BEST FINANCIAL APP AIB - ME2U
BANKING MADE MOBILE Fergal Coburn, Head of Strategy & Development, Direct Channels at AIB explains how the organisation’s Me2U app has gone from strength to strength, in keeping with AIB’s digital strategy.
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he world is undeniably moving to digital, particularly mobile. Increasing numbers of people are shopping online, booking seats or tickets online, researching online and banking online – all through their mobile devices. As a result, it’s imperative that businesses recognise this shift in attitudes, and reorganise their strategy accordingly. That’s exactly what AIB has done over the past two years. “AIB has a very focused mobile banking strategy with the general population trend towards the adoption of mobile in all aspects of their lives. Financial services is obviously a key aspect, and the public have shown en masse that they want to use mobile to access their banking services,” explains AIB’s Head of Strategy & Development, Direct Channels at AIB, Fergal Coburn. “AIB, over the past two years, has offered the leading mobile banking application in the market and a very significant part of our user base is actively using mobile banking in excess of 13 times per month.” As part of this strategy came a new banking app from AIB, known as Me2U.
Provided in association with VISA the app allows registered AIB phone and internet banking/tablet banking customers to send money from a visa debit or credit card to a recipient’s card – using the recipient’s mobile phone. The process is quite simple and intuitive – customers simply need to register for online, phone or tablet banking, and then download the app. To ensure secure transactions, each install of Me2U includes a Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) installed on the device once the app has been linked to the account. An AIB code card or reader is also required when registering or editing Me2U details, while a secure password helps protects the app from unwanted intrusion. “Me2U has been up and running since the beginning of the year. It is a deployment we have done in partnership with VISA to enable person-to-person mobile payments,” Coburn explains. “Our initial deployment was driven by the need to get the service to customers as fast as possible via an independent standalone app. Time to market was a key determinant to get it into the hands of our customers,
InBUSINESS | Editor’s Choice Awards 2014
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AIB’s Lab in Dundrum
to get their sense of how best to use it, and to receive feedback on the design so as to help us in creating our mobile banking systems going forward.” Feedback from users has remained positive in the months since the launch of Me2U, and has been used by AIB’s development team to amend and update their strategy where required. Of particular help has been the AIB Lab in Dundrum, which has been used as a sounding board to bring customers in to test AIB’s latest technological offerings and to get feedback. Coburn remains satisfied with the efforts
of his team in ensuring AIB’s strategy remains up-to-date with consumer trends, and views the Editor’s Choice Award as a reflection of this hard work. “We’re humbled by the positive feedback we’ve got and to get an award like this we view as fantastic recognition and endorsement of the strategy we’ve being following. That, coupled with the feedback we’re getting from customers, really assures us that we’re on the right path and the strategy we have for mobile banking is at the centre of what customers expect from us,” Coburn concludes.
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05/12/2014 14:25