ING Direct's Orange Snapshot mobile banking app currently gives customers a complete and simplified view of all their accounts, as well as bill payment and email money transfers.

Working with IBM, the bank has now rolled out a service that enables clients to access their account information from within Facebook's social networking site. Customers who opt-in to this app are able to view their account balances, history and pending transactions as well as receive real-time account notifications pushed to them within Facebook. The bank says it intends to expand this application further to include transactions such as transfers, bill payments and email money transfers.

ING Direct Canada CIO Charaka Kithulegoda, says: "There is a seismic shift in what is happening in financial services. Mobile banking is changing not only how people bank, but also what they expect from their banks and, ultimately, whom they choose to bank with."

Future initiatives may include the introduction of new voice recognition capabilities that will allow clients to conduct simple banking transactions by speaking rather than typing or the application can read account information to the customer.

ING Direct is also exploring the use of biometrics for purposes such as client login. Internal pilots are already yielding positive outcomes, says Kithulegoda.