Halifax Bank in the UK is binning its WAP mobile banking service due to poor user uptake.
In a statement on its Web site, the bank says it will discontinue the service - which enables users to view account information and locate branches and ATMs - after 25 June.
A spokesman for parent group HBOS says that low user numbers had rendered the service uneconomical to run. The bank has not divulged subscriber numbers, but confirms that only a minute fraction of its 1.5 million Internet banking customers had signed up.
Halifax's departure from the WAP banking scene comes relatively late in the day. UK internet bank Egg switched off its WAP banking system 18 months ago after reportedly signing up only a few hundred users. Among the UK financial community, only Nationwide Building Society continues to actively promote WAP-based services.
A new wave of third generation multimedia phones are expected to deliver on the much-hyped promise of WAP - which many early users found unwieldy and difficult to manage - but it will be another four years before the mobile market shows any worthwhile return on bank investment according to IDC.