Additionally, the company commissioned a mobile banking survey across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, demonstrating the growing mobile banking trend.

"There is an ever-increasing demand from consumers who want access to their bank accounts and finances anytime, anywhere," said Marty Beard, president of Sybase 365. "With our extensive mobile messaging infrastructure, we are able to connect financial institutions with their customers directly, providing a cost-effective way to facilitate fast and secure transactions."

Sybase 365 already enables some of the world's leading banks to interact with customers in real-time through mobile alerts, marketing campaigns and two-way banking services. Short Message Service (SMS) alerts are a cost-effective method of communication - even if the customer is in another country - and simple activities such as balance inquiries can be conducted without involving costly customer care resources.

According to the survey, commissioned by Sybase 365 and administered by Loudhouse Research, 66 percent of mobile subscribers in the Americas are interested in services that allow them to check bank account balances via their mobile device. Illustrating a consumer fixation with knowing how much money is in their bank account, 62 percent of respondents claim to know their account balance to within 20 dollars.

The biggest barrier to online banking is customer concerns over security. While just over half of the respondents who use online banking consider the service either "very secure" or "quite secure," 63 percent of overall respondents cited security as a primary concern around online banking.

Sybase 365 provides financial institutions with an additional layer of security to their online channels by facilitating two-factor authentication (2FA). By issuing a one-time PIN, via SMS, to validate account access or authorize transactions, 2FA provides additional protection above and beyond the traditional username and password used to access bank accounts. For banks, using SMS to combat security threats enables out-of-band authentication at minimal cost, increases consumer confidence in online banking services and provides a simple mechanism to reduce the success of fraudulent activities.

"The study highlights that consumers in the Americas are open to the idea of mobile banking, which creates an opportunity for financial institutions to open another channel of communication with customers while increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty," said Beard. "As mobile banking becomes increasingly popular, the range of services will expand and adoption of mobile banking will experience rapid growth."