THE MOBILE REVOLUTION: Mobile Devices Are Transforming Finance – Are Shared Service Centers Gearing Up?

The increasing penetration of mobile devices in the global financial markets heralds an interesting future. But while the obvious impact of technology on businesses has been widely documented in the international media, the response from the finance and banking world is still somewhat muted. In today’s world, smartphones, android devices, mobile applications, and so on, enter our lives at a very early stage. The young gaming generation had these devices tossed into their palms at primary school while for professionals, mobile devices are now commonplace. The advent of mobile money to access bank accounts, make payments, deposit funds, and pay for online shopping is a significant feature in developed as well as emerging markets. According to a Google report, one of the biggest banks in America has more than 12 million users transacting USD$6.5 billion monthly on their mobile devices. Mobile in Our Personal Lives So, what changes are being driven by mobile devices? To start, mobile payments (PayPal) are becoming more visible by interfacing with credit cards. Information related to personal finance and investments is freely available on mobile devices as are details about stocks and shares. Public utilities are also jumping on board: Houston now allows its residents to view and pay water bills on a mobile phone; and in Uganda, the National Water and Sewage Corporation (NWSC) is leading the way with 23,000 customers transferring US$300,000 worth of revenue via mobile phone each month1. In India, the Aadhaar identity program has big plans for to promote a platform for mobile payments, and StockTwits2 allows people to follow users and markets that interest them. In addition, brokers like FOREX.com, Saxo Bank, and IG Group have all announced, in 2012, that mobile trading will become a considerable part of their overall volume. Many firms are today reporting over 20% of their customers as using mobile apps. Google incorporates bankcards into its Google Wallet, enabling one-click purchasing on mobile devices. Only 25% of SSCs are currently catering to providing support on mobile devices. Popular Mobile Apps There are a wide range of mobile applications catering to the expanding demand of banks and service providers. I am referencing a few applications from The Best Android Finance and Accounting Mobile Apps3 by Stephanie Miles in this context: Xero for Android enables to track your finances and easily manage your cash flow, check bank balances, invoice customers, upload receipts and submit expense claims, while Zoho Invoice and Time Tracker for Android4 is a pocket friendly app to invoice, remind and accept payments from your clients. You can also send quotes, track time for projects, monitor expenses, invoice for projects, accept credit card payments and send thank you letters to clients with Zoho. With Mint.com Personal Finance for Android5 you can manage your money anywhere, track all your personal finance accounts (checking, savings, and credit cards), automatically categorize transactions, monitor cash spending, view finances offline, and get email or text alerts to notify you of upcoming bills, fees, or unusual activity. Yendo Accounting for Android6 is a full-featured accounting app, not just for invoicing but also for all the financial aspects of your business (over 30,000 businesses worldwide use it). For emerging markets and the least developed nations, the rise of mobile finance will enable the less privileged to access money and financial information through a simple handset. It will also act as a springboard to rural growth by increasing the penetration of rural finance. For banks and finance institutions, mobile may lower operating costs by reducing the dependency on ATMs and braches in remote areas. Moreover, the growth of mobile finance will increase customer satisfaction, as financial information will be accessible on a real-time basis. Which Providers Are Catering to Finance & Accounting Center's Needs? So, how does the mobile applications landscape for Finance & Accounting processes compare? To begin with, Concur – which has 30% market share7 in the Travel and Entertainment process – has enabled a mobile application (Android) for all receipts and expense charges, including an expense report. Kofax, a leading provider of smart process applications, has built The Kofax Mobile Capture™ Platform, which helps organizations integrate powerful, interactive capture and process management capabilities into their mobile apps. As per Kofax, this significantly improves an organization’s ability to deliver a wide spectrum of powerful, interactive mobile capture apps with better data and at lower costs. SAP, the leading ERP system, has introduced a mobile device management tool – SAPAfaria – that offers flexible, centralized and secure frontline management solutions for the enterprise. Esker's mobile AP automation application supports iOS7 and is available for both Esker on Demand and Esker DeliveryWare