Enhanced TelephoneFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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The Enhanced Telephone is a telephone developed by Citibank in the late 1980s for customers to do banking and other financial transactions from their home. The official launch date was February 26-27, 1990.

The first version of the Enhanced Telephone, the 99A model, was beige and featured a monochrome CRT screen. Because of its chunky appearance, several developers dubbed it the "sawed-off ski boot."[1] The physical hardware was manufactured by Transaction Technologies Incorporated (TTI).

The second version of the Enhanced Telephone, the P100 model, was manufactured by Philips Electronics and featured an LCD screen and more sleek styling. The font was developed by Bitstream Inc..

Software for the Enhanced Telephone was written in a proprietary language called HAL (Home Application Language).

The Enhanced Telephone ultimately failed to become a viable product because by the time it was introduced, home banking via PCs was becoming more common. As the World Wide Web became popular in the early 1990s, the Enhanced Telephone was rendered obsolete.

The Philips P100 phone lived on and to this day variations of it are used for other applications.

Transactional accountFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  (Redirected from Current account (banking))Jump to: navigation, search

The cheque is the traditional mode of payment for a transactional account.

A transactional account (North America: checking account or chequing account,[1] United Kingdom and some other countries: current account or cheque account) is a deposit account held at a bank or other financial institution, for the purpose of securely and quickly providing frequent access to funds on demand, through a variety of different channels. Because money is available on demand these accounts are also referred to as demand accounts or demand deposit accounts.

Transactional accounts are meant neither for the purpose of earning interest nor for the purpose of savings, but for convenience of the business or personal client; hence they tend not to bear interest. Instead, a customer can deposit or withdraw any amount of money any number of times, subject to availability of funds.

Features and access

All transactional accounts offer itemized lists of all financial transactions, either through a bank statement or a passbook. A transactional account allows the account holder to make or receive payments by:

cash money (coins and banknotes) cheque and money order (paper instruction to pay) giro (funds transfer, direct deposit) direct debit (pre-authorized debit) standing order (automatic funds transfer) ATM card or debit card (cashless direct payment at a store or merchant) SWIFT : International account to account transfer.

[edit] Country specific

Certain modes of payment are country-specific:

In the United Kingdom, BACS offers giros that clear in a matter of days while CHAPS is done on the same day.

Canada has an Email Money Transfer service The United States offers e-checks. In India, NEFT service is available to clear funds in a day.

[edit] Access

An NCR Automated Teller Machine (ATM)

[edit] Branch networks

Main article: Branch banking

This refers to the practice of maintaining physical locations where customers can receive a wide array of banking and financial services, such locations are described as branches. They may provide access to a combination of cash machines, telephone banking, counter services and financial advice.

[edit] Cash machines

Main article: Automated teller machine

Cash machines are electronic devices that allow bank customers to make cash withdrawals and check their account balances without the need for a human teller. Many also allow people to deposit cash or cheques, transfer money between their bank accounts, top up their mobile phones' pre-paid accounts or even buy postage stamps.

[edit] Internet banking

Main article: Online banking

Internet or Online banking describes the use of a bank's secure website to view balances and statements, perform transactions and payments, and various other facilities. This can be very useful, especially for banking outside bank hours and banking from anywhere where internet access is available. Since the internet revolution most retail banking institutions offer access to current accounts via online banking.

[edit] Telephone banking

Main article: Telephone banking

Telephone banking is the term applied to specific provision of banking services over the telephone. In many cases such calls are to a call centre or automated service, although some institutions continue to answer such calls in their branches. Often call centre opening times are considerably longer than branches, and some firms provide these services on a 24 hour basis.

[edit] Mail banking

Mail banking is a service provided by a financial institution which allows its customers to deposit cheques into their account by mail. It is primarily used by virtual banks (as they may not offer branches or ATMs that accept deposits) and by customers who live too far from a branch. Typically, the institution that advertises such a service will provide its own self-addressed stamped envelopes as a courtesy.

