In just a couple of years, New Zealand-based application developer M-Com has become a leader in the field of banking applications for mobile channels. M-Com expects several banks in New Zealand and Australia to deploy its newly-launched Java-based application M-banking by the middle of this year. The application enables bank customers to manage services on their mobile phones via SMS, WAP or a downloadable Java client.

M-Banking will attract anyone who finds it helpful to utilize such services as balance inquiries, recent payments, funds transfers between accounts, alerts on account activities and person-to-person payments on a mobile phone, PDA or similar mobile channel. The next version will also include billing services.

Adam Clark, CEO of M-Com, says in the near future, consumers will start to choose banks on the basis of whether they can enable customers to manage bank services on mobile devices.

M-Banking is the follow up to the M-Credit mobile payment application, which mainly targeted business owners wanting to charge their customers via a mobile channel. The SMS and WAP versions of M-banking will enable mass-market reach, but they are more limited than the Java version. Clark says a typical adopter of this type of banking service will be anyone who feels they have to closely manage their time; a lot of business people fit into that category. Other adopters could be people who are technically capable and want to manage their banking themselves but don't have regular access to the internet.

"There are always people looking for ways to do things whenever they want, wherever they are," Clark says. "If you want to buy a dress in a shop, you want to know if you can afford it without having to wait until you get home."

M-Banking services are easy to access - a person calls their bank and registers for the service, it is downloaded to their phone, the user activates the service and begins using it. Once established, the user is given a password to use each time they access their bank services. The service's ease of use is just as important to customers as a high level of security.

"We have a mature product with a functionality that is proven, including some security issues that are fundamental," Clark says. "It is a mix of appropriate standards with levels of security superior to internet banking."

M-Com's customers will primarily be banks, although partnerships with mobile operators to deliver the services to banks, which will then charge the consumer, are also established. As banking services involve relatively small amounts of data, fees will not be significant. Banks will most likely charge a transaction fee for use of the service instead.

M-Com has its headquarters in Auckland, New Zealand. It was founded in 2001 by a group of people with a banking payment background who started to develop mobile applications they thought were missing on the market. Five years later, M-Com has won several developers' competitions in New Zealand on the basis of its innovation and market-readiness.

"We have a strong level of focus and a reputation for making things happen," Clark says. "In terms of achieving success on a global basis, we've got some growth in us; it is very exciting."