The response to the possibility of enquiring about current exchange- or interest rates via mobile devices generated a similar response as the previ-ous service. The average rating by all participants (442 responses) was 4.48 (“scepticism”) with 43% “rejection” (rating 6).
The “Mobile Brokerage Admirers” (91 responses) were somewhat le-nient and rated it with 3.76. 24% showed “admiration” (rating 1 and 2) while 21% had “goodwill” (rating 3). 22% could not see any use in it (rat-ing 6). All in all 62% were will(rat-ing to pay for utilis(rat-ing this service.
Product information, current offers and conditions
This service did not receive very good ratings, which is probably not a sur-prise, considering that there might be few emergencies in which a customer would need such information urgently and on a device with a small display.
The 443 respondents rated this service on average with 4.64. Half of them “rejected” it outright (rating 6) while 66% refused to pay for it. How-ever, there were 16% respondents that rated it with “admiration” (rating 1 and 2) and another 10% with “goodwill” (rating 3). 28% were even willing to pay for this service as a part of their monthly package.
Existing users rated it better (average rating 4.36). Only 40% of the 53 respondents rated it with 6 (“rejection”). A majority of 55% was even will-ing to pay. Other groups rated this service by and large on similar lines.
Utility of stock market reports
rejection; 15%
goodwill; 20%
scepticism; 22%
admiration; 44%
n = 92
Summary: As the discussion above showed, not all Mobile Financial In-formation services have a mass appeal. Some services are of universal in-terest, e.g. the possibility to enquire about the balance while on the move.
Others are of interest to particular groups of customers. For this reason these services must be designed and priced keeping in mind the target cus-tomer groups and their strategic relevance to the bank.
The table below ranks the services in Mobile Financial Information as per their perceived utility and the willingness to pay for them amongst all participants.
Ranking of the Utility Ranking of the Willingness to Pay
Service Av.
Rat-ing Service
Per-centage 1) Balance Enquiries 2.42 1) Branches/ATM locations 46%
2) Branches/ATM locations 3.15 2) Balance Enquiries 45%
3) Balance Thresholds 3.68 3) Transaction Thresholds 45%
4) Transaction Thresholds 3.86 4) Balance Thresholds 44%
5) Completion Status 4.12 5) Stock Price Enquiries 43%
6) Stock Price Enquiries 4.14 6) Stock Market Reports 43%
7) Stock Market Reports 4.38 7) Exchange/Interest Rates 43%
8) Exchange/Interest Rates 4.48 8) Completion Status 42%
9) Exchange/Interest Rates 4.64 9) Exchange/Interest Rates 34%
Table 24: Ranking of Mobile Financial Information services
9.1.4.4 Monthly Fee and Advertisements
All in all, 335 of the 452 participants agreed to pay for some service or other, making an astounding 74% with willingness to pay for utilising mo-bile financial services. As stated earlier, participants had the option of choosing to pay for services in the form of a monthly fee; an option, which was selected by many participants (252 out of 452: 56%). The options pre-sented were:
1. None 2. Below €3.00
3. Between €3.00 and €5.00 4. Between €5.00 and €10.00 5. Above €10.00
The chart below illustrates the preferred levels for a justifiable monthly fee, based on the answers given by those who pleaded for a monthly fee.
Chart 22: Preferences level of monthly fee supporters
An overwhelming majority of 99% pleaded for a monthly fee of less than
€5.00, whereby 45% were willing to pay a monthly fee of less than €3.00.
An almost similar number (44%) was willing to accept a fee between €3.00 and €5.00. Another 11% agreed to pay up to €10.00. Just 1 participant stated his readiness to pay more than €10.00 a month for availing mobile financial services.
If a participant opted for “none” when asked about the extent of monthly fee, even though he had earlier selected monthly fee for certain services, his answer was then treated as “unwilling to pay” for those services. His an-swers for individual services were adjusted accordingly.
Advertisements for free-of-charge service: 26% of all participants stated their willingness to accept advertisements on their mobile devices, e.g. via SMS, if the Mobile Banking services were provided free of charge.
Preferences Level for Monthly Fee
Below €3.00;
45%
€3.00 to €5.00; 44%
€5.00 to €10.00; 11%
n = 252
9.1.5 Influence of Ignorance
After examining the customer acceptance for various mobile financial ser-vices, we now turn our attention to a phenomenon that we might describe as “influence of ignorance”. For this purpose, we analyse the anomaly that apparently exists in customer responses. Precisely, we examine the re-sponses of those participants who had earlier rejected Mobile Banking (ex-plicit information) by choosing the option “none” in response to the ques-tion, whether and which Mobile Banking application they could conceive to use. Of particular interest is now, whether these participants retained their rejection by consequentially rejecting the individual services put to vote? If a participant, who had earlier rejected Mobile Banking summarily, evalu-ates a service with a positive rating then it might be assumed that his earlier rejection was probably based on prejudices and thus “influenced by igno-rance”. In this section, we attempt to find out the “Real Rate of Rejection”.
All in all 113 participants had stated their aversion to Mobile Banking by choosing the option “none” in response to the question regarding their preferred Mobile Banking application. But finally, only 29 of these “oppo-nents” (26%) actually evaluated all 17 services with a rating of 6 (“rejec-tion”). That means 74% of those who had looked like being opponents of Mobile Banking actually changed their opinion when possible services were listed to them. Even more astonishingly, half of them (57 participants:
50%) agreed to pay for some or another mobile financial service, thereby underscoring the importance of retrieving implicit information.
One more participant evaluated all services with a rating of at least 5 (“unwilling”). But that does not make any significant difference. Moreover, strictly speaking, being “unwilling to use” is not exactly the same as “re-jecting” something.
Mobile Banking Amongst "Opponents"
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Admiration Goodwill Scepticism Rejection
Mobile Remittance Balance Enquiry n = 113