Text Message Banking

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Text Message Banking

Your bank at the end of your mobile phone?

That might be a nightmare for some, but for most people it will allow them to stay in touch with their financial affairs like never before.

Imagine the scenario of being out shopping and eyeing those special shoes, or that gadget that you must have, and thinking, do I have enough money to treat myself.

Well, you have a few choices. Walk away, promising to check your bank account when you get to the nearest ATM; don’t buy the goods; or, you can now text your bank and get a balance on your mobile phone.

As people become more mobile and more used to internet banking, this type of service is being offered by an increasing number of institutions, giving people a sense of immediacy about their banking affairs that they’ve never had before.

And it’s not only balance requests that the mobile phone service can offer, it can also be used to pay bills, make transfers, request itemized lists and make password changes. In short, it’s internet banking via a mobile phone.

The service is also being finessed all the time, with the result that you can locate your bank’s nearest ATM, or branch; receive a text once a given threshold has been reached (say last £100 in account, go carefully); or, receive flash warnings if say someone was making an unauthorized withdrawal from your account.

The potential is massive, but so is the potential for abuse warn the experts. Internet banking has certainly been a liberating experience for most bank users (especially the younger generation say the researchers), but it also has been very liberating for online thieves who have become adept at separating people from their money.

The trouble with modern day banking is that if you acquire someone’s account details by nefarious means, you can access their account very quickly and before any action is taken, be off with their money, or order goods. And the cyber criminals are adept at ways pf working around whatever security measure the banks might take. So, whilst in theory online banking will introduce ever more liberating features and services, the downside is of course the constant threat of online crime.

But, the consumer can offset the risk by making sure that their bank, or financial institution, takes a lot of the responsibility for online crimes.

Of course, if the consumer is negligent, then they possibly deserve to bear some of the cost themselves, but if the actual banking system is penetrated by criminals, then the institution should hold their hands up and accept their share of the blame. But things are never that straightforward of course.

So, when it comes to banking on your mobile phone, make sure that you read the fine print and find out who is responsible in the event of monetary thefts. You basically need the same guarantees as with your existing bank accounts. If you can’t get these, then you should think twice about conducting your banking affairs via your mobile phone.

And just think what would happen if your mobile phone was lost, or stolen. You should have a way of being able to report its loss immediately, meaning that your phone and mobile banking methods can be barred straight away, avoiding any losses.

This is helped by the fact that mobile banking should not need the storage of lots of personal information on the handset. In fact, your phone should store less information than is commonly found on a receipt issued by an ATM.

So, if you are confident that you are not exposing yourself to internet crime, and that if you are not negligent, you are not liable for the losses should you be hacked, then the next thing to consider is costs. Although banks might claim they offer free mobile banking, make sure this is the case long term (and not just introductionary offers) and make sure that your actual mobile costs aren’t increased using mobile banking (web browsing can seriously increase your download activity so make sure you do not breach your limits).

Another consideration is technique; how do you communicate with your bank via your mobile phone? You have three basic choices. Firstly, text messaging which is possibly the easiest method, but not the most sophisticated. Secondly, using a web browser which allows you to access your account as you would from your desktop computer and gives you a similar level of service, allowing you to do most things when mobile, as you would when based at home, or in the office. The downside of course is that web browsing depends on your mobile’s ability to give you a good connection and display enough of the website to be able to do what you require for online banking.

And thirdly, by downloading software from your bank. A bank application download is a good compromise between the simpler text messaging and the more complicated web-browsing, but, as mentioned earlier, ensure that the information stored on your phone does not make it easy for the online thieves.

Banking is set to take off and if you wish to stay young at heart, bear in mind that it’s the younger generation (those aged between 18 and 25), that are fully embracing mobile banking. Just remember to watch out for those people that also use online banking to part you from you money.