About 28 percent expressed any degree of interest in using their wireless devices this way. These responses challenge the handful of banks offering wireless services. The question facing the industry is how to get these people interested in using wireless devices for banking and other financial transactions. The best prospects for wireless banking are customers who already trade securities over the Internet. When told of the survey results, Mark Dickelman, svp of mobile commerce at Harris Bank and corporate vp at Bank of Montreal, says the biggest challenge facing the financial services industry is confusion and misunderstanding about wireless services.
Most people have yet to experience what the wireless Internet looks like on phones or PDAs.
Once people experience it, it's a completely different reaction. Once people see it and use it, they find it very useful. Though the bank is promoting this use for cell phones, it also offers wireless services over PDAs and two-way RIM pagers. Within Harris' customer base, Dickelman says, there unquestionably are exceptions to the more general trend. A lot of the youth market already have cell phones.