Time to market is key in today’s business environment. That’s why the possibility to authorise transactions via a mobile phone anytime en anywhere can be attractive for corporate and institutional clients. Which makes it an interesting service for banks to offer.

Standard Chartered Bank offers an application for Mobile Authorisation for corporate and institutional clients, Straight2Bank.

This new Mobile Banking initiative, currently supported in 16 countries across Asia and the Middle East, gives clients a secure means of authorising financial transactions with their mobile phones.

Users have the ability to control their cash outflows at any time without having to go online. Managers, whose authorisation is required to process a bank transfer, benefit greatly from this new service. They can now authorise payments en route to their clients or at the tennis club.

Lag time
Neil Livingston, Global Head of Client Access, Transaction Banking, of course applauds this innovation. “Having the ability to manage resources efficiently will minimise transaction lag time and enables companies to maximise their returns. Further, the application manages liquidity efficiently and at their own convenience.”

The bank claims on its website that the set-up process is hassle-free and allows clients to start using the service within minutes.

Secondly Straight2Bank Mobile delivers greater speed and convenience to the treasurer as this is a fully mobile application as opposed to other applications, which are only accessible via a mobile browser. Another advantage is the security of the mobile phone. Thus far, hackers have been unable to breach this system.

No additional services
The question is whether this application is really needed. Would it be enough reason for a company to switch banks? Perhaps not. A lot of people use their laptop or internet-enabled smartphone for this purpose, which they carry around with them wherever they go anyway.

More importantly, Straight2Bank does not offer any additional services, like bringing the latest financial news. While integrated services could make this into a really attractive solution. Then again, maybe there is a strong need for this, maybe we won’t be able to imagine a world without mobile authorisation in a few years.