Infosys Technologies Ltd. has launched Finacle mobile banking 2.0 to let retail and corporate clients access banking services through SMS, GPRS, 3G and USSD-enabled handsets.

The platform supports multi-host, multilingual, multi-channel and multi-currency banking. It facilitates interactive financial management encompassing product selection, proximity payments, remote deposit capture, new account opening, ATM/branch locating based on GPS and services such as mobile ticketing, mobile top-up and mobile marketing.

“We look at the way the banking landscape has changed and how technology can support that,” said Sanat Rao, vice president and head of worldwide business development and alliances for Finacle at Infosys, London. “The profile of customers who are leveraging mobile technology and looking to their bank to provide mobile services is changing rapidly.

“Mobile usage is picking up very fast around the world, from Western developed markets and Asia to emerging markets,” he said. “Customers began using mobile banking to get basic information, and now are using it for transfers and transactions—mobile wallet, commerce and payments are all extensions of core mobile banking services that are here to stay.

“There is a segment of customers expecting all services to be available via mobile as they would elsewhere—mobile banking an extension of what Internet banking used to do, and there is a lot more that can be done there.”

Infosys defines, designs and delivers IT-enabled business services.

Finacle from Infosys partners with banks to power their mobile banking and CRM platforms and services.

Mobile banking demand is growing
As channel innovation continues to be a strategic priority for progressive banks, mobile banking has truly come of age, per Infosys.

Finacle mobile banking 2.0 helps banks create and leverage opportunities through the mobile channel to build, deepen and institutionalize relationships with both customers and new emerging consumer segments.

Infosys works with about 140 banks globally, providing them with back-end technology infrastructure.

The Finacle platform enables integration with disparate host systems, facilitating a unified user experience. Two-factor authentication and encryption ensure fidelity of transactions.

The device-agnostic platform supports 8,000-plus mobile devices, including basic handsets and smartphones such as BlackBerry and the iPhone and tablets such as the iPad.

Customers can use banking services through text messaging, browser-based mobile banking, rich client/download-based mobile banking or USSD messaging.

In addition, the platform is channel-agnostic and can be leveraged to fulfil transactions initiated across any other channel.

Banks can also leverage Finacle mobile bank-in-a-box, which is a pre-configured and pre-integrated platform for mobile banking deployment in less than 30 days. 

“Banks are realizing there is a demographic that consists of heavy mobile device users, and that a lot of the products and services that are available through existing channels needed to be extended to mobile as well,” Mr. Rao said. “The potential of mobile banking is great, which is why we’ve launched this platform.

“Mobile usage has obviously been high—the U.S. has a high number of mobile users in terms of percentage of the overall population,” he said. “Mobile banking—and the way that we expect it to evolve around the mobile wallet, commerce and payments—still has a lot more potential.

“We don’t believe that banks have fully leveraged that, and we don’t believe that consumers are fully aware of what mobile technology can offer.”