sensitive to the
constitutional guarantee on the secrecy of correspondence and thus any further use of tolling
information beyond deducting the road fee is prohibited. That leads to the strange situation that
even obviously criminal intent may not be interfered by such yet available technical means.
Officially, the authorities (like the police) can obtain permission to position phones in emergency
cases where people (including criminals) are missing.
The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal
investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone's microphone and using it to eavesdrop on
nearby conversations. This works with or without locating. The technique is called a "roving
bug," and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice.[6] A judge ruled that police use of
such tracking in the USA will require a warrant showing probable cause.[7]
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is tracking some cases, including USA v. Pen Register,
regarding government tracking of individuals such as pedophiles and political activists.[8]
Some "Free" tracking services allow the cellular telephone number being tracked to be added to
telemarketers' lists.
[edit] See also
• Assisted GPS
• Base station
• Cell site
• Global Positioning System
• Google Latitude
• GPS Phone
• Locating
• Location-based service
• Mobile dating
• Mobile phone
 • Multilateration
• Positioning (telecommunications)
• Real Time Locating
• Secure telephone

[edit] References
1. ^ "Tracking a suspect by mobile phone: Tracking SIM and handset". BBC
News. 2005-08-03. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4738219.stm.
Retrieved 2010-01-02.
2. ^ "Location Based Services for Mobiles: Technologies and Standards“, Shu
Wang, Jungwon Min and Byung K. Yi, IEEE International Conference on
Communication (ICC) 2008, Beijing, China
3. ^ "Location Based Services for Mobiles: Technologies and Standards“, Shu
Wang, Jungwon Min and Byung K. Yi, IEEE International Conference on
Communication (ICC) 2008, Beijing, China
4. ^ Gsm#Cellular_radio_network
5. ^ "Roving Bug in Cell Phones Used By FBI to Eavesdrop on Syndicate". The
Chicago Syndicate. http://www.thechicagosyndicate.com/2006/12/roving-bug-
in-cell-phones-used-by-fbi.html.
6. ^ "FBI taps cell phone mic as eavesdropping tool". ZDNet.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1035_22-6140191.html.
7. ^ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/09/11/AR2008091103292.html
8. ^ http://www.eff.org/issues/cell-tracking

[edit] External links

• [1] - Locate lost/misplaced mobile phone on a map by sending a text
message or Instant Message
• privacyrights.org - Protecting Your Privacy in the Age of the Super-Phone
• Cell Reception - Google maps API to locate cell towers in the United States
• Cellphone Tracking Powers on Request, washingtonpost.com
• GeoLocME: Free GPS and Tower Based tracking for BlackBerry Smart Phones
• GSM Localization on Mobile Phones
• OpenCellID: An OpenSource CellID database
• CellSpotting: A Global Cell Id-Based Information Service
• J2ME and Location-Based Services
• LBS, the ingredients and the alternatives
• Location API for J2ME
• openBmap: Map and tools for a free and open Cell ID database in GPL and
Creative Common Licence
• Free GPS emulator which is using cellular triangulation
Mobile banking business models
A wide spectrum of Mobile/branchless banking models is evolving. However, no matter what
business model, if mobile banking is being used to attract low-income populations in often rural
locations, the business model will depend on banking agents, i.e., retail or postal outlets that
process financial transactions on behalf telcos or banks. The banking agent is an important part
of the mobile banking business model since customer care, service quality, and cash
management will depend on them. Many telcos will work through their local airtime resellers.
However, banks in Colombia, Brazil, Peru, and other markets use pharmacies, bakeries, etc.
These models differ primarily on the question that who will establish the relationship (account
opening, deposit taking, lending etc.) to the end customer, the Bank or the Non-
Bank/Telecommunication Company (Telco). Another difference lies in the nature of agency
agreement between bank and the Non-Bank. Models of branchless banking can be classified into
three broad categories - Bank Focused, Bank-Led and Nonbank-Led.
