Mobile Banking: Evolution or Revolution? Edited by Bernardo Nicoletti Palgrave Macmillan, 323 pp. ISBN 978‐1137386557

• Date: 01 September 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/cjas.1336
• Published date: 01 September 2015
• Author: Andrew Carrothers

Book Review/Recensions de livre

Reviewed by Andrew Carrothers, School of Business, UPEI

Mobile Banking: Evolution or Revolution?

Edited by Bernardo Nicoletti

Palgrave Macmillan, 323 pp.

ISBN 978-1137386557

Mobile banking is important because it harnesses disrup-

tive innovation to create new markets. It will supplant existing

business models and improve f‌inancial products and services in

unexpected ways. Mobile Banking –Evolution or Revolution?

describes the transformational nature of mobile banking

in terms of new products, processes, organizations, and

business models.

This book is both descriptive and prescriptive, and its

primary goal is to provide useful advice to key stakeholders

to help them thrive in a rapidly changing f‌inancial landscape.

The author argues that f‌inancial institutions need to increase

revenues and decrease costs in response to stricter regulatory

constraints enacted after the 2008/09 f‌inancial crisis—he

suggests that leadership in mobile banking is a natural way

to improve agility, f‌lexibility, and prof‌itability.

In analyzing mobile banking, the author frames the dis-

cussion by reviewing recent transformations that have

occurred at f‌inancial institutions. He thoroughly probes the

opportunities for mobile within the f‌inancial sector, and

addresses risks, rewards, and remediation. The key story is

one of f‌irst applying lean thinking to drive optimization of

f‌inancial processes and services, then using automation to

deliver f‌inal products and services to customers. This is

familiar terrain for Nicoletti who has previously explored

the methodology of lean and digitize.

1

Lean thinking gained

traction in the Japanese automotive industry in the 1970s

and 1980s through disciplined focus on continuous improve-

ment. Proponents have successfully adapted lean principles

to service industries and off‌ice settings. The author’s recipe

for success in mobile banking is f‌irst to apply lean thinking

to the analysis and optimization of physical and organiza-

tional environments, and then to use digitization process to

manage and automate interactions between information

systems and telecommunication networks.

To set the stage, Nicoletti presents mobile as an enabler

of innovation that promises tremendous rewards to f‌irst

movers because it operates outside the traditional infrastruc-

ture of the f‌inancial sector. Mobile provides the opportunity

for f‌inancial institutions to offer mass private banking—an

achievable segmentation strategy in which technology

supports relatively low cost implementation. The focus of

the second chapter is understanding customer behaviour in

the context of mobile banking. It prescribes the mechanisms

for launching and improving mobile banking using the lean

and digitize techniques, and clearly shows that mobile

banking is far more than a simple extension of the existing

on line channel. The chapter identif‌ies the value of mobile

banking across diverse stakeholders including retail cus-

tomers, business customers, f‌inancial institutions, telecom-

munication f‌irms, merchants, public administrators, and the

social community. Steps in the lean and digitize approach

include identifying and evaluating the voice of the customer

(VoC); critical success factors (CSF) under the auspices of

and enhanced TAM model

2

; architecture design; analysis

and process design; and verif‌ication. This chapter does the

heavy lifting for the book and will be of interest to practi-

tioners responsible for deploying mobile banking at existing

f‌inancial institutions or new market entrants, and to

researchers and regulators. The subsequent four chapters

provide a prescriptive treatment of key topics: management

of mobile banking;opportunities, challenges,and remediation;

regulatory framework for mobile commerce; and mobile

security.

The author then uses a descriptive review of mobile

banking around the world to highlight possibilities. Growth

rates in this sector are soaring for many different reasons.

In the developing world, mobile banking is thriving in rural

and remote areas where there is minimal f‌ixed telephone

infrastructure, and where the majority of people are

unbanked or under banked. An example of a mobile banking

success story in Kenya is M-Pesa, which dominates in

mobile payments. In the developed world, mobile banking

is growing as a result of new products and services such as

mobile wallets that use near frequency communication tech-

nology to consolidate bill payment, coupons, and loyalty

cards on smartphones. The book provides specif‌ic examples

of mobile banking initiatives by f‌inancial institutions in the

Americas, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences

Revue canadienne des sciences de l’administration

32: 214–215 (2015)

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/CJAS.1336

Can J Adm Sci

32(3), 214–215 (2015)Copyright © 2015 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 214