Up to 2 million Italians use SMS for bank transactions

Source: Telecompaper

Over two million clients of Italian banks carried out transactions on their bank accounts via SMS with their mobile phones in 2004, according to the Italian banking association ABI. The number of clients who used their mobile phones to carry out banking transactions increased by 37 percent year-on-year in 2004. Clients who carried out transactions via fixed telephone banking system increased to 4.7 million in 2004, from 3.6 million in 2003. In 2004, some 18.6 million SMS were sent by banks with the automatic alert system, to inform clients about new transactions registered on their bank accounts. Some 2.4 million clients required information on their accounts via SMS, while 1.2 million clients required information on trading activities via SMS. Over 1.9 million trading operations were conducted on the Italian stock exchange market via SMS. Mobile phone card recharging operations via SMS totalled 244,000.