ATLANTA-Although wireless banking services have suffered from low subscriber numbers and uninterested customers, Premier America Credit Union recently launched a new text-messaging service the firm said is enjoying some success.
Premier America teamed with Digital Insight and wireless technology company Air2Web to launch a wireless alerts service in May and now counts 181 users. Although the number of wireless users is only a tiny portion of the banking firm’s 70,000 total members, Premier America considers it a far greater success than its previous wireless banking effort.
In 2001, Premier America introduced a WAP-based banking service, which allowed mobile-phone users with WAP Internet browsers to check their balances and even transfer funds. However, Shelley Hawthorne, the firm’s eServices manager, said the service didn’t catch on.
“We were really limited to only the techy people-we had a total of about six people use it,” she said.
Premier America’s new service works through text messaging, a much more widely available and more popular technology than WAP. According to research and consulting firm Yankee Group, more than 100 million of the nation’s 160 million wireless subscribers own text messaging-capable phones-far more than those with WAP browsers. Further, new research shows the use of text messaging is growing in the United States.
Premier America’s wireless banking service allows Internet banking users to sign up for alerts that will be sent to their mobile phones. The messages can alert users of their balances, past transactions and other information.
Air2Web offers a variety of wireless technology services and works with more than 35 financial institutions, including Delta Employees Credit Union, ABN AMRO and ICICI Bank. The company’s customers are notable because a variety of banking firms have shuttered their wireless banking programs during the past several years.
