Interesting take on mobile alerts. Uptake is relatively small at 24%, and of those almost all are via email. Mobile alerts are almost non-existent.
The reason is that the alerts have not addressed what customers actually want, and they resist paying the mobile fees for alerts they don’t want. Time to rethink ‘mobile strategy’ and ‘account alert strategy’ for most Banks.
Interest in Text Alerts Waning – 02.01.2008 – Bank Technology News Article
What banks can do better at, says Forrester analyst Brad Strothkamp, is to give customers alerts to activities they can’t discover through other channels, such as such as out-of-sequence checks or a non-cleared item. “Mobile alerts for balances, payments and other account events are not enough of a benefit to users to push them over the inherent obstacles of the mobile channel, which include cost, setup and lack of an interest for immediate information,” says Strothkamp.
Bankwatch 
Typo in headline: “no” should be “not”
This is somewhat contrary to what we have seen with our alert product these last 3 years. The important point is that the end user needs to define the parameters of receipt of alerts and not just offer global alert mechanisms.
@Jeffry: may not be a typo. Colin is Scottish after all…
Thanks all for the ESL lesson to this Scotsman!!!!
Gene… thats interesting. Sounds like what you are suggesting is that people will respond to customisation capabilities.
Question: do adopters of mobile alerts skew younger at all? since this is the group that is harmed more by overdraft charges, it seems they would be most likely to use a service that alerts them to potential overdrafts and protects them from avoidable fees.