Citi said it has fixed a privacy bug in its Apple iPhone app but snafus like this could hurt mobile banking’s prospects with the mainstream.
The Citi Apple iPhone app had a flaw where the customer’s account information was stored on the device. The bank has updated the app to fix the flaw and reportedly sent out letters to over 100,000 customers who use the Apple iPhone app.
“During a recent review, we discovered that our U.S. Citi Mobile iPhone banking app was accidentally saving information related to customer accounts in a hidden file on their iPhones,” the company said in a statement. “This information may also have been saved on their computer if they had been synchronizing their iPhone with their computer via iTunes.”
This is a relatively minor stumble but privacy and security concerns seem like the biggest stumbling blocks for mobile banking. It’s only going to take one high-profile incident of an Apple iPhone mobile banking user swindled to get millions of people very wary to use their handsets to manage their finances.
Of course, it may be inevitable, as Juniper Research said up to 400 million people will be using mobile banking in three years and we’re already seeing banking software preloaded on devices like the Android-powered Samsung Captivate on AT&T. The smartphone market will be a major boost to this market but mobile banking will also go over well in the developing markets, where physical banks may be in short supply.
I’ve been using mobile banking for years because of what I do and the convenience but things like the Chase Apple iPhone app where you can deposit checks by just taking a picture do give me momentary pause. Of course, this type of resistance was also prevalent when ATMs first popped up and I think the convenience will soon outweigh these concerns.
How say you, readers? Have you used mobile banking apps? Do you trust these programs?
[Via CNET]