customers who need to review and approve supplier invoices on the road. invoiceASAP facilitates easy mobile invoicing and simple CRM on mobile devices, which lead to faster payments. In Asian and African markets M-Pesa, Alipay and WeChat, are contributing to the growth of mobile money, e-payments and e-commerce. Are there benefits for F&A centers as a result of switching over to mobile devices? Certainly. The first advantage is that they expand access to customers and thereby facilitate the movement of money, irrespective of location. Cash management being crucial, this alone is a key driver in favor of mobile. Customers need fewer clicks to access their invoices or banking accounts. Mobile finance also acts as an alternative to traditional banking and financial services, and decreases the count of unbanked customers. Another benefit is that mobile applications support the growth of mobile money and mobile financial products, thus supporting the growth of the global economy. And mobile applications provide greater visibility and enhance the power of Big Data, as a large number of mobile transactions will piggyback on social media networks. Shared Services Need to Recruit for "Mobile" Capability While the prospects for mobile finance are bright it is important that shared services centers gear up for this change. First, SSCs need to overhaul their legacy ERP platforms to align to mobile finance. Secondly, established ERP platforms like SAP or Oracle have started to scale up their interfaces to meet the aspirations of an expanding pool of mobile customers. For shared services centers, the immediate priority is to collaborate with vendors who demonstrate the ability to cater to the needs of mobile finance. In this context, SSCs will require a new expertise and skill set that can design intelligent workflows to integrate process, ERP and mobile platforms and usher in the next generation of process standardization. The talent mix will demand a pool of data scientists, social media analysts, financial analysts, virtual domain experts and transformational change agents to sift through the huge volume of mobile transactions and feed smarter intelligence into Big Data. Shared services centers will be forced to invest in newer training modules to equip the workforce to meet the changed needs of mobile finance. There is already evidence of newer and multiple automations that are forcing processes to adapt to mobile finance. The increase in the complexity of databases that mine real-time financial information between customers and financial entities demands robust data storage mechanisms. Plus the growth of mobile finance may trigger changes in intercompany accounting, cash applications and assimilation of data feeds to execute reconciliations and balance sheets. Citibank has implemented a mobile collection tool – Citi’s Mobile Collect – to streamline back office and reconciliation processes, and aid business growth by accelerating collections and optimizing liquidity. A big change required will be to devise and implement new control and risk frameworks to safeguard digital identities and portable workspaces. For example, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) includes a reference to the installation of personal firewall software on any mobile and/or employee-owned computers with direct connectivity to the Internet, which are used to access the organization’s network. A Deloitte Study conducted in February 2013, on Shared Services Centers, reveals that only 25% of SSCs are currently catering to providing support on mobile devices. Interestingly, there are no plans for future investment in technologies or platforms for mobile devices for SSCs, as per the study. This is paradoxical, as a majority of SSCs are hungry to grow the respective basket of business services that they provide to clients. It may signal, however, that SSCs have yet to devise a clear road map on how to operate in a financial world increasingly characterized by a younger population hooked on mobility. With increasing evidence of the financial landscape and customer behavior being influenced by technology, the gaps in terms of a cohesive approach by SSCs to integrating mobile finance is starkly apparent. However, this also highlights an opportunity to scale upwards and usher in the next generation of smart and technology enabled Shared Services Centers. Footnotes 1. Mobile water payments in urban Africa: Adoption, implications and opportunities-www.globalwaterforum.org 2. https://blog.tradehero.mobi 3. www.getapp.com/blog/best-android-finance-apps 4. http://www.getapp.com/mobile/android/zoho-invoice-and-time-tracker-zoho-corporation-android-app 5. https://www.getapp.com/mobile/android/mint-dot-com-personal-finance-intuit-inc-android-app 6. https://www.getapp.com/mobile/android/yendo-accounting-yendo-android-app 7. The Accounts Payable Network Benchmarking Report 2013 [inlinead]

THE MOBILE REVOLUTION: Mobile Devices Are Transforming Finance – Are Shared Service Centers Gearing Up?

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