I just returned from two weeks discussing strategy with mobile commerce executives across Southeast Asia. Despite having spent considerable time in North America, Latin America and Europe, this was my first trip to the region. I found the similarities and differences intriguing.

In North America and Europe, execs I meet often mentally write-off Asia as so foreign and different that their experience aren’t relevant. Perhaps this is true for South Korea and Japan which have very specialized markets; however, in Southeast Asia there continue to be far more similarities than differences.

For example, everyone is struggling with mobile adoption growth. Mobile is happening – and it’s happening fast – but, it’s still around 2-4% of online. Everyone wants it to grow faster, while struggling to support what they have. Many companies simply turn mobile on and customers show up with little or no promotion.

Similarly, travel and financial services lead the way. These verticals have higher adoption and the most mature solutions in each region around the world. Many of these companies are on their second or third major version of their mobile offering. Retail mobile commerce is poised for explosive growth when retailers fully commit to the mobile channel.

Southeast Asia has had mobile offerings longer than North America in particular. Asians have also more consistently supported feature phones and SMS than Americans and Canadians, since they have large populations of both rich and poor.

The result is that Asian executives confirm an important trend we’ve been seeing from our perspective in the industry:  visits increase permanently when you add mobile channels. Furthermore, with complete coverage, visits split evenly between mobile web and native applications.

Many U.S. & European companies are still wrestling with whether to support transactions on mobile web or native applications. The data very clearly shows the answer must be “both.” North American banks – and apparently Southeast Asia – have moved on and is finding ways to innovate and compete across all channels.

All channels are not equal, however. The Asian execs see similar transaction conversion rate differences to what we see across channels most prominently in North America.

In particular, we see iPhone native applications having 30% higher conversion rates than other channels (including Android native apps and mobile web). We expect this behavior to change over time as devices change and users – and companies – are more experienced with mobile.

The Asian execs confirmed that they have seen these patterns change over the years they’ve been live with mobile. Therefore analytics support and the agility to react to changes are absolutely critical for continued success. Today’s mobile strategy isn’t likely to be next year’s strategy.

Of course, the Asian economies are seeing much stronger growth than the U.S. and Europe which are mired in sovereign debt crises and the Great Recession. Asian companies are planning their second (and third) acts with mobile. Instead of considering new channels or new features, many Asian companies are planning major new lifestyle functionality around loyalty and rewards.

Furthermore, around the world, enterprise mobility and mobile commerce are meeting to create new, more strategic employee-facing applications that solve new problems using the devices employees choose while still securing company data and streamlining processes.

It’s clearer than ever to me that mobile is driving innovation through all its incarnations and across every channel of the business from bricks-and-mortar, online, and beyond. Now, I’m off to India.

Europe once led mobile

Mobile commerce was born in Europe, but Europe has lost its way.

Japan and South Korea could argue they were first. They could also argue they still lead the world. Maybe they’re right. However, European style mobile commerce was patterned around the world. Kenya’s M-PESA style branchless banking for the developing world is another pattern that succeeded and is thriving, but isn’t applicable to the well-banked around the world.

Somewhere along the success of the BlackBerry and the iPhone Europe fell behind.

For example, all the UK banks but one implemented Monitise. All the UK solutions provide nearly identical look-and-feel with nearly identical capabilities that once were ground breaking like balance inquiries and person-to-person electronic-check payments if you know the recipient’s bank routing number and account number.

New features and support for new phones is slow in coming. Even worse, talking to UK bankers, they’re not bullish on moving the needle because they think their competitors aren’t either. I’ve had similar conversations with bankers and retailers in Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe. Europeans are moving slowly, thinking there’s no hurry to compete in the mobile space.

This exact scenario played out in Canada over the last two years. Canada now leads the world in mobile commerce (in my opinion, for this type of developed world model, per capita). A few years ago, Canadians were comfortable with their basic mobile web implementations they had rolled out in the early 2000s. Pilots were done here and there, but nothing bold or large scale had been done since 2000. Executives were comfortable doing nothing, because equilibrium was the status quo.

Then CIBC launched their iPhone app. Apple marketed the app nationwide. It seemed every bus shelter and TV commercial break nationwide highlighted the CIBC iPhone app. Almost overnight, Canadian mobile commerce changed. One bank executive ordered that they do whatever is necessary to become the leader in North America. The entire banking sector exploded into activity with may jobs changing and projects ramping up and the fierce competition continues. National and North American retailers also continue to pull out all the stops finding new ways to let consumers shop with their phone and it’s blurring the line between bricks-and-mortar and ecommerce.

Similarly, the U.S. started earlier and has more activity than possibly anyplace else. The Firethorn mobile banking initiative in 2006 and 2007 sparked U.S. mobile banking and it caught fire with Bank of America’s iPhone application. Soon pizza companies were letting customers place orders via mobile web but full-fledged mobile commerce is still ramping up in a number of verticals. I see waves of maturity in the U.S., with retail banking and travel leading the way, then retail mobile commerce, media and healthcare coming along.

European mobile banking looks very much like Canada. They made early progress, then stalled. Equilibrium won’t stay forever. Sooner or later someone will do something bold, possibly even an outsider. European executives that aren’t making aggressive plans to revolutionize their business with mobile will find themselves blindsided and rushing to catch up.

It’s not enough to make mobile a derivative feature of your online presence or to pick and choose how to offer mobile. The marketplace is dynamic and customers will decide how, where, and when they’ll engage with brands. Companies must reach customers in the medium they’re most comfortable with and in ways that are convenient and useful.

No one knows the right ways to do this for any one business yet. This is why it’s important to figure out now. Companies that are making mistakes now, are setting themselves up for success when it matters.