Debit cardA debit card (also known as a bank card or check card) is a plastic card that provides an alternative payment method to cash when making purchases. Functionally, it can be called an electronic cheque, as the funds are withdrawn directly from either the bank account, or from the remaining balance on the card. In some cases, the cards are designed exclusively for use on the Internet, and so there is no physical card.[1][2]

The use of debit cards has become widespread in many countries and has overtaken the cheque, and in some instances cash transactions by volume. Like credit cards, debit cards are used widely for telephone and Internet purchases, and unlike credit cards the funds are transferred from the bearer's bank account instead of having the bearer to pay back on a later date.

Debit cards may also allow for instant withdrawal of cash, acting as the ATM card for withdrawing cash and as a cheque guarantee card. Merchants may also offer "cashback"/"cashout" facilities to customers, where a customer can withdraw cash along with their purchase.

OverdraftsMain article: Overdraft

An overdraft occurs when withdrawals from a bank account exceed the available balance. This gives the account a negative balance and in effect means the account provider is providing credit. If there is a prior agreement with the account provider for an overdraft facility, and the amount overdrawn is within this authorised overdraft, then interest is normally charged at the agreed rate. If the balance exceeds the agreed facility then fees may be charged and a higher interest rate might apply.

[edit] Cost

The policy of charging a fee for doing financial transactions depends on a variety of factors, including the country and its overall interest rates for lending and for saving, as well as the size of the financial institution and the number of channels of access it offers. This is why operating few or no branches can afford to offer low-cost or free banking, and why, in some countries, transaction fees do not exist, but extremely high lending rates are the normal.

Financial transaction fees may be charged either per item or for a flat rate covering a certain number of transactions. Often, youths, students, senior citizens or high-valued customers do not pay fees for basic financial transactions. Some will offer free transactions for maintaining a very high average balance in their account. Other service charges are applicable for overdraft, non-sufficient funds, the use of an external interbank network, etc. In countries where there are no service charges for transaction fees, there are, on the other hand, other recurring service charges such as a debit card annual fee.

[edit] InterestMain article: Interest

Unlike savings accounts, for which the primary reason for depositing money is to generate interest, the main function of a transactional account is transactional. Therefore, most providers either pay no interest or pay a low level of interest on credit balances.

[edit] Chequing accounts

Chequing account is the name given in North America to a transactional account.

[edit] Overdrafts

Main article: Overdraft

In North America, overdraft protection is an optional feature of a savings account. An account holder may either apply for a permanent one, or the financial institution may, at its sole discretion, provide a temporary overdraft on an ad-hoc basis.

[edit] Interest

Main article: Interest

In the United States, Regulation Q (12 CFR 217) and the Banking Acts of 1933 and 1935 (12 USC 371a) prohibit a member of the Federal Reserve system from paying interest on chequing accounts. This restriction can be circumvented by either creating an account type such as a Negotiable Order of Withdrawal account (NOW account) which is legally not a chequing account or by offering interest paying chequing through a bank which is not a member of the Federal Reserve system.

[edit] High-yield chequing accounts

High-interest NOW accounts have become prevalent throughout the industry. They pay a higher interest rate than typical NOW accounts and frequently function as loss-leaders to drive relationship banking.

In 2003, banks and credit unions began to establish maximum balance accounts, which pay a premium rate up to a specified cap and a lower rate on balances above the cap. This counter-traditional trend (banks had typically established minimum account balances rather than maximum account balances) developed as a way to allow financial institutions to attract multiple customer relationships while limiting the interest expense associated with each account.

The first maximum balance, high-interest chequing account was offered in 2003 by a small community bank in New Mexico, Pioneer Bank. In 2004 and 2005, several community banks in West Texas expanded the idea, and a 3rd party vendor, BancVue, combined the maximum-balance concept with the idea of a higher yield for specific b

[edit] Current accounts

Current account is the name given to a transactional account in the United Kingdom and countries with a UK banking heritage, offering various flexible payment methods to allow customers to distribute money directly to others. Most current accounts come with a cheque book and offer the facility to arrange standing orders, direct debits and payment via a debit card. Current accounts may also allow borrowing via an overdraft facility.

