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Singapore’s OCBC Bank Uses "Mobile" in its URL to Help Users Find Mobile Offerings

Both Yahoo and Google have creating landing pages for their mobile offerings at http://mobile.google.com and http://mobile.yahoo.com.

OCBC  banner image on its mobile banking page

As interest in mobile banking picks up, financial institutions should create a mobile service page under the URL http://mobile.yourbank.com.

OCBC's downloaded mobile banking application on Sony Ericsson phone CLICK TO ENLARGEFor example, Singapore's OCBC Bank has a WAP site at http://mobile.ocbc.com. that has links to basic info and the downloadable application used for True Mobile Banking (see mobile phone image right).

The bank also has a mobile information page on its regular website (here) that provides information about its mobile services. Currently, there is nothing like it in the U.S., but Citibank/mFoundry appear to be on the verge of a launch in early 2007 (see OCBC banner above and screenshot of complete webpage below, click to enlarge).

OCBC Singapore main mobile banking info page CLICK TO ENLARGE

Even if you don't have a WAP site or other mobile services, you should at least provide information on text-based alerts which work well for most mobile devices.

In a test of the 20 largest U.S. retail banks, only Fifth Third has a URL with the word "mobile" <http://mobile.53.com>. However, unlike OCBC, Fifth Third's mobile URL has not been optimized for mobile access (WAP), nor does it contain any info on mobile services. Either Fifth Third is about to launch a mobile initiative or they just have very thorough Web programmers.