Fiserv Mobile Money | The Swiss Army Knife of mobile banking

Fiserv announces anticipated mobile offering, the industry's first single solution that supports SMS, WAP, Mobile Application and Offers Offline and Online Enrollment... or the Swiss Army Knife of mobile banking.

BROOKFIELD, Wis.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 9, 2008--Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ: FISV), a leading provider of information technology services to the financial industry, today launched Fiserv Mobile Money(SM), the industry's most complete mobile banking and payments solution, because it supports consumers on all three mobile access modes - short messaging service, (SMS), wireless application protocol, (WAP), and downloaded mobile applications, offers online and offline enrollment capabilities and integrates with core banking, online banking and electronic payments systems. The new solution, available for the first time today, builds upon existing Fiserv mobile banking options already in the market and adds a strategic technology to help all segments of financial intuitions.

Powered by technology from New Zealand-based Mobile Commerce Limited (M-Com), Fiserv Mobile Money enables organizations to reach more consumers through its native support for SMS, WAP, and downloaded mobile applications. In addition, the solution is unique because it allows financial institutions and billing organizations to drive enrollment of offline customers to a more profitable mobile banking relationship. Consumers can enroll via a mobile device, at a branch, ATM or customer contact center, as well as via the online channel. Fiserv will also support certain marketing campaigns and research aimed at driving adoption and usage within this emerging channel.

"Mobile banking holds great promise as a unique channel that offers customers the ability to manage their money anywhere, anytime, while enticing new customers and making existing customers more loyal," said James Van Dyke, president and founder of Javelin Strategy & Research. "We see 2008 as a pivotal year for the emergence of mobile banking and payments, particularly as more end-to-end, enterprise solutions start to take hold in the marketplace."

Fiserv's scalable mobile banking and payments solution can integrate seamlessly with a variety of core banking systems, online banking systems and electronic payments systems. It is designed to leverage a financial institution's or biller's existing online security infrastructure, including existing credential management capabilities. In addition, Fiserv Mobile Money offers consolidated customer care and reporting across both the online and mobile channels, potentially lowering the total cost of ownership and enabling a broader view of the customer's needs when they contact the financial institution for service or support.

"This is a great example of Fiserv 2.0; using resources across our business units to develop innovative products that help our clients achieve best-in-class results. Fiserv Mobile Money is the result of hard work from our integrated teams representing both Fiserv and CheckFree. We are continuing our mission to be the leading provider of technology products and services to the financial services industry, bringing the best solutions to this emerging channel," said Jeffery Yabuki, Fiserv President and Chief Executive Officer.

Financial institutions will have the flexibility to deploy the Fiserv mobile banking and payments solution as a hosted solution or as software that can be managed and run in-house. The solution is available today via an in-house solution for the top 200 financial institutions. A hosted version is expected by mid-2009.

"Fiserv Mobile Money helps financial institutions optimize customer relationships either through deepening existing online banking relationships or through driving offline customer relationships to a more profitable mobile banking and payments relationship," said Steve Olsen, Fiserv group president, Internet Banking and Electronic Payments. "This ultimately helps institutions of all sizes to maximize their mobile return-on-investment."

To that end, Fiserv Mobile Money's multi-channel enrollment capabilities have proven effective as a means to attract more offline customers to the mobile channel, which has a lower cost to serve than other channels. For example, a Fortune 500 New Zealand bank that currently uses the M-Com solution, annually saves up to $30 per customer when it drives these customers from an offline relationship with the bank to a mobile banking relationship. The bank achieves this result even though more than 40 percent of its customers are not online banking users.

Fiserv Mobile Money runs on established mobile banking and payment technology from M-Com, whose mobile solutions are used by some of the largest financial institutions in the world, including Washington Mutual, Inc., ANZ Banking Group, Westpac Banking Corporation, Electronic Transaction Services Limited (Paymark) and GE Money, among others.

"This strategic alliance combines Fiserv's strong leadership in payments processing, innovation, operational excellence and execution with M-Com's proven mobile banking and payments technology and innovation," said Adam Clark, founder and chief executive officer of M-Com.

"Together, we will provide the most complete solution in the industry, giving financial institutions and billing organizations a path toward unlocking the promise of mobile payments."
In addition, key personnel from Fiserv and M-Com are working together in the Fiserv campus in Norcross, Ga., to develop and deliver the next generation product - the industry's first single-platform, scalable mobile banking and payment solution that integrates seamlessly with online banking, bill payment and core banking systems.

Product Demonstrations:

• ANZ SMS Demonstration
• ANZ Downloaded Application Demonstration

Lost Footage | Prepare for the Internet

We all remember the 1990's when technology buzz words like mindshare, brick-and-morter, and paradigm shift accompanied any conversation about internet banking... oops it was PC banking. A powerful PC consisted of a 386 processor and 4MB of memory over a 14.4 connection. Those were the days when balances and transfers were cool...

This video archive from Digital Insight (must be circa 1997?) reminds us just how far we have come in the channel, but how much opportunity we have in front of us.

What future opportunities does the channel present? What does tomorrow's bank look like? Is it virtual branches in Second Life, RFID chips, or artificial intelligence? Microsoft compiled a fairly compelling demonstration of the roll that technologies such as biometrics, peer-to-peer, and mobile computing will have in the bank of the future.

