Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) has teamed up with a host of wireless carriers and technology partners to deliver banking, investment news and personal information services to consumer handheld devices.
CIBC is partnering with Bell Mobility, Clearnet, RIM, Rogers AT&T Wireless, and soon Telus Mobility and Microcell (Fido), to offer mobile financial services across a range of personal digital appliances and mobile phones.
"We are beginning with a pilot programme and will use customer feedback to develop a wireless financial service that best meets our customers' needs," says Janice Wagner, vice-president channel strategy and development, CIBC electronic banking.
She cites research indicating that 95 per cent of all digital phones in Canada will be Internet-enabled by 2004.
Customers participating in the CIBC wireless services pilot will be able to perform routine banking transactions and also receive customised, time and content-sensitive financial information alerts throughout the day. Active stock traders will be able to request mid and close of day stock price alerts for example. Customers will be invited to select and automatically receive alerts from a menu of content services ranging from stock quotes, foreign exchange and interest rates, headline business and technology news, to local weather reports.
CIBC is working with New York-based MobileQ, to develop the transactional components of its applications. MobileQ's server software, XMLEdge, will be used by the bank to deliver banking, brokerage, and other business applications, each optimised for the features and functionality of the user's preferred device.