[edit] Bank-focused model
The bank-focused model emerges when a traditional bank uses non-traditional low-cost delivery
channels to provide banking services to its existing customers. Examples range from use of
automatic teller machines (ATMs) to internet banking or mobile phone banking to provide
certain limited banking services to banks’ customers. This model is additive in nature and may
be seen as a modest extension of conventional branch-based banking.
[edit] Bank-led model
The bank-led model offers a distinct alternative to conventional branch-based banking in that
customer conducts financial transactions at a whole range of retail agents (or through mobile
phone) instead of at bank branches or through bank employees. This model promises the
potential to substantially increase the financial services outreach by using a different delivery
channel (retailers/ mobile phones), a different trade partner (telco / chain store) having
experience and target market distinct from traditional banks, and may be significantly cheaper
than the bank-based alternatives. The bank-led model may be implemented by either using
correspondent arrangements or by creating a JV between Bank and Telco/non-bank. In this
model customer account relationship rests with the bank
[edit] Non-bank-led model
The non-bank-led model is where a bank does not come into the picture (except possibly as a
safe-keeper of surplus funds) and the non-bank (e.g. telco) performs all the functions.
[edit] Mobile Banking Services
Mobile banking can offer services such as the following:
[edit] Account Information
1. Mini-statements and checking of account history
2. Alerts on account activity or passing of set thresholds
3. Monitoring of term deposits
4. Access to loan statements
 5. Access to card statements
6. Mutual funds / equity statements
7. Insurance policy management
8. Pension plan management
9. Status on cheque, stop payment on cheque
10. Ordering check books
11. Balance checking in the account
12. Recent transactions
13. Due date of payment (functionality for stop, change and deleting of payments)
14. PIN provision, Change of PIN and reminder over the Internet
15. Blocking of (lost, stolen) cards
[edit] Payments, Deposits, Withdrawals, and Transfers
1. Domestic and international fund transfers
2. Micro-payment handling
3. Mobile recharging
4. Commercial payment processing
5. Bill payment processing
6. Peer to Peer payments
7. Withdrawal at banking agent
8. Deposit at banking agent
Especially for clients in remote locations, it will be important to help them deposit and withdraw
funds at banking agents, i.e., retail and postal outlets that turn cash into electronic funds and vice
versa. The feasibility of such banking agents depends on local regulation which enables retail
outlets to take deposits or not.
A specific sequence of SMS messages will enable the system to verify if the client has sufficient
funds in his or her wallet and authorize a deposit or withdrawal transaction at the agent. When
depositing money, the merchant receives cash and the system credits the client's bank account or
mobile wallet. In the same way the client can also withdraw money at the merchant: through
exchanging sms to provide authorization, the merchant hands the client cash and debits the
merchant's account.
[edit] Investments
1. Portfolio management services
2. Real-time stock quotes
3. Personalized alerts and notifications on security prices
4. mobile banking
[edit] Support
1. Status of requests for credit, including mortgage approval, and insurance coverage
 2. Check (cheque) book and card requests
3. Exchange of data messages and email, including complaint submission and tracking
4. ATM Location
[edit] Content Services
1. General information such as weather updates, news
2. Loyalty-related offers
3. Location-based services
Based on a survey conducted by Forrester, mobile banking will be attractive mainly to the
younger, more "tech-savvy" customer segment. A third of mobile phone users say that they may
consider performing some kind of financial transaction through their mobile phone. But most of
the users are interested in performing basic transactions such as querying for account balance and
making bill payment.
[edit] Challenges for a Mobile Banking Solution
Key challenges in developing a sophisticated mobile banking application are :
[edit] Handset operability
There are a large number of different mobile phone devices and it is a big challenge for banks to
offer mobile banking solution on any type of device. Some of these devices support Java ME and
others support SIM Application Toolkit, a WAP browser, or only SMS.
Initial interoperability issues however have been localized, with countries like India using portals
like R-World to enable the limitations of low end java based phones, while focus on areas such
as South Africa have defaulted to the USSD as a basis of communication achievable with any
phone.
