Q&A: Bank of America’s Marc Warshawsky on the Future of Mobile

Mobile is changing customer expectations in the banking industry and becoming a competitive advantage for those banks that offer unique mobile experiences. We recently spoke with Marc Warshawsky, senior vice president and mobile solutions executive at Bank of America about the customer demand and technology trends that the bank sees in mobile.

BS&T: What kind of demand and adoption is Bank of America seeing in mobile banking right now?

Warshawsky: Well right now at Bank of America we have more than 14 million mobile customers, and that’s growing very fast so we’re seeing great demand. It’s more than people just checking balances and paying their bills now, we’re also seeing an uptick in mobile check deposits and use of BankAmerideals.

BS&T: With such growth in mobile banking adoption, do you see any barriers that remain to that adoption? Or do you think mobile banking has kind of hit its groove and will just take it off on its own from here?

Warshawsky: It’s clear that the mobile lifestyle is being adopted. Mobile is just a big part of people’s lives now, and financial services is no different in that. But we have to make sure that people can find you in mobile and work to bring new users to the channel. Once they’re there, we see they start doing more and more with their mobile banking. It’s convenient; it helps them get things done.

[For More of Our Coverage on BofA: Bank of America Launches Next Gen Banking Centers]

BS&T: Bank of America has a unique program with BankAmerideals that helps differentiate your mobile banking experience for your customers. How important is it to have a unique capability like that in mobile?

Warshawsky: It is important to us to have the right capabilities to serve our customers’ needs. Mobile banking surveys show that mobile is a big factor in customers switching banks. We want to have the most valuable capabilities to help draw customers.

BS&T: What kind of things do you to help personalize your mobile experience for individual customers?

Warshawsky: Our core approach is to work with our customers and introduce capabilities that have a big impact. We see with our customers that when they log in to mobile they usually perform one of their top five tasks. We want to put those tasks front and center when they log in to make the experience more convenient for them.

BS&T: What are some things that you’re working on right now in mobile?

Warshawsky: Right now we’re focused on three things. One, we want to make the user experience easier and make it simple to navigate. The second is introducing new capabilities. We want our customers to be able to do everything that they can do in the branch, the call center and online in the mobile channel as well. And the third is transitioning to a seamless experience in between the channels with our customer service. We want to make it easy to transition from the mobile app to dialing the call center, or using mobile to set up an appointment at the branch.

BS&T: We’ve seen huge adoption of mobile check deposit recently. What do you think could be the next big thing in mobile banking?

Warshawsky: Well right now we’re interested in biometrics and expanded use of the phone camera. We think we can find value propositions there that will resonate with our customers.

[To hear about how banks are managing their complex data architectures, attend the Future of the Financial Services Data Center panel at Interop 2014 in Las Vegas, March 31-April 4.
You can also REGISTER FOR INTEROP HERE.]

Jonathan Camhi has been an associate editor with Bank Systems & Technology since 2012. He previously worked as a freelance journalist in New York City covering politics, health and immigration, and has a master's degree from the City University of New York's Graduate School ... View Full Bio