• by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, October 16, 2013

Banks are edging closer to mobile shopping.

This is a move from the mobile payment end right into the shopping and product selection part.

I sat down recently with Lisa Stanton, President of Americas at Monitise, the technology company that enables mobile banking, with more than 300 financial institutions as customers.

The company last week announced a deal with U.S. Bank to accelerate the delivery of a shopping service that provides a way for top-tier retailers to let consumers buy from leading brands via mobile.

The twist is the shopping would be from inside a banking app.

U.S. Bank and Monitise are developing a mobile shopping system that includes product selection and instant checkout payments.

The idea is to steer people using mobile banking apps into a marketplace, essentially located inside the banking app and powered by Monitise.

“Mobile banking consumers are using it on average 26 times a month, so we have an assemblage of users who are opening that app every single day,” says Stanton  “What we’re saying to our partners (banks and credit unions) is that gives you the right to do the next thing with that.

“It’s a destination they’re going to anyway, which is why we think mobile commerce is a perfect next step. We’ve already got all your personal details. We’ve got your money, your payments financials and now we can help you with targeted offers.”

The argument by monitise to banks deals with taking banks to the level in the Mobile Shopping Life Cycle upstream from the transaction stage.

“Since you, the bank, have all this data about me: you know I just bought a house, you know that I just bought airline tickets to go on a holiday you know I have a new car loan,” says Stanton.

“If you start getting used to opening that app and getting really relevant things to you and you go into the marketplace to execute, you might look around to see what else there is to buy,” she says.

Monitise, which raised more than $100 million last year and partners with Visa, was initially focused on Europe but is expanding into the U.S. market

“We’re the largest player for enabling mobile money globally,” says Stanton.

The bank would sign up retailers and consumers would see and use the marketplace inside that bank’s app.

“Where we this this will have the most applicability is Inside of a banking app,” says Stanton. “We think this is important to banks. We think this is the next big idea.”

It will be interesting to monitor the potential move of banks more into the mobile shopping process.

Do you think consumers will shop products through their mobile banking app?