I just returned from Nicaragua Saturday. Among other places, I went to La Chureca, the largest dump in Central America, where over 1,700 people live in about 250 houses. People survive by collecting recyclables and selling useful  materials found in the trash. Malnutrition, AIDS, cancer, gangs and drugs all torment their residents.

Even here in La Chureca, one of the poorest places in the Americas, everyone has a phone. Even the illiterate know how to send basic text messages. Residents consider having a phone far more important than a car, a bicycle. Many make the choice to buy airtime minutes instead of extra food.

Meanwhile, most companies in Nicaragua have stopped paying workers in cash or checks. Workers are paid using debit cards. Often employers setup bank accounts and direct deposit for workers to ensure they can pay electronically. Credit cards are accepted in rural mercados and many bodegas. Only the beggars and hucksters consistently insist on cash.

This is why I’m bullish on the future of mobile commerce and mobile payments. Some of the most transformative trends of the last hundred years or more are starting to converge: globalization, the Internet, mobile communications, and electronic payments. Each trend alone has sparked massive growth and development. Now they are converging to change lives in even the poorest and remote corners of the globe.

If the people of La Chureca, in all their misery, rely on cell phones to survive and do their work; how can any company not be bullish on mobile commerce? Soon every business can reach every human being individually wherever they are and provide them a unique offer that helps them with their current needs, whether that’s selling recyclables in Nicaragua, selling a goat in Africa, or finding a trendy new restaurant in New York City.

Take a look at your business and really think about how your products help your customers. Now think of the possibilities of mass customization and real-time offers. Take it a step further and imagine the opportunities of reaching every single human being in the world.

Are you investing enough in mobile commerce right now?

If you mobile commerce investment isn’t more than your Internet investment, you’re probably not investing enough.

I recently attended my first Finovate conference, which also happened to be their first in Europe.  The venue was the Business Design Centre in the Islington section of London.  It’s a great format – 35 different vendors, each with a 7 minute demonstration, and some networking slots mixed in.  It covered a lot of ground in a short period of time, while still affording one the luxury of walking away with some salient points still in mind.  That’s about the right amount of time, at least for those of us in the US, as we’re conditioned to a commercial break every 6-8 minutes.

It appears as though 2011 is the year of the online PFM in Europe as there were 6 PFM providers.  The next major topic was social network oriented services such as LiqPay’s Facebook payment solution, Fidor Bank’s “Bank 2.0,” and a number of investment related applications from eToro, Hopee (BNP Paribas), StockTwits and Uniience, some of which are mobile enabled.  It’s certainly worth taking a look at some of these or onles like them if you’re contemplating a refresh of your online presence.

This being the Mobile Manifesto, however, my primary interest was looking at the mobile solutions, which there were a few.  Even some of the aforementioned products included mobile access/support as that increasingly becomes a baseline channel for any customer facing product, and more than ever, employee facing as well.

The product that caught my attention the most, even before I got there from the obligatory, pre-conference vendor solicitations, was an iPad based Financial Advisor tool from Finantix.  Granted, products tend to show well on the iPad, but this one particularly resonated with me because of recent client inquiries.  It was also one of four participants to be voted Best in Show.  The Finantix product really allows an Advisor to interact not only with the application, but their client as well.  Imagine sitting down with your Financial Advisor, having an interactive discussion, passing the tablet back and forth as you walk through an assessment.  The FA can prepackage content to include video presentations to share with their client in a face-to-face meeting, and even let them manipulate criteria to see what the long term effects would be of certain decisions.  It has the potential to make the whole process much more personal and engaging.

Other mobile oriented companies who showed included:

• Tagit, a “Configure Once, Run Many” mobile platform provider demonstrated their mobile banking solution
• IND Group with their online and mobile banking solutions
• eWise (Secure Vault Payments) demonstrated their mobile and online payments capability
• mPower with their mobile POS solution
• VoiceCommerce with their KYC Secure and VoicePay offerings, using voice biometrics
• SolidPass showed their token based authentication solution using a mobile device in lieu of a key fob.

In any event, I look forward to seeing more creativity and ingenuity at FinovateSpring 2011!

Mobile Banking is the primary channel for a growing number of consumers

Mobile banking is becoming the primary channel for interacting with the bank for a growing number of users.

In May 2010 USAA reported that 38% of their mobile banking users considered mobile to be their primary interface with the bank.

Now research firm Novarica has found that 13% of smartphone users consider mobile their primary means to check balances.

Similarly, 9% of smartphone users consider mobile their primary means for transferring funds.

40% of mobile bankers with smartphones use mobile primarily

Studies from Fiserv, Javelin and others have consistently found that 80% or more of mobile banking usage involves balance checking. Transfers usually are the second most popular transaction. Few mobile banking applications offer remote funds deposit or new account opening, so it’s no surprise the responses were low. Not offering a feature is a great way to prevent adoption.

USAA is essentially an online-only bank and their membership contains many highly mobile and highly technical active duty military personnel. Mobile is the ideal medium for them and online is status quo since they’re branchless. So it’s expected that their members would have high mobile adoption rates and strong adoption to the channel.

Roughly a third of smartphone users use mobile banking according to Javelin. So the Novarica study indicates that nearly 40% of mobile bankers with smartphones use mobile primarily. This is important research that I haven’t seen elsewhere. It’s important to understand that mobile is being adopted and used significantly across the industry by a broad base of users.

These results were published in “Consumer Usage of the Mobile Banking Channel”, an executive brief authored by Madi Mantha.

This is a strong trend in mobile that I expect to see continue in other verticals such as Retail, Media, and Healthcare as they mature with mobile.