First Direct customers will be able to check their account balance,
view transactions and move money with a Wap phone from this summer,
writes Caroline Davis
First Direct customers will be able to check their account
balance, view transactions and move money with a Wap phone from
this summer, writes Caroline Davis
Interest in the mobile internet banking service has surprised
the online and telephone bank, with several thousand requests from
existing customers.
"The reality is that Wap is slow - it's like the Internet eight
or nine years ago," says Jonathan Etheridge, First Direct's head of
e-futures. "We expected the early adopters to be technical gurus.
But 48% of those who were interested don't even use PC
banking."
The Wap service is part of First Direct's plan for multiple
channel banking, where customers will be able to access their
accounts via Wap, TV banking, telephone or the Internet.
It will run on the same HP Web servers that the Internet Banking
service currently uses. First Direct uses ICL's Lifestyle financial
system to interface between its host servers and the various types
of client devices.
To access the service, users need a Wap phone which supports
128bit encryption, although the bank says it will do a "low or no
cost" deal for customers.
First Direct already offers a mobile phone banking service,
which it launched in April 1999. This uses the short messaging
service (SMS) to alert customers of account transactions and
provides mini-statements on up to three accounts.