AT&T, Wachovia partner for nationwide m-banking

In tandem with financial services firm Wachovia, SunTrust Banks and mobile banking and payment enabler Firethorn Holdings, AT&T announced a nationwide mobile banking platform that will enable subscribers to view account balances and history, transfer funds and pay bills from their handsets. The mobile banking application will arrive pre-loaded on future AT&T handsets beginning by year's end. The operator promises that embedding the solution on devices will make it easier for subscribers to locate the mobile banking icon and access the service. AT&T adds the banking app is also available for download on more than 30 handsets, representing roughly 30 million devices already in use. AT&T mobile banking access is free; data charges apply, but the carrier said the service is optimized to reduce the number of page views necessary to complete each transaction.

"From our experience as the first major U.S. bank to offer a mobile banking solution, the demand for mobile capabilities is clear--people want to bank when and where it is convenient for them," said Wachovia's director of emerging applications Ilieva Ageenko in a prepared statement. "AT&T takes mobile financial solutions to the next level by extending the capabilities to a much broader base and provides Wachovia customers with an innovative new method of ubiquitous access to their financial information."

For more on the AT&T mobile banking service:
- read this release [1]

Related articles:
Cingular investing in mobile banking [2]
Study: Consumer trends favor m-banking [3] takeoff
Sybase 365 debuts mobile banking [4] service
Bank of America [5] goes mobile