AT&T, Firethorn Announce Mobile Banking with Wachovia, Regions, SunTrust

According to Firethorn chairman and chief executive officer, Tripp Rackley, "Today's announcement represents a critical tipping point in the emerging mobile banking and payments industry and reflects a growing preference by the nation's leading financial institutions for the Firethorn solution and federation strategy for going mobile."

Among the reasons cited by Wachovia, Regions and SunTrust for choosing Firethorn were a preference for a simple, secure, downloadable application; defined road map to emerging payments strategies, including contactless; and a proven business model for generating revenue through new account openings and increased share of wallet.

The institutions also cited the unique opportunity to participate as members of the Firethorn federation, which includes having exclusive access to the marketing strength and advertising power of AT&T as the telecommunications giant, together with Firethorn, rolls out a nationwide, multimillion-dollar consumer adoption and education campaign designed to make the mobile banking and payments market. Firethorn will roll out the mobile banking solution according to each bank's individual schedule.

"Mobile banking and payments is a great new application for wireless customers and another compelling example of the freedom, power and convenience that people can derive from their wireless phone," said Jim Ryan, the vice president of Wireless Data Services at AT&T. "We are pleased to be working with Firethorn to bring this exciting application to the market. Firethorn has the right approach not only for users but also for banks and wireless companies."

AT&T states that in the future it plans to embed the mobile banking application in its devices, along with a full range of mobile financial services and applications. Firethorn is the only mobile banking and payments solution authorized by AT&T.

Functioning as a federation to financial institutions and wireless carriers, Firethorn assembles, connects and manages the complex web of partners, network standards and platform interfaces that make mobile banking and payments possible.

The partnership offers a single, secure application that allows Wachovia, Regions and SunTrust to effectively extend their comprehensive online financial services to mobile devices. The financial institutions will continue to manage their online services applications and service delivery, providing a truly seamless consumer experience.

The Firethorn solution is a single secure application, managed by Firethorn for the financial institution, authorized by the wireless carrier and controlled by the consumer. The downloadable application, which is designed to work for any institution on virtually any mobile device, enables comprehensive banking and payments capabilities.

Through the Firethorn solution, consumers can view account balances, transfer funds, receive and pay bills and quickly clear contents if their mobile device is ever lost or stolen. Consumers can perform functions on any supported wireless handset, even when their device is offline. In partnership with Firethorn, financial institutions using CheckFree Corp.'s (Nasdaq: CKFR) electronic billing and payment solution to receive and pay bills online can offer their consumer's immediate integrated access to view and pay bills using their mobile devices.

"Firethorn is pleased to welcome Wachovia, Regions and SunTrust to the federation that will make and move the mobile banking and payments market forward," said Firethorn Chairman and CEO Tripp Rackley. "We look forward to working with these market pillars to continue to make mobile banking and payments a reality."

Recently, Firethorn and AT&T conducted a trial of Firethorn's mobile banking and payments solution involving BancorpSouth customers. Participants' overall reactions were overwhelmingly positive, reporting convenience, ease of use, timesaving, greater control and knowledge of finances and impressive functionality. The majority of participants reported an increase in their overall opinion of mobile banking as a result of the trial. Among the key findings were:

• Mobile banking was second only to online banking as most popular channel.
• Majority will use mobile banking to check financial account status.
• Thirty percent of the respondents would pay all of their bills using mobile banking.
• Almost 75 percent believed they could make more informed spending decisions.
• 87 percent of the respondents preferred their bank's online Web site for enrollment.
• 83 percent were likely to recommend mobile banking to others.