[edit] Lending

Current accounts have two different ways in which money can be lent: overdraft and offset mortgage.

[edit] OverdraftMain article: Overdraft

In the UK, virtually all current accounts offer a pre-agreed overdraft facility the size of which is based upon affordability and credit history. This overdraft facility can be used at any time without consulting the bank and can be maintained indefinitely (subject to ad-hoc reviews). Although an overdraft facility may be authorised, technically the money is repayable on demand by the bank. In reality this is a rare occurrence as the overdrafts are profitable for the bank and expensive for the customer.

[edit] Offset mortgageMain article: Offset mortgage

An offset mortgage is a type of mortgage common in the United Kingdom used for the purchase of domestic property, the key principle is the reduction of interest charged by "offsetting" a credit balance against the mortgage debt. This can be achieved via one of two methods either lenders provide a single account for all transactions (often referred to as a current account mortgage) or they make multiple accounts available which allow the borrowers to notionally split their money according to purpose whilst all accounts are offset each day against the mortgage debt.

[edit] Interest

Main article: Interest

In the UK some online banks offer rates as high as many savings accounts along with free banking (no charges for transactions) as institutions which offer centralised services (telephone, internet or postal based) tend to pay higher levels of interest. The same holds true for banks within the EURO currency zone.

Online and offlineFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  (Redirected from On-line and off-line)Jump to: navigation, search"Online" redirects here. For the Brad Paisley song of the same name, see Online (song). For the magazine, see ONLINE. For the feature film, see On line.

The terms "online" and "offline" (also stylized as "on-line" and "off-line") have specific meanings in regards to computer technology and telecommunications. In general, "online" indicates a state of connectivity, while "offline" indicates a disconnected state. In common usage, "online" often refers to the Internet or the World Wide Web.

The concepts have however been extended from their computing and telecommunication meanings into the area of human interaction and conversation, such that even offline can be used in contrast to the common usage of online (e.g., "I bought those Marcus Fenix figurines offline").

Standard definitions

In computer technology and telecommunication, online and offline are defined by Federal Standard 1037C. They are states or conditions of a "device or equipment" or of a "functional unit". To be considered online, one of the following must apply to a device:

Under the direct control of another device Under the direct control of the system with which it is associated Available for immediate use on demand by the system without human

intervention Connected to a system, and is in operation Functional and ready for service

In contrast, a device that is offline meets none of these criteria (e.g., its main power source is disconnected or turned off, or it is off-power).

[edit] Offline mail

One example of a common use of these concepts is a Mail User Agent that can be instructed to be in either online or offline states. One such MUA is Microsoft Outlook. When online it will attempt to connect to mail servers (to check for new mail at regular intervals, for example), and when off-line it will not attempt to make any such connection. The online or offline state of the MUA does not necessarily reflect the connection status between the computer on which it is running and the Internet. That is, the computer itself may be online—connected to Internet via a cable modem or other means—while Outlook is kept offline by the user, so that it makes no attempt to send or to receive messages. Similarly, a computer may be configured to employ a dial-up connection on demand (as when an application such as Outlook attempts to make connection to a server), but the user may not wish for Outlook to trigger that call whenever it is configured to check for mail.[1]

[edit] Offline media playing

Another example of the use of these concepts is in the world of digital audio technology. A tape recorder, digital editor, or other device that is online is one whose clock is under the control of the clock of a synchronization master device. When the sync master commences playback, the online device automatically synchronizes itself to the master and commences playing from the same point in the recording. A device that is offline uses no external clock reference and relies upon its own internal clock. When a large number of devices are connected to a sync master it is often convenient, if one wants to hear just the output of one single device, to take it offline because, if the device is played back online, all synchronized devices have to locate the playback point and wait for each other device to be in synchronization.[2] (For related discussion, see MIDI timecode, word sync, and recording system synchronization.)

