It is tough when one of your three bank operating principles is “be obviously better” and you’ve got no mobile banking platform.
But that’s the position Ally Bank has found itself in for some time now, despite rabid cries for a mobile banking from its customer base.
That will change. The bank says it “plans” to release the initial version of its mobile banking application in “early 2012.” That’s not a firm date, but it’s firmer than what the bank has offered in the past.
Ally plans to offer:
- Apps for both the iPhone and Android;
- Access to accounts “through any phone that has web access”; and eventually
- Remote deposit via mobile phone camera and bill pay.
Ally wrote on its blog that “We like to think that we’ve got more to offer than our old brick-and-mortar competitors.” We’ll see whether that it is indeed true come the first quarter of next year.