MBNA UK launches mobile banking text service

If you’re an MBNA credit card customer in the UK, good news: You can now use text messaging to get balance, payment and transaction updates through the company’s newly deployed dedicated shortcode, 83838.

MBNA already has dedicated mobile web sites for iPhone and BlackBerry so I’m delighted to see that they’ve not forgotten about the rest of the majority of the marketplace.

All five million UK MBNA credit card customers can now get access to the service.

The ultra smart science bit? You don’t need to register. If you’re a customer, you’re already registered — chances are you’ve already given MBNA your mobile number as part of your standard account information (if not, just login to online banking on your desktop and fill it in). I like that a lot.

Commands are ultra simple. Text ‘bal’ to get your balance back to find out whether or not you can buy that 50″ TV. Text ‘tran’ to get your last 3 transactions sent to you. And finally, text ‘bill’ to get your latest bill summary and minimum payment details.

Smart, simple, effective.

MBNA are also using the service to:

* Confirm that you’ve applied for a balance transfer on your account and that it is genuine and not fraudulent activity.
* Confirm if you are travelling abroad soon to use your credit card
* Confirm a transaction on your credit card is genuine and approved
* Confirm safe receipt of you new credit card by post

I think this kind of service really should be standard for all banks and credit card companies, sadly not all of them have got a decent enough information management system to be able to do what the likes of MBNA are doing.

The service is free of charge, but you will have to pay standard network charges to text the shortcode.

Kudos to the management team and in particular MBNA Head of Mobile, Phil Weston. Nice one Phil.

And a nod of the head to the messaging gateway provider underpinning the service, Oxygen8.