[edit] Offline browsing

A third example of a common use of these concepts is a web browser that can be instructed to be in either online or offline states. The browser only attempts to fetch pages from servers whilst in the online state. In the off-line state, users can perform offline browsing, where pages can be browsed using local copies of those pages that have previously been downloaded whilst in the on-line state. This can be useful when the computer is offline and connection to the Internet is impossible or undesirable. The pages are either downloaded implicitly into the web browser's own cache as a result of prior online browsing by the user, or explicitly by a browser configured to keep local copies of certain web pages, which are updated when the browser is in the online state, either by checking that the local copies are up-to-date at regular intervals or by checking that the local copies are up-to-date whenever the browser is switched to the on-line state. One such web browser capable of being explicitly configured to download pages for offline browsing is Internet Explorer. When pages are added to the Favourites list, they can be marked to be "available for offline browsing". Internet Explorer will download to local copies both the marked page and, optionally, all of the pages that it links to. In Internet Explorer version 6, the level of direct and indirect links, the maximum amount of local disc space allowed to be consumed, and the schedule on which local copies are checked to see whether they are up-to-date, are configurable for each individual Favourites entry.[3][4][5][6]

Offline browsing known as "Offline favourites" was removed as a feature in Internet Explorer 7, which now only supports saving single web pages, but not an entire site.[citation

needed]

[edit] Others

Similarly, offline storage is computer data storage that is not "available for immediate use on demand by the system without human intervention."[citation needed]

[edit] Generalizations

Online and offline distinctions have been generalized from computing and telecommunication into the field of human interpersonal relationships. The distinction between what is considered online and what is considered offline has become a subject of study in the field of sociology.[7]

The distinction between online and offline is conventionally seen as the distinction between computer-mediated communication and face-to-face communication (e.g. face time), respectively. Online is virtuality or cyberspace, and offline is reality (i.e., Real life or meatspace). Slater states that this distinction is "obviously far too simple".[7] To support his argument that the distinctions in relationships are more complex than a simple online/offline dichotomy, he observes that some people draw no distinction between an on-line relationship, such as indulging in cybersex, and an offline relationship, such as being pen pals. He also argues that even the telephone can be regarded as an online experience in some circumstances, and that the blurring of the distinctions between the uses of various technologies (such as PDA and mobile phone, television and Internet, and

telephone and Voice over Internet Protocol) has made it "impossible to use the term on-line meaningfully in the sense that was employed by the first generation of Internet research".[7]

Slater asserts that there are legal and regulatory pressures to reduce the distinction between online and offline, with a "general tendency to assimilate online to offline and erase the distinction," stressing, however, that this does not mean that online relationships are being reduced to pre-existing offline relationships. He conjectures that greater legal status may be assigned to online relationships (pointing out that contractual relationships, such as business transactions, online are already seen as just as "real" as their offline counterparts), although he states it to be hard to imagine courts awarding palimony to people who have had a purely online sexual relationship. He also conjectures that an online/offline distinction may be seen by people as "rather quaint and not quite comprehensible" within 10 years.[7]

This distinction between online and offline is sometimes inverted, with online concepts being used to define and to explain offline activities, rather than (as per the conventions of the desktop metaphor with its desktops, trash cans, folders, and so forth) the other way around. Several cartoons appearing in The New Yorker have satirized this. One includes Saint Peter asking for a username and a password before admitting a man into Heaven. Another illustrates "the off-line store" where "All items are actual size!", shoppers may "Take it home as soon as you pay for it!", and "Merchandise may be handled prior to purchase!".[8] [9]

Mobile bankingFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, searchIt has been suggested that SMS banking be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

Mobile banking (also known as M-Banking, mbanking, SMS Banking etc.) is a term used for performing balance checks, account transactions, payments etc. via a mobile device such as a mobile phone. Mobile banking today (2007) is most often performed via SMS or the Mobile Internet but can also use special programs called clients downloaded to the mobile devic

A mobile banking conceptual model

In one academic model,[1] mobile banking is defined as:

"Mobile Banking refers to provision and availment of banking- and financial services with the help of mobile telecommunication devices.The scope of offered services may

include facilities to conduct bank and stock market transactions, to administer accounts and to access customised information."