The desire for interoperability is largely dependent on the banks themselves, where installed
applications(Java based or native) provide better security, are easier to use and allow
development of more complex capabilities similar to those of internet banking while SMS can
provide the basics but becomes difficult to operate with more complex transactions.
There is a myth that there is a challenge of interoperability between mobile banking applications
due to perceived lack of common technology standards for mobile banking. In practice it is too
early in the service lifecycle for interoperability to be addressed within an individual country, as
very few countries have more than one mobile banking service provider. In practice, banking
interfaces are well defined and money movements between banks follow the IS0-8583 standard.
As mobile banking matures, money movements between service providers will naturally adopt
the same standards as in the banking world.
[edit] Security
Security of financial transactions, being executed from some remote location and transmission of
financial information over the air, are the most complicated challenges that need to be addressed
jointly by mobile application developers, wireless network service providers and the banks' IT
departments.
The following aspects need to be addressed to offer a secure infrastructure for financial
transaction over wireless network :
 1. Physical part of the hand-held device. If the bank is offering smart-card based security,
the physical security of the device is more important.
2. Security of any thick-client application running on the device. In case the device is stolen,
the hacker should require at least an ID/Password to access the application.
3. Authentication of the device with service provider before initiating a transaction. This
would ensure that unauthorized devices are not connected to perform financial
transactions.
4. User ID / Password authentication of bank’s customer.
5. Encryption of the data being transmitted over the air.
6. Encryption of the data that will be stored in device for later / off-line analysis by the
customer.
[edit] Scalability & Reliability
Another challenge for the CIOs and CTOs of the banks is to scale-up the mobile banking
infrastructure to handle exponential growth of the customer base. With mobile banking, the
customer may be sitting in any part of the world (true anytime, anywhere banking) and hence
banks need to ensure that the systems are up and running in a true 24 x 7 fashion. As customers
will find mobile banking more and more useful, their expectations from the solution will
increase. Banks unable to meet the performance and reliability expectations may lose customer
confidence. There are systems such as Mobile Transaction Platform which allow quick and
secure mobile enabling of various banking services. Recently in India there has been a
phenomenal growth in the use of Mobile Banking applications, with leading banks adopting
Mobile Transaction Platform and the Central Bank publishing guidelines for mobile banking
operations.
[edit] Application distribution
Due to the nature of the connectivity between bank and its customers, it would be impractical to
expect customers to regularly visit banks or connect to a web site for regular upgrade of their
mobile banking application. It will be expected that the mobile application itself check the
upgrades and updates and download necessary patches (so called "Over The Air" updates).
However, there could be many issues to implement this approach such as upgrade /
synchronization of other dependent components.
[edit] Personalization
It would be expected from the mobile application to support personalization such as :
1. Preferred Language
2. Date / Time format
3. Amount format
4. Default transactions
5. Standard Beneficiary list
6. Alerts
[edit] Mobile banking in the world
 This article may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone or spelling.
You can assist by editing it. (December 2009)

Mobile banking has come in handy in many parts of the world with little or no Infrastructure
development, especially in remote and rural areas. This part of the mobile commerce is also very
popular in countries where most of their population is unbanked. In most of these places banks
can only be found in big cities and customers have to travel hundreds of miles to the nearest
bank.
Countries like Sudan, Ghana and South Africa received this new commerce very well.
In Latin America countries like Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia,
Guatemala and recently Mexico started with a huge success.
In Colombia was released with Redeban.
In Iran banks like Parsian, Tejarat, Mellat, Saderat, Sepah, edbi and bankmelli offer this service.
Guatemala have the support of Banco industrial.
Mexico released the mobile commerce with Omnilife, Bancomer and a private
company(MPower Ventures). Kenya's Safaricom (Part of the Vodafone Group) has had the very
popular M-Pesa Service - mainly used to transfer limited amounts of money, but has been
increasingly used to pay utility bills. Zain in 2009 launched their own mobile money transfer
business known as ZAP in Kenya and other African countries.edit