More banks plan to launch mobile banking products fortheir corporate customers this year, but it still may take time fortreasury customers to warm up to the mobile apps.

A couple of surveys conducted at the Association for FinancialProfessionals' annual meeting in Las Vegas last October suggestthat only a minority of treasury professionals currently usesmartphones or tablets to handle banking chores. A Capital Onesurvey showed 32% of finance and treasury professionals attendingthe AFP meeting used a corporate mobile banking product, while asurvey by ACI put the portion of finance workers using mobilebanking at 27%.

The low level of use in part reflects a lack of availability.“There have been very few banks offering this to their middlemarket or corporate customers,” said Christine Barry, researchdirector at technology consulting company Aite Group.

A survey Aite conducted in mid-2013 showed that a third of the50 biggest U.S. banks offered mobile banking to corporates at thattime, although almost all of them planned to have an offering inplace by the end of this year.

“We're expecting to see more adoption this year, as banks rollit out, as momentum increases, and as customers grow morecomfortable, use it in their personal lives, and then adopt it forbusiness,” Barry said.

“Every bank we're in talking to, mobile has to be included inthe conversation,” said Mark Ranta, senior product marketingmanager at ACI. “More and more mobile solutions are hitting themarket. As it's becoming more widely available, usage isfollowing.”

Jacob Jegher, a research director at Celent, sees a couple ofother factors as obstacles to adoption, including companies'concerns about security.

In Capital One's survey last year, 66% of executives citedconcerns about the security of corporate data as the main barrierto adoption of mobile banking.

According to Jegher, the security concerns are mostly mistaken.Companies get nervous when thinking about doing a wire transfer fora substantial amount on a mobile phone, but the only thinghappening on the phone is an approval, Jegher said. The employeeinitiating the wire is still sitting at a desktop computer.

Barry said that banks need to help their corporate customersunderstand the security that's in place for mobile banking, whichis usually similar to what's used for online banking. “The securityexists; there's just concern anytime a new channel is introduced,”she said.

“The other big challenge relates to the type of mobile devicebeing used,” Jegher said. The most prevalent device used bycorporate executives has been the BlackBerry, and its relativelysmall screen makes apps difficult to develop, and to use, hesaid.

Jegher expects corporate use of mobile banking to pick up oncesecurity concerns subside and companies move away fromBlackBerries.

Apps vs. Optimized Websites

Mobile banking can occur either via applications designed formobile phones and tablets or on websites that are designed to beaccessed from mobile devices. The Aite survey shows that 19% ofbanks offer downloadable apps, 28% offer a website optimized formobile traffic, and 53% offer both.

Among the most common mobile banking functions are the abilityto check balances, approve wires and ACH payments, and transferfunds between accounts.

The Aite data indicate that even when mobile offerings areavailable, a small proportion of corporate customers take advantageof them: Most of the banks with mobile offerings said fewer than10% of customers were using them. Barry noted that a separate Aitesurvey at the end of last year showed much higher use among smallbusinesses, with about a third of companies with less than $20million in revenue employing mobile apps, though some of them areusing consumer apps.

Cindy Murray,head of global treasury product platforms and echannels at Bank ofAmerica Merrill Lynch, said many of the treasury employees whoreview balances or approve payments don't need to be able to use asmartphone or tablet because they're sitting at their desks with acomputer in front of them.

And organizations that don't give their employees company-issuedmobile devices may be “uncomfortable giving them access to dobanking transactions on a personal mobile device,” said Murray,pictured at left.

“Where we see traction is with more senior people,” she said.Treasury executives who travel or frequently attend meetings areusing the bank's optimized website via mobile devices to do thingslike approve payments or take care of administrative functions likeresetting passwords and adding or deleting users, Murray said.

Adding Functionality

Aite Group's Barry said that among the newer features offered bymobile banking apps are “the ability to make a pay/no pay decisionon positive pay and the ability to initiate repetitivepayments—something that was set up online.”

ACI's Ranta said he's seeing interest from banks infunctionality that would allow a treasury executive to use a mobiledevice to initiate a one-time payment to an organization that'salready included on a list of possible payees.

Murray said BofA Merrill Lynch's customers are looking forinformation and the ability to act on that information. Once thebank sends an alert to their mobile device, “they want to then beable to take action,” she said. “They would like to be able torespond through that alert, rather than having to go and log inthrough the portal.”

She also noted interest among customers in certain industries inremote deposit capture of checks on mobile devices, which BofAdoesn't currently offer in its corporate mobile banking. “We seethat in insurance, for local agents to be able to capture images ofchecks they collect, as well as in certain consumer products suchas beverages, where drivers are dropping off products and they docollections when dropping off products,” Murray said.

BofA Merrill Lynch estimates that roughly half of those whoaccess the mobile version of its treasury portal, CashPro Mobile,are using phones and about half are on tablets.

“I think you're going to see more and more tablet usage,” Murraysaid. “The banks' online applications need to be device agnostic soyou can take advantage of some of the unique features ofsmartphones versus tablets versus desktops.”