According to this model Mobile Banking can be said to consist of three inter-related concepts:

Mobile Accounting Mobile Brokerage Mobile Financial Information Services

Most services in the categories designated Accounting and Brokerage are transaction-based. The non-transaction-based services of an informational nature are however essential for conducting transactions - for instance, balance inquiries might be needed before committing a money remittance. The accounting and brokerage services are therefore offered invariably in combination with information services. Information services, on the other hand, may be offered as an independent module.

Mobile phone banking may also be used to help in business situations

[edit] Trends in mobile banking

The advent of the Internet has enabled new ways to conduct banking business, resulting in the creation of new institutions, such as online banks, online brokers and wealth managers. Such institutions still account for a tiny percentage of the industry.[citation needed]

Over the last few years, the mobile and wireless market has been one of the fastest growing markets in the world and it is still growing at a rapid pace. According to the GSM Association and Ovum, the number of mobile subscribers exceeded 2 billion in September 2005, and now[when?] exceeds 2.5 billion (of which more than 2 billion are GSM).[citation needed]

With mobile technology, banks can offer services to their customers such as doing funds transfer while travelling, receiving online updates of stock price or even performing stock trading while being stuck in traffic. Smartphones and 3G connectivity provide some capabilities that older text message-only phones do not.

This article appears to contain speculation and unjustified claims. Information must be verifiable and based on reliable published sources. Please remove speculation from the article.

According to a study by financial consultancy Celent, 35% of online banking households will be using mobile banking by 2010, up from less than 1% today. Upwards of 70% of bank center call volume is projected to come from mobile phones. Mobile banking will eventually allow users to make payments at the physical point of sale. "Mobile contactless payments” will make up 10% of the contactless market by 2010.[2] Another study from 2010 by Berg Insight forecasts that the number of mobile banking users in the

US will grow from 12 million in 2009 to 98 million in 2015. The same study also predicts that the European market will grow from 7 million mobile banking users in 2009 to 131 million users in 2015.[3]

Many believe that mobile users have just started to fully utilize the data capabilities in their mobile phones. In Asian countries like India, China, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Philippines, where mobile infrastructure is comparatively better than the fixed-line infrastructure, and in European countries, where mobile phone penetration is very high (at least 80% of consumers use a mobile phone), mobile banking is likely to appeal even more.

[edit] Mobile banking business models

A wide spectrum of Mobile/branchless banking models is evolving. However, no matter what business model, if mobile banking is being used to attract low-income populations in often rural locations, the business model will depend on banking agents, i.e., retail or postal outlets that process financial transactions on behalf telcos or banks. The banking agent is an important part of the mobile banking business model since customer care, service quality, and cash management will depend on them. Many telcos will work through their local airtime resellers. However, banks in Colombia, Brazil, Peru, and other markets use pharmacies, bakeries, etc.

These models differ primarily on the question that who will establish the relationship (account opening, deposit taking, lending etc.) to the end customer, the Bank or the Non-Bank/Telecommunication Company (Telco). Another difference lies in the nature of agency agreement between bank and the Non-Bank. Models of branchless banking can be classified into three broad categories - Bank Focused, Bank-Led and Nonbank-Led.

[edit] Bank-focused model

The bank-focused model emerges when a traditional bank uses non-traditional low-cost delivery channels to provide banking services to its existing customers. Examples range from use of automatic teller machines (ATMs) to internet banking or mobile phone banking to provide certain limited banking services to banks’ customers. This model is additive in nature and may be seen as a modest extension of conventional branch-based banking.