This isn't going to happen overnight, look how long it took us to be able to open accounts online, but the surge of mobile (both devices and services like the iPhone) this year will certainly aid in accelerating things...

Hello, I'm a Credit Union... And I'm a Bank

I have to admit it, I am a convert... PC to Apple. I love Apple's products and marketing. My wife is in education and worked on me for years to use an Apple in our home. I resisted, having been in a career dominated by PC's and BlackBerry's. But then something happened, we had kids (accumulation of massive amounts of digital pictures and video) and I got an iPod (goodbye CDs). Coincidentally, this was the same time that Apple started to run the Get a Mac campaign, a series of sketches between two people, one a Mac and the other a PC. The PC played by John Hodgman, was portrayed as dull, stuffy and business like. On the other hand Mac, played by Justin Long came across as cool and hip. I think the one that did it for me was Better Results where PC and Mac discussed making home movies, and showed each other their efforts. Supermodel Gisele Bündchen entered, representing Mac's movie, while PC's movie is represented by a man with a hairy chest and a blonde wig wearing a dress similar to Bündchen's. PC stated that there's some work in progress with his movie. The ad connected with me and that weekend we brought one home.

Since this campaign started, Apple has seen explosive growth. Web analyst Net Applications now puts the Mac's market share at 8 percent, up from 5.3 percent in early 2007. That is stunning growth by any measure, especially when you consider that this is 18 percent growth in its market share...just since November 2007. And whether you are a fan of the ads or not, we can probably all agree that imitation is the highest form of a complement. These ads have been spoofed by both the novice producer and mainstream corporations like Novell. Most recently, I ran into a series produced by BankerSpank.com lampooning the differences between a Bank and Credit Union.

Do consumers think Banks are stuffy suits and Credit Unions are hip? Sure there are examples of cool Banks, look at Umpqua in Portland, OR. From their online music store, to their cutting edge retail strategy, and a moving van converted in to a mobile bank, these guys ooze cool and hip. And surely there are examples of stuffy Credit Unions out there. What this highlights to me is the continued importance of connecting and empathizing with our customers or members. Who among us doesn't want Apple like growth to talk about at the next board meeting? And, if someone will learn an new OS or port data to new hardware, what is to think that they aren't one campaign away from a switch?

More people pay bills online than with paper checks

A recent survey sponsored by CheckFree, now part of Fiserv, Inc. found that more Americans than ever, an estimated 63.1 million households or three-fourth of those online, are paying their bills online rather than writing paper checks.

A little slower than email taking over U.S. Mail but, it finally happened. Actually for the second year in a row, American consumers who go online each month paid more of their household bills online at bank and billing organization websites than by any other method.

Some interesting facts from the survey:

• Internet-using households pay an average of 11 bills per month. Consumers use an average of three different ways to pay bills, with online, check, automatic debit and in-person topping the list of popular bill payment methods. Online bill payments at bank and biller websites comprised 42 percent of total monthly payments, followed by 31 percent of bills paid by check. See chart below.

• Fifty-one percent of survey respondents cited the environment as a reason why they chose to view and pay bills online. Of these, 72 percent identified paper and clutter reduction as chief benefits, followed by tree conservation (19 percent) and reduction in gas consumption (16 percent).

• Major credit cards (48 percent) were the most frequently cited e-bills received and paid at online banking sites, followed by cable or satellite television (42 percent), cellular phone (41 percent), electricity (38 percent) and local telephone (34 percent).

Data and segmentation about those paying bills online:

• Among younger respondents under age 45, 57 percent considered the environment as an important reason why they use online billing and payment, compared to 44 percent among those in the 45-and-older age group.


• Fifty-five percent of those living in the Western United States cited environmental concerns as a key motivation for online bill payment adoption versus 49 percent for other regions.


• Fifty-four percent of respondents who were aware their online banking site offers e-bills said they receive at least one e-bill, while 46 percent do not. The most appealing features of e-bills were due-date reminders, convenience and assurance that bills are never paid late.


• E-bill recipients were 45 percent more likely to report being extremely satisfied with their bank or credit union than non-e-bill users. Fully half of e-bill recipients said their experiences with e-bill had made them less likely to switch financial institutions in the future. E-bills are electronic representations of paper bills that are securely delivered directly to a business or financial institution Web site. With e-Bills, consumers can review balances, transactions and all other details available in paper bills, and schedule payments with just a few clicks of the mouse.


• Overall, 67.9 million households, or 80 percent of the estimated 85.1 million U.S. online households, use online banking services, up from 63.4 million in the 2007 survey.

• Those living in Western (83 percent penetration) and Southern (81 percent penetration) states were more likely to adopt online banking than those in the Northeast (78 percent) and Midwest (78 percent).

Additional Information:

You can watch a recast of the webinar where researchers from CheckFree and David Baron, vice president of Financial Research Services for Harris Interactive, provides insights into what made the survey successful.

In conjunction with the press announcement, CheckFree announced the launch of the new-and-improved eBILLPLACE.com website, which aims to inform consumers and the media about the environmental, time and cash-saving benefits of receiving and paying bills online.