T-Mobile, Monitise m-banking partners

T-Mobile has partnered with Morse spin-off Monitise to offer its customers mobile banking services, according to CRN UK.

Under the terms of the deal, T-Mobile will use Monitise's mobile banking technology to enable it to offer its customers the option of registering and receiving bank balance alerts by text message.

Damien Byrne, head of new proposition development at T-Mobile, said: “Working with Monitise has enabled us to bring new mobile services to market quickly and easily.”

Cyber crooks have stolen more than EUR300 000 (R3.37 million) in just three weeks from German bank accounts using a sophisticated new Trojan that forges online statements to hide the theft from victims, according to a report from security outfit Finjan, reports Finextra.

Finjan says the Ukraine-based gang used Web sites - legitimate infected ones as well as fakes - to spread malicious code with the crimeware toolkit LuckySpoilt.

After infection, a bank Trojan was installed on the victims' machines and logged their account details before starting communication with a command and control server in the Ukraine. The server told the Trojan, URLZone, how much to steal from each account and where to send it.

According to Aite Group, the number of banks in the US offering mobile banking is expected to increase to 614 in 2009, compared to 245 in 2008, says My Bank Tracker.

Banks have begun to adopt mobile banking technology after overcoming fears of low return-on-investment and risks of investing in perpetually changing technology. Other concerns included security, fraud, and lack of cellular services by the customer, which would prevent banks from providing a good user experience.

Now, banks have realised the benefits of mobile banking technology because it adds value to customer service, increases product exposure to existing customers, and increases customer loyalty while being highly cost-effective.