"What we have found, and what really sold us on wireless moving forward, is that it's not just about mobile, it's not just about wireless systems, it's about the whole package you have," said Rich Syme, senior vice president of electronic services and product management at $4.4 billion America First.

"While we don't have a lot of wireless users right now, we do have a lot of Internet bankers and bill pay users and having all those things available even rolls over into our IVR usage," Syme said.

"I know this may sound silly, but to a lot of people, us just having this technology available, whether they use it or not, it tells them that, 'Hey, they must be ahead of the game, so let's go see what they have.' It's about having the whole package," Syme said.

"And that's helped expand our membership growth and the relationships with the members we have," he said.

That stance toward new tech is not new at America First, which first began offering wireless banking in 2001, using a WAP (wireless access protocol) system at a time when a lot of credit unions were still experimenting with online banking itself.

"We started with an ASP out of California and brought it in-house as a Cisco solution," Syme said. "It took a lot of maintenance to try to keep up with all the different screens and phones, and we were using screen-scraping technology, so it was a little slower.

"Basically, it was not a great solution. We were into it very early, before the technology was really ready."

Ready to recommit to the wireless offering, America First needed to make the same choice that every financial institution does that wants to offer wireless: whether to use mobile web, SMS/text or downloadable banking software that resides on the device itself.

The latter typically requires that it be supported by specific carriers and devices but Firethorn's director of marketing, Kelly Buday, said that that's not necessarily restrictive.

"We work with Verizon and AT&T. They're the two largest carriers," she said. "We see that as a positive not a negative. And we also are constantly upgrading our back-end systems to make sure the most up-to-date handsets are certified and work seamlessly."

She noted that AT&T also is supporting the mobile channel through marketing efforts, such as the Web site where it offers the service through specific banks and the sole credit union on there, America First.

Syme, meanwhile, noted that America First has its own multi-channel marketing and advertising program under way and that Firethorn has "certified 40 or 50 of the most popular devices, including Razrs, Blackberrys, Treos," so that much of the market is covered. He also said he feels the right choice of channel was made.

"With the Firethorn solution, everything sits on the phone except the data, so all you transfer is the data, and that makes it zippy fast. The user experience is just fantastic," Syme said.

He describes his own "aha moment" like this:

"I was sitting at home and realized I hadn't paid my cable bill. It's an e-bill through CheckFree, who has integrated with Firethorn, too. I'm thinking, 'I've got to pay this thing.' My normal process would be to walk downstairs, boot up my computer, go through security and then bill pay. Then I realized, 'Wait a minute. I'm going to try it on my phone.' I logged in and there it was on my bill pay site within America First. It was all very fast and seamless."

The ability to select ongoing regular bills to show up on the mobile banking screen is one of the customizable features of the Firethorn solution, Buday said. Also included is the ability to select the accounts that will be shown, so members don't have to see their whole gamut of accounts on the small screen.

"That helps when you have, say, 15 separate CDs," the Firethorn marketing director said. "You can select just checking and savings and maybe a credit card account to come up each time, if that's all you want."

Improving functionality along with changing consumer habits are going to drive adoption of mobile banking in general, Buday said.

"For one thing, a lot of people don't have landlines anymore," she said. "And when they go to the Web, they're often using an Internet caf?(C) and have this great big screen there all ready for shoulder surfing.

"The cell phone is intimate, a small screen, and it makes mobile banking just a small thing that you can do anywhere, even in the middle of a crowd" with security and convenience.

So, do Syme and his colleagues at America First think that new channel is the next great breakthrough, the next killer app in financial services?

"If we had the answer to that question, we'd all be millionaires," he said. "I don't think it's a revolution. It's more of a process. People learn it's there, they try it, and go, "Wow! This really works.'"

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