How mobile banking is fueled by emerging markets

"It is real early, but in the next 10 years or so, it'll really expand and be quite a large portion of how people bank," Montes said. "There is such a slow adoption rate with new technologies, like the ATM – people had to be outside teaching people how to use it. That is very similar to the mobile PC. Especially our customers ask ‘How do you do it? Is it secure?’ There is still really a lack of knowledge on how to do mobile banking today."

Despite a perceived lack of knowledge, carriers and financial institutions are quickly becoming aware of the potential for mobile banking. In the US, the service still largely mirrors that of banks’ online offering. This summer, Bank of America said it surpassed 1 million unique active mobile banking customers in the US. Its service, introduced in May 2007, allows consumers to check balances, pay bills, transfer funds and locate ATMs and nearby banks. Credit card company Visa and eight banks also announced last week that they are launching a pilot program for cardholders to keep track of their spending on the mobile phone via SMS messages or email.

The differences in mobile banking between emerging and developed markets come both in the style of the service – one that mirrors or replaces the online experience, as well as the driver for adopting it – necessity or convenience. Regardless of the use case, however, this is one mobile application that Devlin said most every market is beginning to look toward in some degree.

“It’s still a young, fledgling market -- still developing,” he said. “It’s being implemented in different areas for different reasons, with different barriers and drivers within Africa, parts of Asia, North America and Europe. People are being quite resourceful and coming up with different solutions for each of those.”