UK mobile banking explodes

An "explosion" of mobile phone banking is underway, a fast-growing UK technology group claimed yesterday, according to Guardian Unlimited.

Mobile banking specialist Monitise already allows people to check their balance and view a mini-statement on their phones, thanks to partnerships with operators such as Vodafone and Orange, as well as HSBC, Alliance & Leicester and Royal Bank of Scotland.

Monitise says its services will be accessible to one-third of current account cardholders in Britain soon.

NCR, the tech company primarily known for its $2 billion ATM business, is diversifying its efforts in self-service for banks, says The Asian Banker.

Separation from Teradata, the relational database management system provider NCR, acquired in February of 1991, will mean it can focus more on ATM technology, which it intends to enrich with small new self-service acquisitions.

NCR is piloting some of this new technology in Singapore at a branch of DBS Bank. There customers can use self-service kiosks to identify their name and transaction type as they join the queue, so tellers can handle their transactions in a smoother manner when the customers reach them.

TietoEnator and RSA, the Security Division of EMC, have entered a partnership agreement in the electronic banking arena, says the Finnish daily Kauppalehti.

The agreement will enable TietoEnator to offer RSA security solutions with the TietoEnator eBanking Suite as a package solution in the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East and Africa).

In addition, TietoEnator becomes a reseller of RSA's information-centric security solutions within the Nordic region.