Reading the post from Brandon McGee, I was amazed that a bank is giving away quite good level new mobile phones to use their mobile banking. Sure, you have to open an account and sign for 2 years.
http://brandonmcgee.blogspot.com/2008/10/regions-mobile-banking-free-phone.html
What can be the reasons behind?
1. The 2-year relationship will bring them enough profit to cover the initial cost of the phone.
2. The bank has a downloadable mobile banking app, which will be surely pre-installed on the devices. Otherwise the customers could get into problems how to download, install and run it.
It might have been cheaper for them to create a non-downloadable but a mobile browser-based banking service, which runs on any phone without the pre-installation.
But no question, "Get Your Free Phone Now!" is an impressive marketing tool.