[edit] Bank-led model

The bank-led model offers a distinct alternative to conventional branch-based banking in that customer conducts financial transactions at a whole range of retail agents (or through mobile phone) instead of at bank branches or through bank employees. This model promises the potential to substantially increase the financial services outreach by using a different delivery channel (retailers/ mobile phones), a different trade partner (telco / chain store) having experience and target market distinct from traditional banks, and may be significantly cheaper than the bank-based alternatives. The bank-led model may be

implemented by either using correspondent arrangements or by creating a JV between Bank and Telco/non-bank. In this model customer account relationship rests with the bank

[edit] Non-bank-led model

The non-bank-led model is where a bank does not come into the picture (except possibly as a safe-keeper of surplus funds) and the non-bank (e.g. telco) performs all the functions.

[edit] Mobile Banking Services

Mobile banking can offer services such as the following:

[edit] Account Information

1. Mini-statements and checking of account history2. Alerts on account activity or passing of set thresholds3. Monitoring of term deposits4. Access to loan statements5. Access to card statements6. Mutual funds / equity statements7. Insurance policy management8. Pension plan management9. Status on cheque, stop payment on cheque10. Ordering check books11. Balance checking in the account12. Recent transactions13. Due date of payment (functionality for stop, change and deleting of payments)14. PIN provision, Change of PIN and reminder over the Internet15. Blocking of (lost, stolen) cards

[edit] Payments, Deposits, Withdrawals, and Transfers

1. Domestic and international fund transfers2. Micro-payment handling3. Mobile recharging4. Commercial payment processing5. Bill payment processing6. Peer to Peer payments7. Withdrawal at banking agent8. Deposit at banking agent

Especially for clients in remote locations, it will be important to help them deposit and withdraw funds at banking agents, i.e., retail and postal outlets that turn cash into electronic funds and vice versa. The feasibility of such banking agents depends on local regulation which enables retail outlets to take deposits or not.

A specific sequence of SMS messages will enable the system to verify if the client has sufficient funds in his or her wallet and authorize a deposit or withdrawal transaction at the agent. When depositing money, the merchant receives cash and the system credits the client's bank account or mobile wallet. In the same way the client can also withdraw money at the merchant: through exchanging sms to provide authorization, the merchant hands the client cash and debits the merchant's account.

[edit] Investments

1. Portfolio management services2. Real-time stock quotes3. Personalized alerts and notifications on security prices4. mobile banking

[edit] Support

1. Status of requests for credit, including mortgage approval, and insurance coverage2. Check (cheque) book and card requests3. Exchange of data messages and email, including complaint submission and

tracking4. ATM Location

[edit] Content Services

1. General information such as weather updates, news2. Loyalty-related offers3. Location-based services

Based on a survey conducted by Forrester, mobile banking will be attractive mainly to the younger, more "tech-savvy" customer segment. A third of mobile phone users say that they may consider performing some kind of financial transaction through their mobile phone. But most of the users are interested in performing basic transactions such as querying for account balance and making bill payment.

[edit] Challenges for a Mobile Banking Solution

Key challenges in developing a sophisticated mobile banking application are :

[edit] Handset operability

There are a large number of different mobile phone devices and it is a big challenge for banks to offer mobile banking solution on any type of device. Some of these devices support Java ME and others support SIM Application Toolkit, a WAP browser, or only SMS.

Initial interoperability issues however have been localized, with countries like India using portals like R-World to enable the limitations of low end java based phones, while focus on areas such as South Africa have defaulted to the USSD as a basis of communication achievable with any phone.

The desire for interoperability is largely dependent on the banks themselves, where installed applications(Java based or native) provide better security, are easier to use and allow development of more complex capabilities similar to those of internet banking while SMS can provide the basics but becomes difficult to operate with more complex transactions.

There is a myth that there is a challenge of interoperability between mobile banking applications due to perceived lack of common technology standards for mobile banking. In practice it is too early in the service lifecycle for interoperability to be addressed within an individual country, as very few countries have more than one mobile banking service provider. In practice, banking interfaces are well defined and money movements between banks follow the IS0-8583 standard. As mobile banking matures, money movements between service providers will naturally adopt the same standards as in the banking world.

