According to mobile reviews and mobile news, Short Message Standard (SMS) is a feature which is standard in almost all mobile handsets. It is available in both the high end as well as the low end mobile handsets. An SMS based service is hosted on an SMS gateway that further connects to the Mobile service providers SMS Centre. As a result, people from across the board can easily be reached using the text-message standard. This has made it one of the most popular technologies used in mobile banking.
How is SMS applied in mobile banking?
The process of using SMS is fairly straight forward. Banks provide their clients with a list of numbers they can use to request particular information by sending an SMS to that specified number. Once an SMS is sent to any of the specified numbers, the bank responds via the same mode providing the information sought by the client.
A number of mobile banking transactions and inquiries can be carried out using this mode. Some of the applications of SMS technology in mobile banking include account balance confirmation, checking various statements and checking a loan’s status. Most of the services afforded by the use of SMS are enquiry based. This is because the SMS technology has huge security gaps which make it risky for transaction based services. In addition, the inability of SMS to offer a custom user interface greatly diminishes customer satisfaction since mobile banking consumers cannot access complex services. However, there are some mobile banking services offering small amount money transfer services via SMS. An example of this is Vodafone’s M-PESA service available in some East African Countries and the Middle East.