Since we first experienced the unveiling of the iPhone 3g, we have been expecting more and more from our personal devices. We started off with email and some fairly simple apps related to productivity or small games.

As we understood the power we had in our hands, the capabilities exploded. As we reached the limit of our list of wants, companies started creating games, productivity tools, collaboration software and more which changed the way we lived and worked. Soon we are IMing colleagues, sending presentations and watching them get edited in real time, we are letting the public create new accounts with us online, we have seen the rise of companies with an increasing amount of P2P and B2B2C transactions.

Financial Technology - From lack to luster

In 2002, Wells Fargo developed a mobile banking service and they got 2,500 customers to enroll. The desire for this kind of service was basically non-existent and they soon took it down.

A few years later we saw simple mobile applications from banks pop up on the scene to provide very simple data to customers like real time balance and transaction history.

By 2012, more than 21% of all smartphone owners were using mobile banking -- according the Board of Governors for the Federal Reserve. To delve a little deeper:

44% of that number belongs to the 18-to-29 age group

36% of that number belongs to the 30-to-44 age group



Today

In the last 3 years, mobile banking has become simple, efficient, pervasive and a base expectation for many. We have seen a lot of functionality made available on phone and tablet apps:

Account - Balance inquiry, balance transfer, recently posted and pending transactions

Deposits - remote check deposits using OCR technology

eBills - making paperless billing go from an environmental decision to eliminating an unnecessary offering

Alerts - location-based offerings, payment due date notices

Texting for banking

In the next installment we'll look at what companies are doing today, who is leading the pack, what are some potential innovations coming up in the future and how to know whether someone is a FinTech novice in a first-time foray or a tech-savvy thought leader.