Retail banking tech spend rises

Global spending on retail banking technology will increase by 24% over the next five years to hit $132 billion, according to new figures released by Ovum, notes On Windows.

The independent technology analyst believes the increase in investment will be driven by the need to grow revenues and improve customers' trust. This will lead to accelerated investment in online and mobile banking, technology in branches (in emerging markets) and channel integration.

Figures show that global investment in technology to allow customers to access banking services via the Internet will grow 33% from 2010 to 2015, to reach $9.7 billion.

Southtech, a Bangladeshi software company, has successfully implemented a mobile-banking system at Bhutan Development Financial Corporation Limited (BDFCL), having 29 branches there, states The Financial Express.

Southtech managing director Syed Mamnun Quader told the Financial Express: "Now customers of the bank can obtain their latest account information with cellphones, instruct the bank to transfer funds, pay utility bills like water, electricity and city corporation bills, and top-up their phones.

"They can also make other payments such as insurance premium and school fees, and order for new cheque-books through SMS. All these operations will be processed through the central server of BDFCL."

Bank Companion, a provider of mobile banking software to banks, has revealed the addition of Mobile Threshold Alerts for its mobile banking software platform, says Benzinga.

The new mobile alerts system enables a financial institution to deliver instantaneous SMS alerts whenever a customer's account has fallen below a pre-defined balance.

When signing up for mobile banking, consumers can now select a balance threshold for each of the accounts they have with their financial institutions.