Mobile phones have increasingly become tools that consumers use for banking, payments, budgeting, and shopping. Given the rapid pace of developments in the area of mobile finance, the Federal Reserve Board began conducting annual surveys of consumers’ use of mobile financial services in 2011. This 78-page report, “Consumers and Mobile Financial Services” (March, 2015) examines trends in the adoption and use of mobile banking, payments, and shopping behavior and how the emergence of mobile financial services affects consumers’ interaction with financial institutions.
FICO to Offer Telrock SMS and Mobile Payment App to Customers
FICO, a provider of analytics and decision management technology, and London-based Telrock Communications Ltd., developer of mobile applications for banking, payments and debt management, today announced an agreement under which FICO will resell Telrock’s interactive text and smartphone applications around the world.
Telrock applications give FICO clients a new, fully secure mobile channel for communicating with customers, improving customer service and collecting payments.
“By offering Telrock mobile apps, we believe we can deliver help our clients in banking and other industries strengthen both their credit portfolios and their customer relationships.”
With Telrock’s unique mobile payment applications such as textDebit, customers can make payments by replying to SMS alerts or through smartphone apps. Telrock clients have reported that 40% of customers make payments within 30 minutes of receiving a mobile alert, and 74% make payments within 48 hours.
According to Telrock, payment arrangements managed by interactive text messaging have a completion rate of 63%, which is 20% above the average for non-SMS payment plans. Users of Telrock mobile applications include leading banks and utility companies, such as RBS, NatWest, British Gas, and Scottish and Southern Energy.
“Smartphone penetration is predicted to be 50% in 2012 and 80% by 2015, opening up a vast new communication channel for business,” said Telrock CEO Russell Robinson. “Younger generations in particular have shown a marked preference for receiving communications via SMS and apps over voice. Our agreement with FICO will enable credit grantors worldwide to leverage this channel to speed payments, cut collection costs and improve customer satisfaction.”
Telrock’s mobile-based services include sophisticated customer account management and protection functionality, as well as customer payment handling and alerting. Clients using these services can significantly reduce operating costs, achieve improved customer satisfaction and increase payment and contact rates, using a channel that costs less than traditional phone-based communications.
“Mobile payments have the potential to revolutionize banking by giving customers a quick, simple and secure channel for making sensitive payment arrangements,” said Mike Gordon, FICO’s general manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “By offering Telrock mobile apps, we believe we can deliver help our clients in banking and other industries strengthen both their credit portfolios and their customer relationships.”
Source: Business Wire