ANZ banking goes mobile

ANZ is set to jump ahead of its competitors by becoming the first bank in Australia to launch a mobile phone banking service

ANZ ATM /File

ANZ banking goes mobile

ANZ is set to jump ahead of its competitors by becoming the first bank in Australia to launch a mobile phone banking service.

The bank is understood to be trialling the service with a small group of customers before a full commercial launch within weeks.

ANZ spokeswoman Katherine Rellos would not confirm the rollout of the service, but details of the mobile banking feature are on the bank's website.

The bank will offer a simple service called TXT Banking, which delivers account balances and transaction information to customers by SMS and the more sophisticated M-Banking, where a mobile telephone can be used to transfer money between any bank accounts.

While TXT Banking can be used on any phone, M-Banking requires a device that has GPRS internet access and can run the Java computer language.

On its website, ANZ has listed 76 phones compatible with M-Banking.

Although the bank would not disclose how much the service will cost locally, it is expected to be similar to a system offered by ANZ's New Zealand subsidiary, which has been running for the past 12 months and charges a subscription fee of $NZ2 ($1.75) a month to use M-Banking and TXT Banking.

Additionally, users pay for any SMS sent or received, as well as the data download costs for the M-Banking service.

Westpac New Zealand launched an SMS banking service about two years ago, and the Bank of New Zealand, a subsidiary of the National Australia Bank, offers a version of the M-Banking product.

New Zealand technology company M-Com, which supplies the platform for ANZ's New Zealand subsidiary, is understood to be in discussion with other Australian banks about rolling out mobile banking platforms locally, and expects they will all do something this year.