Banks and financial services

A recent study from the Gartner Group shows that 59 percent of United States banks will be ramping up their mobile banking services within the next two years.

Today’s news briefs - Mobile marketing will have a role to play in mobile banking, according to Celent; and USAA makes mobile financial transactions simpler, safer with VeriSign.

Firethorn now supports mobile banking for more than 3,000 U.S. financial institutions in their carrier-preloaded mobile wallet, which has the potential to be extremely valuable for both mobile payments and mobile marketing.

PeoplesBank is offering customers a downloadable application that gives them access to mobile banking and payment services through the iPhone.

Texas Gulf Bank has launched mobile banking services to attract a new, younger audience already accustomed to living their lives on the go.

Money-transfer giant the Western Union Co. is extending the reach and accessibility of its money transfer services with mobile finance initiatives in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

Fifth Third Processing Solutions is offering mobile infrastructure, commerce and marketing company Transaction Wireless’s virtual gift card platform to its merchant partners.

YellowPepper, a provider of mobile financial services in Latin America, has launched YellowPepper Mony, a new service targeted to the unbanked.

ABI Research predicts that 407 million people will use their mobile phones to carry out financial transactions with their banks by 2015.

A new study by Mercatus LLC found that consumers’ interest in remote deposit capture is strong enough to alter the current deposit process of banks.