Banks should take incremental steps toward mobile payments to facilitate customer acceptance.

• Position: MARKETING NEWS

The MAJORITY OF TOP-TIER U.S. BANKS have mobile banking strategies, but most have no plan for mobile payments--instead they are waiting for market movement before investing heavily in payments, according to a recent survey conducted by Forrester Consulting for Fiserv Inc.

In a white paper entitled, "Acceleration in the Mobile Banking and Payments Landscape: Insights and Perspectives from Financial Institutions" Fiserv argues that this wait-and-see attitude could prove costly for financial institutions. "The time to develop a strategy for mobile payments is now--mobile carriers and other third-party players are aggressively pursuing the space ..."

Since security concerns are the single biggest barrier to consumer adoption of mobile financial services, Fiserv suggests that banks move toward mobile payments with an incremental approach coupled with consumer education. "By offering reliable information-based mobile financial services, such as balance alerts or transaction history, financial institutions can grow trust among consumers while influencing the way they think about the mobile channel."

Adoption data from banks that have mobile solutions suggest that banks that deliver mobile banking services have significantly higher adopt rates of mobile payment services than those that offer standalone mobile payments.

Gaining acceptance of mobile payments will...