After a decade of trial and error, mobile banking finally seems to be taking hold among consumers…although there is still a lot of room for growth.

A December 2011-January 2012 survey by the Federal Reserve looked at consumers’ use of mobile technology; essentially, its role in accessing financial services and making financial decisions. Among the 87 percent of mobile phone owners in the United States, 21 percent say they have used mobile banking in the past year, with another 11 percent reporting they plan to use it.

The survey also found that mobile banking is most often used to check account balances and recent transactions (90 percent of users), followed by transferring money (42 percent). But, perhaps surprisingly, only 12 percent of mobile phone users report making a mobile payment in the past 12 months.

Why the hesitation? Maybe it’s the result of lingering concerns about mobile banking’s security and limited usefulness on some devices – 42 percent reported that security doubts keeps them from using mobile payments. Further, more than half of respondents (58 percent) felt traditional banking adequately met their needs, so they had no need for mobile banking. More than a third said they either don’t see a benefit in making payments by mobile device or they find other payment methods easier.

So, despite mobile’s growth, it’s clear that safety fears and ease of use have created hurdles to growing consumer adoption.

Armed with this knowledge, credit unions can develop more effective mobile banking programs or reexamine their current mobile programs and make adjustments. Here are some ideas:

• Increase the focus on member education to address ease-of-use issues.
• Add incentives to strengthen the perceived benefits for members making mobile payments versus traditional payments.
• Promote security measures that work to keep members’ financial activities safe.

With the large majority of the U.S. population having mobile phones, credit unions have a good opportunity to grow their mobile-banking programs. But the key is to know your audience, including their mobile preferences and their concerns about “going mobile”, and then create your program accordingly.

[This article originally ran in the DigitalMailer Newsletter. To sign up for this free, monthly email newsletter, visit our newsletter page and subscribe with our easy-to-use webform.]

by Jimmy Marks

Happy 34th birthday, SPAM.

That’s right, the world’s first SPAM message was sent today. It was sent to 400 users on the ARPAnet, the very first version of the Internet. And, as you might guess, people who received this unsolicited message were upset about it.

Isn’t this just the way technology works, though? A broadcast medium emerges, people are interested, then more people, then someone seeks to monetize that medium. After all, someone had to pay for “Little Orphan Annie” on the radio, for “The Flintstone’s” on TV, and for “Stories about who Kim Kardashian is dating” on TMZ. So, why wouldn’t you reach out to as many as 2400 users at once?

Still, we wish no one had ever sent that first SPAM message. Why? Because:

1. It wears away at the ease-of-use of email - If you never got another SPAM message, you’d never have to add extra SPAM folders, create a “priority” inbox, buy extra virus- and malware-scanning software…you’d get messages only from people and companies you knew and used.
2. It’s dangerous – People who don’t know a friendly email from an unfriendly one can open themselves up to all kinds of problems. Forget viruses – consider phishing scams. One misplaced username and password and a person can lose their identity, their money, even their job.
3. It’s costly - varying reports state that SPAM costs us (“us” meaning “everyone in the world who uses email”) about $130 billion yearly. Consider, too, that each SPAM message has its own carbon footprint. According to this report from McAfee, the sum of all SPAM carbon could power 2.4 million U.S. homes. Couldn’t we stand to have that energy power…I dunno, anything else?
4. It damages trust – As a company that sends emails for hundreds of businesses across the country, we want people to get helpful messages with useful content. When everyone looks at every message they get with a jaundiced eye, it makes it harder for us to do our job. In a perfect world, users would subscribe and unsubscribe and we’d all get along just fine. Alas, that world isn’t coming any time soon.

So, happy 34th birthday, SPAM. Now, hurry up and die already.

That’s right, it’s DigitalMailer’s 12th year in business. What started as a few employees and a little ambition has grown into a company with multiple sites, over 170 clients and lots and lots of great stories.

Our company began shortly after the “Dot-Com Bubble” burst. In a time when others were fleeing from online services, we decided to stand our ground and fulfill our goal – helping financial institutions of all sizes move their users away from costly paper products and toward compliant, secure, sustainable electronic documents and marketing pieces. It’s this desire that has served us so well for these past twelve years, even up to this very day.

We can’t tell you how proud we are of the work our clients and colleagues have done.  We’re thrilled to be one of the most trusted names in electronic documents, online marketing, social monitoring, compliance communication and emergency response technology. When problems arise in the finance industry, we create programs that help our clients get up-to-date and compliant. Client satisfaction is always our most important goal – and that’s never going to change.

We look forward to many more years of helping clients connect, communicate, and grow. Here’s hoping you’ll join us.

We’ve been really excited by the reception we’ve had over our new SocialSentry product. Plenty of you called to talk to us about the product – how it works, how it helps, what it tracks – and we decided we should talk about it over lunch.

Thus, we’ve decided to set up a new “Brown Bag Webinar” all about SocialSentry. On Friday, February 3rd and Tuesday, February 7th, join us for one of two sessions (East and West Coast) and let us tell you all about SocialSentry. Bring your lunch!

Click here to visit our webinars page and sign up!

We here at DigitalMailer are thankful to our clients, corporate partners, and staff for all their trust, dedication and hard work.

We’re thankful that so many financial institutions and companies trust us with their budgets and we’re thankful that we can be of help.

We’re thankful for the past eleven years we’ve been in business, even as we look forward into the future.

Here’s hoping that tomorrow, we all take time to be thankful for the people that helped get us where we are and the ones that will help get us where we’re going.

Thank you, and Happy Thanksgiving.