The Impact of Mobile Banking on the Accounting Profession in Banking Environment - Research Paper Example

The Impact of Mobile Banking on the accounting Profession in Banking environment The evolution of the world has been accompanied by various technological developments. These developments have also been felt in the banking environment. One the developments have pertained to the adoption of the mobile banking. Hello Money is a mobile banking service brand for Barclays Bank that allows customers to carry out financial transactions by using mobile devices and personal digital. It is worth noting that Hello Money, like other mobile banking services, is different from mobile payments, which entail the use of the mobile devices to pay for goods. Mobile banking is performed through mobile web or SMS. The service has been particularly facilitated by the evolution of an array of technologies, such as smart phones and web based technologies, which create the allowance for installation of special features that support mobile banking. The full adoption of the mobile banking implies that accounting systems would be automated and this would significantly accounting workplace. The crucial question is then how these changes would affect the banking environment workplace. The trending developments regarding mobile banking is well documented. According to SWIFT (2005), mobile banking is still considered as one of the pertinent topic in the finance industry, as well as for banking institutions. This has been exacerbated by the growing ubiquity of mobile phones across the global population. In a population of about 7 billion people, as many as 5 billion people will be in the possession of mobile phones. At the same time, out of all that population, only 2 billion people will be holding the bank accounts. Consumers are now increasingly using their mobile phones in making payments and bank their money. Mobile banking is described as a growing business, with users expected to increase to about 900 million while the transaction value is expected to exceed 1 trillion dollars by 2015. Many banks have come up with brands of mobile banking. However, the main concerns are the inherent challenges. Various entrants, such as PayPal, Vodafone and Google are looking to mobile banking and transactions. However, the business is still immature, considering that only a few initiatives have succeeded in attracting a significant base of users. In other words, the service is still marred with a lot of uncertainties. There legal framework to govern the operation of the service is also yet to be established and some banking institutions are raising eyebrows about lack of expertise to see the service become successful. Technological developments are calling for the need for the establishment of business partnerships with the financial institutions while others perceive it as that filled with a lot of uncertainties (SWIFT 2005). These uncertainties are what should be a thing of serious concern for the accountants. A study conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston (2013) aired various concerns about the respondents regarding the online banking service. Over 75 percent of the respondents aspiring to embrace mobile banking or those who have embraced mobile banking cited security challenges as the serious issue. Well over 50 percent of those wishing to embrace the money banking service cited that the main challenge to mobile banking is the costs of implementation cost, in addition to security challenges. There were other categories that pointed out the issue of unreliability of the mobile service coverage, as well as limited knowledge about how the services operate. Indeed, the coverage of mobile phone network and services can be an issue of great concern and is associated with technical hitches such as dropped calls and incomplete transactions that can affect the experiences of the consumers. Indeed, as far as security is concerned, the mobile banking security is multi-fold, considering that it pertains to the protection of information in the device, device authentication, and authentication of security and information that is transferred by the customers. As the popularity of the banking service continues gaining popularity, it is expectable that the aspect of security would remain to be a particularly pertinent subject. Indeed, where is it time for the mobile banking to be made available to every mobile device, security care should be taken so that the goals of the technology can be achieved. Proposals have looked to thin client model, where the mobile device is expected to have the minimum capability. In regard to the application distribution challenges, there are several mobile banking solutions, which are available through installation on the devices. Currently, the distribution of these products to the customers is still cumbersome and it has been one of the reasons why the adoption of the mobile banking has received a slow rating. However, it is expected that problem would be effectively solved by the evolution of new models of application distributions. Automated upgrades would also be developed with time and will all be expected to revolutionize mobile banking experiences. According to Vivek, Ragini and Dubey (2012), the impact of mobile banking on the accounting profession can be best elucidated based on the mobile accounting, one of the areas of mobile banking. Mobile accounting is sometimes described as the transaction-based service that revolve around the bank account and which is available by using the devices. There are two categories of mobile accounting; mobile administration and mobile operation. Thus, one of the changes that the accountants expect is how their job would be transformed to cater for the mobile banking needs, especially security issues. Accountants are expected to deal in transfers Access administration, Blocking lost cards, Changing operative accounts, Standing orders for bill payments, Subscribing insurance policies, Money transfer to sub-accounts and cheque book requests. The accountant professions may need special training toalign with the change. However, what cannot be distanced from the mobile banking innovation is its effect on the employment opportunities. Computers, internet and mobile phones technologies, although have been widely celebrated developments, their impact on the employment opportunities have been described as being profound. These technologies have been described as those which are replacing the workers. Indeed, mobile baking is a service that entails automation, which means it works against the conventional or traditional accounting systems such tellers. Reduced interaction with the tellers implies that the positions have been rendered less important, and can be effectively done away with. In this regard, mobile banking can be considered as an innovation that works to reduce the interactions of people with the teller accountants. Accountants would also have to reap from the benefits that accompany the mobile banking operation. It is agreeable that mobile transfer is cheaper than teller transfer by about fifty times and ATM transfer by about ten times. Mobile banking comes with a lot of flexibility, both to customers and the firm itself. For instance, the service makes it easy for the bank to combine and sell other services and products that are offered in the bank, such as credit cards and loans, with relative ease. Mobile banking is the best way of realizing drastic growth because it is one way for banking institutions to remain competitive (Delloitte 2010). In the most obvious way, the accountants would are some of the stakeholders to gain when the banks gain. Tiwari, Buse and Hersatt (2006) acknowledge that increased competition as a result of technological development and globalization has exposed banks to a challenging environment. Mobile banking innovation creates the allowance for the banks to retain their place by introducing the innovative services that are aimed at retaining the customers, as well as increase the revenues. However, it is going to be an instrument of differentiation. Many banks are oblivious about these threats and have gone further to introduce the mobile services. It is expected to counter the effects of rivalry in the banking environment. In conclusion, mobile banking innovation can be considered as a revolutionizing development. However, largely unknown is its impact on the accounting environment. Mobile banking innovation can be described as a change that would benefit the banks; hence, also benefit the accounts, as the stakeholders. However, mobile banking is automation development that replaces the need for the customers to interact with the tellers. Another issue that the accountants would have to content with is the subject mobile banking security concern. References Delloitte.(2010). Mobile Banking.A Catalyst for Improving Bank Performance. Delloite.com. Retrieved on April 6, 2013, from http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-UnitedStates/Local%20Assets/Documents/us_consulting_MobileBanking_010711.pdf Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. (2013). Mobile Banking and Payments Survey of Financial Institutions in the First District Summary of Results. Retrieved from http://www.bos.frb.org/bankinfo/payment-strategies/publications/2013/mobile-payments-and-banking-survey-2012.pdf SWIFT. 2012. Mobile payments: Three winning strategies for banks. Retrieved from http://www.swift.com/resources/documents/SWIFT_white_paper_Mobile_Payments.pdf Tiwari, R., Buse, S & Hersatt, C. (2006). Mobile Banking As Business Strategy:Impact Of Mobile Technologies On Customer Behaviour And Its Implications For Banks. Paper Presented as the (PICMET) 2006, 8 – 13 July 2006, Istanbul Vivek, S., Ragini, G. and Dubey, P. (2012). Mobile Banking – The Future Prospects. VSRD-IJBMR, Vol. 2 (2)31-37. Retrieved from http://www.vsrdjournals.com/MBA/Issue/2012_02_Feb/Web/1_Vivek_Srivastava_551_Review_Article_Feb_2012.pdf Read More