Banks are adept at utilizing technology to create, distribute and service financial products. Banks were early adopters of internet-enabled capabilities in the late 1990's. Today, the mobile channel is emerging as another opportunity for banks to enhance their value to their customers.
As with prior network technology evolutions, the mobile channel is evolving even as banks attempt to utilize it. This situation has created issues for early adopter banks, as well as questions for the industry about how to structure their relationships with the new players brought to the financial services table by the promise of opportunities in the mobile arena. These questions span the entire gamut of network dynamics, regulatory, legal, technology, business models, consumer adoption and financial. As in earlier network evolutions, each of these dynamics will have to be thoroughly analyzed and understood by the banking industry in order to move toward an efficient, effective utilization of this new technology. There are lessons to be learned from the deregulation of the monopoly AT&T network in the 1980's and in the evolution of the Internet in the late 1990's.
