News

Oxygen8 helps Bank of America go mobile

Thursday 15th July 2010, 12.32pm

Bank of America, Europe’s largest credit card provider under its MBNA subsidiary, is offering a new mobile banking text service to European cardholders, via a partnership with Oxygen8 Communications, the micro-billing and mobile enablement specialist. Users can request account information by SMS, get alerts, and benefit from a text message-based fraud prevention service.

The mobile banking text service from Oxygen8 acts as a gateway to information between Bank of America and its five million MBNA European cardholders. Customers can initiate requests for account information, including balance, payments and transaction details via an SMS request to a dedicated mobile short-code number, or to a more traditional mobile should customers prefer to take advantage of any text messages included within their mobile plan. The flexible service can also send out alerts, as was the case recently when the bank used it during the recent volcanic ash cloud disruption in Europe, as a means of keeping in contact with its customers while they were abroad, often relying on their cards to keep them sheltered and fed.

“As the market evolves with new and improved technology, our customers’ expectations change too,” says Phil Weston, head of mobile services at Bank of America, when explaining the rationale behind the new service. “Customer research has shown that people want far greater choice about how and when they obtain account information. Through mobile messaging, and the web and voice recognition services we offer to check identities and prevent fraud, we are investing heavily in meeting our customer demands.”