US bank Wells Fargo has begun rolling out a new mobile business banking service, CEO Mobile, to select customers.
The initial version of the CEO Mobile service, which was made available to a small number of business customers on 30 April, delivers key treasury reports through a secure browser, says Wells Fargo.
The bank plans to add new functions later this year including wire approvals, image positive pay exceptions and administrative tools such as password resets. "With each new step, we'll gather customer feedback and refine our interface to ensure it's usable, streamlined and simple," says Megan Minich, who leads the mobile technologies team for Wells Fargo's wholesale Internet and treasury solutions.
Wells Fargo says the system uses the same strong security features as its Commercial Electronic Office (CEO) portal including protecting data with 128-bit Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption, and enforcing session time-out rules.
Commenting on the new service Steve Ellis, head of Wells Fargo's wholesale services group, says: "We want to be where our customers want us to be - at the office, in meetings, out of town, wherever - and provide information when they need it so they can act on it."
"Our business customers need to make decisions instantly, instead of waiting to get back to the office or calling someone to complete a crucial transaction," he adds.
Wells Fargo claims it is the first major US financial services company to offer mobile service for businesses.