Q&A: iPhone is most popular for mobile banking at BofA

Bank of America Corp. supports mobile banking on 800 different models of wireless devices, but the iPhone and iPod Touch make up 40% of the 2.7 million devices used by the bank's customers.

"iPhone is the most popular model used ... along with iPod Touch," said Douglas Brown, senior vice president for mobile product development at Bank of America in Charlotte, N.C.

"The iPhone just has such an incredible interface and ease of use which people use to discover content," he said. "Apple introduced the App Store just one year after launch, and just look at how people have rallied around the platform."

Brown said mobile banking adoption at Bank of America has been "very strong" since first launched in May 2007, with 2.7 million customers today.

Brown spoke about the value of mobile banking, as well as its future in an interview with Computerworld. Here are some from that interview:

Last I heard, Bank of America had passed the 2 million mark for mobile banking. Is that correct? We have 2.7 million mobile users, which is very strong. That's because I think it's a useful application and provides practicality for customers. They get it and it's intuitive to most folks. When we designed it, it was to make it easy to use.

It runs on a number of smartphones and other devices, but how many? We designed it to be comprehensive from the get go, so it runs on 800 different handsets, which covers the smartphone fleet and the majority of feature phones. That includes every very kind of OS - the iPhone, RIM, Android, and mobile Web access for others.

So users of Windows Mobile devices have to rely on mobile Web access for your banking app, even though Microsoft takes great pains to say how many devices they run on and how huge they are globally? Yes, so far, but we are excited for the Windows Mobile 6.5 launch later this year. That might open up a direct interface for us. Windows Mobile is in the 20 million devices range, and definitely an OS of some substance.

So is Bank of America building these mobile interfaces? We invented the interfaces in-house, and our architectural design is unique, which allows the flexibility to support diverse platforms. We certify support for new devices to make sure they keep in sync with Bank of America -- to make sure we stay in front of every product. We have built an infrastructure that gets information on new devices. We have a small but skilled teams based in San Francisco, Chicago and Charlotte, N.C.

There seems to be a race going on among banks to offer mobile banking services. Do you believe Tower Group's recent forecast that there will be five times as many mobile banking customers in the U.S., more than 53 million, by 2013? Five times as many in 2013? Yes, I think that's viable and achievable. With our 2.7 million, our customers have a whole new level of convenience. Online desktop banking is very convenient, but even more convenient when made mobile.

How do you compare with other banks? We're told we have the largest market share. We started in May 2007, and it took us 13 months to get our first million, and nine more to get the second million.

For more enterprise computing news, visit Computerworld. Story copyright Computerworld, Inc.