By Bernard Watemberg
It comes as no surprise that in today’s rapidly advancing society the future of the banking industry is sitting in the palm of our hands. Yes, you read that correctly. We no longer need to walk into a branch in order to carry out our routine bank transactions, such as writing checks or monitoring spending. Recently, some of the large financial institutions, such as J.P. Morgan Chase, have developed and launched mobile banks that use an app platform and work as any physical branch does.
J.P. Morgan Chase launched its new application, called “Finn”, which is growing nationwide across the US. This platform offers not only your typical checking and savings account functions, but also gives you automatic savings tools. The point of these mobile banking platforms is to lead the larger companies such as Chase to new markets without having to physically exist in them. This solution is both time-saving and cost-effective. In addition, it saves the average consumer the headache of traveling to the bank in order to deposit a simple check or even consult with an associate. In addition, Finn offers an “auto-save” option which has several functionalities, such as automatically transferring money to your savings account. The app gives you the option to decide how much money to transfer and the amount of time between each transfer.
Similarly, Kiplinger, a financial advice and business forecast publisher, rated “Ally Bank” as the best bank for millenials. Ally Bank works in similar manner to Chase’s Finn, though it is slightly more user friendly. In fact, users from Ally can withdraw cash from as much as 43,000 ATM machines across the United States. The app has no monthly-maintenance fees and requires no minimum amount to open or maintain an account. Ally’s interest-bearing checking account option has a 0.1% APY (annual-percentage yield) for balances below $15,000, and a 0.6% for balances upward of that. These interest rates are very competitive; they compare to Chase’s 0.1% APY on all checking accounts. Also, Ally offers a competitive 1.75% APY on savings accounts and an average of 2.3% APY on CD’s.
As a matter of fact, Ally Bank can be linked to mobile payment methods such as Apple Pay and Google Pay and it even offers cash-back credit cards with high returns on purchases from gas stations and grocery stores. This feature is quite helpful for young adults or students who could use the extra aid when buying groceries on a budget. Millennials adapt to technological changes and will take advantage of the mobile paying methods and the cash-back options.
Unfortunately, there is one major disadvantage to Ally Bank and that is the inability to deposit cash into accounts. Finn offers an alternative solution by allowing you to deposit cash into a Chase account (on the premise that you own one) and then transfer the funds. However, this is both time-consuming and difficult in areas where there are no Chase branches.
While mobile banks are both time-saving and cost-effective, consumers still need to be able to consult a representative for a variety of banking needs, which they don’t have an option to do in these mobile banking apps. Cloudonix offers an effective solution to this problem in the new mobile banking industry. With the Cloudonix communication platform, these apps have the ability to provide 24/7 customer relationship management and support by either phone call or chat through the app. The customer would be immediately identified and verified, and be able to access the specific banker to help with his specific banking need, in just a mere few seconds. There would be no need for unending verification as that would be done in-app before the banker would even answer on their side. The entire process would be quick, efficient, and dare we say, enjoyable. Additionally, banks can monitor consumer behavior and determine the situation even before the consumer explains what they need.
The concept of mobile banks is still in its early stage of development, but breakthroughs have been accomplished and it seems as if it is just a matter of time before all major financial institutions go mobile.
