GoBank offers all it’s services free via mobile banking

North America’s first mobile-only bank, GoBank, has ‘opened it’s doors’ to the public, and offers all it’s services to customers for free. This marks the beginning of what we think will be a wave of mobile-focused financial institutions, offering their customers convenient and inexpensive  mobile banking made possible by extremely low cost, automated business processes. Low-touch or low-cost banks and payment processors that depend on traditional branches or sales teams will soon find their real estate and labour costs make them uncompetitive and they will be forced to innovate to compete.

GoBank offers all its services for free via mobile banking

GoBank does not charge its customers for ATM fees, overdraft fees, has no minimum funds requirement, free person-to-person payments (no matter what bank the recipient banks with), and free bill pay. The bank then gives customers the opportunity to pay what they want for the service, anything between $0 and $9 per month. “We work for tips,” said Steve Streit, GoBank’s CEO.

Automated banking processes increase customer convenience and decrease cost

‘Working for tips’ is made possible by automating core banking processes like automated cheque deposits and fund transfers. Transactions that fit within a certain risk profile for the bank are fully automatic and do note require manual processing at all.

GoBank is targeting people in the 20 – 35 year old age bracket with their typical customer being someone who is “old enough to have a job, but young enough not to consider branch-based banking the norm.” This thinking aligns with a Federal Reserve survey last March that found 18 – 29 year-olds make up 22.4% of all mobile phone users, and 44% of all mobile banking users.

GoBank shows us what the future of financial services will look like.

The industry needs to embrace mobile applications and build automated business processes to support straight through processing in order to keep competitive. Even financial institutions that require high touch, personal relationships with clients, like wealth management firms, will be expected to allow their clients to engage their broker via a mobile application. This technology shift will change how the industry works and and in-turn, how people work together to enhance customer experience and reduce cost of operations .

To learn more about how to build a mobile banking process, download our eBook The Executive’s Guide To Customer Onboarding in a Digital Age.