Hot on the heels of major
branch, online and call centre investment, Royal Bank of Canada has
expanded its mobile banking service. James McGuire, vice-president,
digital strategy and experience at RBC, tells Duygu Tavan that the
bank now offers the country’s first fully integrated mobile banking
application for smartphones.

 

Photo of James McGuire, Royal Bank of CanadaFor once, Royal
Bank of Canada (RBC), one of the most successful retail banks in
the world during the financial crisis, cannot claim a first.

CIBC, TD and Scotiabank launched
mobile banking applications for smartphones ahead of RBC, the
country’s largest bank by assets.

But according to RBC, it has
leapfrogged its rivals with the roll out of Canada’s first fully
integrated mobile banking applications for select smartphones. That
claim equates to offering the same range of functionality via the
mobile channel that is on offer to the bank’s online customers.

RBC launched its m-banking apps for
smartphones in late December – some eight months after CIBC, the
country’s fifth-largest bank by assets, launched the first
m-banking app in Canada.

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James McGuire, RBC vice-president,
digital strategy and experience, told RBI the apparent
delay is nothing negative and has been worth the wait: The iPhone
app went live on 17 December on the app store, promptly reaching
number one in the country’s app download charts.

RBC then made the Blackberry app
available for download on its website on 20 December and took it to
the Blackberry store on 7 January.

“We have seen an incredibly good
response to the take-up,” said McGuire. “The number of clients who
downloaded the application in the first week exceeded the number of
our existing active mobile clients. So far we have had 250,000
downloads for both apps.”

RBC has offered a web browser based
mobile banking service since 2008, but in two years has attracted
only 40,000 regular users – little over 1% of its Photos showing the RBC Mobile offering was the top app3m regular
online banking customers.

The new service represents a major
leap forward in extending its m-banking channel. McGuire said the
bank decided to ramp up its m-banking service when smartphone use
in Canada started to accelerate.

Prior to the apps debut, RBC polled
customers to analyse market appetite and found that:

  • 44% of Canadians were
    interested in mobile banking;
  • 69% found it
    convenient;
  • 24% were worried about
    security;
  • 34% considered checking
    account balances to be the top priority;
  • 32% wanted to pay
    bills;
  • 26% said they would transfer
    funds between accounts.

“Now it is about how we offer
m-banking,” said McGuire. “We leverage the power of the smartphone.
Back then, we were using a mobile browser. But this app works on a
different navigational model, using all the features and functions
of the phone.”

He added that the mobile banking
service offers the same safety and security guarantee that is
offered with RBC’s online banking services: If an unauthorised
transaction is conducted through an RBC mobile banking service,
clients will be reimbursed for any resultant losses to the
accounts, he said.

“We understand how our clients
interact with their handsets and how they intend to use their
m-banking app. We wanted to use the full capability and
functionality of smartphones to make banking easy.”

He added that the service will
appeal to all segments of smartphone and online banking users: the
hyper-active online banking client, the occasional customer who is
on the move a lot but uses the online service whenever possible and
the regular smartphone owner.

The RBC application enables the
bank’s customers to access a full range of services, including:

  • viewing account balances and
    details for credit lines, credit cards, mortgages and
    loans;
  • paying bills (if signed up
    for e-banking);
  • viewing past transaction and
    payments;
  • transferring funds between
    RBC accounts, and
  • making third-party
    payments.

In particular, the app will appeal
to Blackberry users most because of the navigational ease, McGuire
said.

“The application allows you to do
your banking the same way you would use any other function on the
phone,” he added.

The service will initially be
available only on the iPhone and select Blackberry devices, but
McGuire said the bank will expand the service to other specific
smartphones, including the Android and Windows phones, in the next
six to 12 months.

“We are working [on expanding the
service to Android and Windows phones] as we speak,” McGuire
said.

And, he added, there are “more advanced services on the roadmap”
to improve RBC’s mobile banking service, including bill
presentment, post dated transactions and the bank’s online budget
tool, myFinanceTracker – which will be added to the service in the
future.