Bank expands mobile phone services

(CNS): For the first time anywhere in the Caribbean some bank customers will be able to use their mobile to pay bills and transfer money from one mobile banking customer to another. The services are being offered exclusively through FirstCaribbean’s Mobile Banking Bill Pay and Third Party Payment services. The bank said its customers can register an unlimited number of third parties to their mobile banking account as long as they are listed on FirstCaribbean’s Internet Banking service allowing them to meet monthly bills, “any time, any where”, using any type of mobile phone. 

In a publicity release the bank said the services are available immediately in addition to the original capabilities of mobile banking, including the ability to make balance inquiries, transfer funds between accounts and set alerts to inform users when their accounts have reached minimum or maximum cash balances. 

“We are truly excited about these two new additional features to our Mobile Banking service,” said Chief Administrative Officer, Mahes Wickramasinghe. “We believe that we have an excellent product that will help our customers save time by enabling them to “bank on the go”.

Country Head, Tom Crawford, Managing Director – Retail, Wealth and Small Business, also expressed confidence that customers would appreciate these new mobile banking options and anticipated that the added value would lead to an increase in the adoption rates for the mobile banking product. 

“These new payment features will be a boon for our customers in the Cayman Islands.  One of the key benefits of our Mobile Banking service is that you don’t need to have a smart phone to use it as it is text message-based.  We expect that a number of persons keen on this added convenience of banking on the go will gravitate to FirstCaribbean’s mobile banking as the leader in the market,” he added.

The bank said that its mobile banking service is safe with stringent security measures in place to protect customers’ financial information and details from third parties.  Text messages will only be sent to the mobile phone number that is registered with the bank by the customer, who must verify their identity at the time of registration.  Moreover, account numbers are never sent to the mobile phone. 

FirstCaribbean’s Mobile Banking service is free, however, SMS charges will be the same as what any customer would pay their cellular service provider for text messages via long and/ or short codes.  For further information visit www.firstcaribbeanbank.com or contact 1-800-744-3249.