There has been speculation for some time about the form a Google Glass banking app would take.
The suspense is over.
Spain’s Banco Sabadell has created a banking app for Google Glass that displays the nearest ATM, allows the viewing of accounts and supports 24/7 video conferencing. Sabadell isn’t just tilting at windmills — this is a useful app.
The surprisingly full-featured app was developed in a pilot program with a company called Droiders, and the pilot’s success has led the bank to invite developers to create more Google Glass apps for the bank through its Open Apps innovation program.
A mobile check deposit app is also in the pipeline. (Do they still have checks in Spain?)
Pol Navarro, head of innovation at Sabadell, said that the bank’s APIs will be opened to other shops in the Open Apps program. “Over the next few weeks we’ll announce the details and requirements that must be followed by all firms that want to send us their proposals,” Navarro said, emphasizing that the apps would enhance the bank’s ability to interact with its clients and to support local business projects.
“Google Glass is perhaps a prime exponent of the new evolution the internet is about to experience,” Navarro said. “The mobile internet’s natural evolution will be living services. Users will want to be able to interact with firms through many different devices and as quickly and intuitively as possible. And we’ve already started to adapt ourselves to this scenario.”
Xavier Marin, Digital Services Strategy at Banco Sabadell, wrote to Bank Innovation, “More related to the experience with this first app for a wearable device, we visualize that it will be important how these devices will change how we use services, for example giving access to customer support by a more natural (using just voice) and convenient way. (Imagine customer support, seeing the same screen as your customer without any additional software). It also will enable something like “talking” to machines. It begins to seem possible to say to an ATM, wearing a Google Glass, ‘Please, Give me money.’ (Likely in future releases Google Glass will allow iris-secure identification, etc. There are numerous opportunities!)”
Banco Sabadell is an international banking group headquartered just outside Barcelona, Spain. It holds assets totaling approximately $232 billion.