Silicon Valley Bank, a commercial bank for companies in the technology, life science, venture capital and wine industries, is letting SVB Business MasterCard account holders manage their accounts from any location and at any time using their mobile devices.

By sending a text message to the short code SVBTXT (782898), SVB clients will receive their credit card account information on their mobile phone via secure text message technology. With SVB mobile messaging, clients can view real-time account information such as account balances, available credit and recent transactions for their SVB Business MasterCard accounts.  

Mobile Commerce Daily’s Dan Butcher interviewed Pradeep Moudgal, head of global cards and merchant services for Silicon Valley Bank, Santa Clara, CA. Here is what he had to say: 

What is Silicon Valley Bank’s strategy behind the launch of mobile alerts?
The strategy behind offering mobile alerts to our business credit card clients is to provide convenient tools in order for them to manage their account from anywhere and at anytime using their mobile devices.

We’re excited to offer SVB mobile messaging to SVB Business MasterCard card holders as the first mobile service from SVB.

We know from CTIA–The Wireless Association that more than 1.56 trillion text messages were sent in 2009 alone.

Our clients are eager to use text messaging and mobile platforms to manage their business accounts and we are committed to providing them with the services to do so.

This is the first of several new mobile services available from Silicon Valley Bank, with additional services such as fraud alerts via SMS text message rolling out in the coming months. 

What challenges do the alerts address for SVB clients?
It provides our clients the ability to quickly check their account balance, confirm their credit availability, see their payment due date, verify the payment amount and review recent transactions.

The ability to quickly access critical information from their phone through a few clicks from anywhere saves our clients the time to call a client service representative or even having to go online to look for this information.

Did SVB develop the mobile alerts in-house or partner with a vendor?
We partnered with our vendor First Data Resources to offer mobile alerts.

What is the current state of mobile financial services, and what is its potential?
The mobile financial services business has changed from five years ago. It is faster, more robust and more ubiquitous.

Mobile financial services continues to evolve from traditional mobile banking to offering our clients the ability to initiate payments using their mobile device.

The mobile payments infrastructure is starting to see development occur in the credit card space with the convergence of the card and the smartphone device.

The potential for mobile financial services both in the consumer and commercial space is huge.

Smartphones have done more to fast-forward mobile financial services and electronic commerce worldwide than any other recent technological innovation.

Final Take
Dan Butcher, associate editor, Mobile Commerce Daily