Gartner puts mobile banking first on its list of top mobile apps

Gartner, a market research firm, conducted a survey showed money transfers and payments over mobile phones will be among the top 10 most important mobile applications by 2012. Mobile money transfers pass ahead location-based services, search and browsing, taking the first line in the list. Sandy Shen, research director in Gartner's Mobile Devices and Consumer Services group forecasts that money transfers will attract more users becoming more popular both in developed and developing countries.
"It's a way for users who don't have a bank account to get access to financial services," said Shen.
Mobile payments took only the sixth line on Gartner's list and will be used in both developed and developing parts of the world, according to research. But in the developed markets mobile financial services offer more convenient ways of paying compared to developing markets where it is not about offering something significantly new.
The use of NFC (Near Field Communication) places the seventh on Gartner's list. The technology lets users pay for goods by waving their NFC-enabled handset in front of a reader.
Shen also predicts using mobile phones to authenticate online transactions, by sending one-time passwords to the phone or creating them directly on the phone.
The mobile phone is a device that users tend to always carry with them, said John Ahlberg, spokesman at Todos, which has launched an iPhone application for authenticating transactions and signed a deal with smart-card maker Oberthur Technologies. So the sector has great perspectives. But there is a range of challenges accompanying paying or transferring money with a mobile phone. They include both real and perceived security threats. The fact that the data is transmitted wirelessly adds a new level of risk, compared to traditional card payments. That’s why the level of security should be heighten that users feel comfortable with using the mobile phone for mobile payments to become a success.
The other seven applications on Gartner's Top 10 Consumer Mobile Applications for 2012 list are in order of appearance: location-based services, search, browsing, health monitoring, advertising, instant messaging and music.