Mobile Payments: positioning for the future.

• Author: Albro, Walt

Mobile payments are not here yet, but Zions Bank, Salt Lake City, is preparing to quickly take advantage of the service once it arrives. The bank has launched a mobile cash rewards app that conditions customers to reach for their mobile phone for discounts or cash back whenever they enter a store.

ABOUT 18 MONTHS AGO, ZIONS BANK, SALT LAKE CITY, introduced Aa mobile application that provides mobile cash rewards to customers who shop in local stores. Zions, which has an asset size of $19 billion, called the app a "cutting edge" program that was among the first offered by a bank in the United States.

The app contains two types of merchant-funded offers: "show your phone" coupons and cash back rewards. The mobile program, known as AmaZing Deals, features offers at hundreds of local and national restaurants, retail shops, hotels, golf courses, automotive service providers and more, stretching from Southern Utah to Northern Idaho.

Customers redeem mobile coupons by presenting their mobile phone at the point of sale. Additionally, cash back rewards are earned when a qualifying transaction is made using a Zions Bank Visa card at a participating merchant location.

Zions Bank has a reputation, for being ahead of the curve in the area of applying technology to marketing. In 2005, for example, Zions introduced a merchant-funded rewards program that was the first of its kind. Today, many banks have similar programs.

Since mobile phones are soaring in popularity, there has been much discussion about the development of a "mobile wallet" that would include such features as mobile payments. ABA Bank Marketing and Sales asked Zions about the reason for developing. a mobile rewards app. Is this a precursor to a mobile payments app? Does Zions see other banks going in this direction in the future? And, what has been consumer reaction?

Walt Albro, editor of ABA Bank Marketing and Sales magazine spoke with Rob Brough, executive vice president of marketing and communications at Zions. Below are excerpts from their conversation.

Why did Zions Bank develop a mobile rewards app?

Even though the mobile wallet industry has been around for a while, we're still very early in the process. There's so much yet to be decided: whether a mobile wallet will be cloud-based or near field communication (NFC)-based and what mPOS (mobile point of sale) will play, among other factors.

Some of the biggest companies in the world are fighting in this arena, with very little success to...