Mobile Apps Gain Speed On Wall StreetMobile Apps Gain Speed On Wall Street

As consumers gravitate to mobile devices, financial services firms are introducing a wave of smartphone and tablet applications for their retail and institutional customers. The likes of Fidelity Investments, E-Trade, TD Ameritrade, and Morgan Stanley, among others, have been developing mobile apps that take advantage of technology innovations in the consumer space.

"When you look at [financial services] mobile platform strategies, consumers and the end investors are really starting to drive most of these trends," said Ed O'Brien, SVP, head of business technology development, for Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services, the RIA custody unit at Fidelity Investments. "We're seeing [financial] advisers more quickly adopt and even expect these technologies. ... They want to do things like trading [on the go]."

According to O'Brien, Fidelity is introducing mobile apps on its WealthCentral platform, a workstation for registered investment advisers. "It's not just being able to look at an account and get information," he said. "It's going to run more of their business remotely wherever they need to be." And advisers expect these capabilities to integrate with their existing applications, O'Brien added. "Mobile devices are so intelligent, the expectation is that they will support integration," he explained, noting that WealthCentral provides advisers with integrated reporting, CRM, and workflow tools.

Part of the reason for the mass adoption of smartphones in financial services is that the devices are vastly improved from the clunky mobile phones of the 1990s. The current surge in mobile apps from brokerage firms is related to smartphones' larger screens for accessing the mobile Web, asserted Brad Strothkamp, Forrester Research VP and principal analyst. While Strothkamp acknowledged the current boom in mobile banking and investing, he predicted the space will "really take off" when, "You start getting applications that are really unique to the mobile device that can't be done with the computer."

A Lifestyle Choice

Already, financial services firms are taking advantage of specific features in smartphones, such as built-in cameras, to offer unique applications that can't be experienced on a desktop. For example, Fidelity in May rolled out Money Movement, a service based on proprietary technology that allows Fidelity clients to pay bills, transfer money, and deposit checks using iPhone, iPad, and Android devices. "A lot of money is going into the [mobile] money movement space and remote check processing, and it's all because of the sensors [on mobile devices]," said Joseph Ferra, chief wireless officer for Fidelity Personal Investing. Ferra added that built-in GPS capabilities also unlock the potential for location-based services via smartphones, which will enable financial firms to develop services that are more targeted to individuals' lifestyles.

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