Verizon Wireless has announced mobile banking for BlackBerry users.
The carrier introduced a mobile banking application that works on BlackBerry Curve 8330, BlackBerry Pearl 8130 and BlackBerry 8830 World Edition smartphones. The mobile banking application also is available on several Get It Now-capable phones, said the company.
The application allows customers to view account balances and transaction history, transfer funds between eligible accounts, view and pay bills and view the past five transactions completed on their mobile device.
Customers must have accounts with participating banks, which currently include Wachovia, Regions, SunTrust, USAA, Synovus, America First Credit Union, Arvest, Bancorp South, FirstBank, South Financial and BECU.
A new report from IMS Research says the time is right for banking to move to mobile phones. With more smartphones and greater penetration of data plans, there is growing demand for mobile banking services from consumers, operators and financial stakeholders, said IMS.
“There has been a marked increase in the level of activity of key players in the market from both the mobile and the financial companies in the past 12 months,” said John Devlin, lead analyst for the report. “In regions such as North America, Japan and South Korea strong partnerships are being formed between mobile operators and banks.
The report predicts cellular subscribers will grow 32% during the next four years, while mobile banking and payment services will grow by 662% during the same period.