[edit] Security

Security of financial transactions, being executed from some remote location and transmission of financial information over the air, are the most complicated challenges that need to be addressed jointly by mobile application developers, wireless network service providers and the banks' IT departments.

The following aspects need to be addressed to offer a secure infrastructure for financial transaction over wireless network :

1. Physical part of the hand-held device. If the bank is offering smart-card based security, the physical security of the device is more important.

2. Security of any thick-client application running on the device. In case the device is stolen, the hacker should require at least an ID/Password to access the application.

3. Authentication of the device with service provider before initiating a transaction. This would ensure that unauthorized devices are not connected to perform financial transactions.

4. User ID / Password authentication of bank’s customer.5. Encryption of the data being transmitted over the air.6. Encryption of the data that will be stored in device for later / off-line analysis by

the customer.

[edit] Scalability & Reliability

Another challenge for the CIOs and CTOs of the banks is to scale-up the mobile banking infrastructure to handle exponential growth of the customer base. With mobile banking, the customer may be sitting in any part of the world (true anytime, anywhere banking) and hence banks need to ensure that the systems are up and running in a true 24 x 7 fashion. As customers will find mobile banking more and more useful, their expectations from the solution will increase. Banks unable to meet the performance and reliability expectations may lose customer confidence. There are systems such as Mobile Transaction Platform which allow quick and secure mobile enabling of various banking services. Recently in India there has been a phenomenal growth in the use of Mobile Banking applications, with leading banks adopting Mobile Transaction Platform and the Central Bank publishing guidelines for mobile banking operations.

[edit] Application distribution

Due to the nature of the connectivity between bank and its customers, it would be impractical to expect customers to regularly visit banks or connect to a web site for regular upgrade of their mobile banking application. It will be expected that the mobile application itself check the upgrades and updates and download necessary patches (so called "Over The Air" updates). However, there could be many issues to implement this approach such as upgrade / synchronization of other dependent components.

[edit] Personalization

It would be expected from the mobile application to support personalization such as :

1. Preferred Language2. Date / Time format3. Amount format4. Default transactions5. Standard Beneficiary list6. Alerts

[edit] Mobile banking in the worldThis article may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone or spelling. You can assist by editing it. (December 2009)

Mobile banking has come in handy in many parts of the world with little or no Infrastructure development, especially in remote and rural areas. This part of the mobile commerce is also very popular in countries where most of their population is unbanked. In most of these places banks can only be found in big cities and customers have to travel hundreds of miles to the nearest bank.Countries like Sudan, Ghana and South Africa received this new commerce very well.In Latin America countries like Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Guatemala and recently Mexico started with a huge success.In Colombia was released with Redeban.

In Iran banks like Parsian, Tejarat, Mellat, Saderat, Sepah, edbi and bankmelli offer this service. Guatemala have the support of Banco industrial.Mexico released the mobile commerce with Omnilife, Bancomer and a private company(MPower Ventures). Kenya's Safaricom (Part of the Vodafone Group) has had the very popular M-Pesa Service - mainly used to transfer limited amounts of money, but has been increasingly used to pay utility bills. Zain in 2009 launched their own mobile money transfer business known as ZAP in Kenya and other African countries

Telephone bankingTelephone banking is a service provided by a financial institution, which allows its customers to perform transactions over the telephone.

Most telephone banking services use an automated phone answering system with phone keypad response or voice recognition capability. To guarantee security, the customer must first authenticate through a numeric or verbal password or through security questions asked by a live representative (see below). With the obvious exception of cash withdrawals and deposits, it offers virtually all the features of an automated teller machine: account balance information and list of latest transactions, electronic bill payments, funds transfers between a customer's accounts, etc.

Usually, customers can also speak to a live representative located in a call centre or a branch, although this feature is not always guaranteed to be offered 24/7. In addition to the self-service transactions listed earlier, telephone banking representatives are usually trained to do what was traditionally available only at the branch: loan applications, investment purchases and redemptions, chequebook orders, debit card replacements, change of address, etc.

Banks which operate mostly or exclusively by telephone are known as phone banks.