Research Project: Mobile Commerce

Judging from the services available in the market, Mobile Banking (often referred to as M-Banking, WAP-Banking, SMS-Banking or Wireless Banking amongst others) is one of the most extensively offered applications in Mobile Commerce (M-Commerce).

In Germany renowned banks (e.g. Postbank) are offering mobile services to their customers. Also at international level there are many well-known banks offering mobile services (e.g. Nordea and Credit Suisse).
Such services are offered usually in cooperation with carrieres of mobile network, for instance T-Mobile (D1), Vodafone (D2), E-Plus or O2. The scope of the offered services varies from bank to bank. In the following we describe Mobile Banking and related services.

Mobile Banking is generally defined as carrying out bank transactions and other related activities via mobile (hand-held) devices. The spectrum of offerable services is listed below:

a) Account operation (bill payments, money transfers etc.)
b) Account administration (access administration, cheque book requests etc.)
c) Account information (balance inquiries, statements of account)
d) Financial information (interest- and exchange rates etc.)
e) Brokerage (e.g. sale/purchase of stocks)

The services are generally based on technologies offered by “Short Messaging Service” (SMS), or by “Wireless Application Protocol” (WAP). Some banks, particularly many in Japan, also offer services based on i-mode. Most of the services can be accessed via several types of mobile (hand-held) devices including cellular phones and “Personal Digital Assistants” (PDA). Additionally client-based applications - that work similar to other Home Banking applications - are reported to be gaining popularity - particularly in Germany. The client (usually a Java MIDlet) can be installed on the mobile device, e.g. a mobile phone or a PDA.

If the information available on the web pages of respective banks is an indicator, then Germany seems to be coming out rapidly of its till-now somewhat lukewarm response to the opportunities offered by Mobile Banking. Many German banks that just a few months ago seemed to be content with providing account and market information on mobile hand-held devices, if at all, are entering into collaboration with network carriers and software providers to offer client-based Mobile Banking applications, usually called PDA Banking.
The term "PDA Banking" is however not really appropriate to describe client-based applications as a PDA can also be employed for browser-based Mobile Banking, e.g. WAP Banking.

The scenario at the international level, in contrast, seems to be evolving at an even faster pace. Renowned banks are teaming up with mobile operators to provide complete banking solutions (transactions, bill payments, money transfer and brokerage). Banks in other Western European countries (e.g. Credit Suisse in Switzerland and Nordea in Finland) as well as other leading banks in Japan, South Korea and India are adopting these services more readily and are reportedly enjoying good customer responses.

This study intends to identify trends and evaluate business potentials of various Mobile Banking services. It employs a wide range of instruments in order to identify (new) chances and opportunities offered by the “mobile (r)evolution”. It also has the objective of identifying Germany’s position in this potentially significant application field and thus to help determinate corrective steps needed, if any.

This study is a part of an overall research project “Prospects of Mobile Commerce in Germany” being carried out by Institute of Technology and Innovation Management of the Hamburg University of Technology (TU Harburg) in cooperation with the University of Hamburg and led by Asst. Professor Dr. Stephan Buse and Dipl.-Kfm. Rajnish Tiwari.

For further information please feel free to contact:

Dr. Stephan Buse:     stephan.buse@tu-harburg.de

Rajnish Tiwari:           rajnish.tiwari@tu-harburg.de