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Recently, even I had the chance to reverse the table on a bank when they called me to reconfirm my credit card reward redemption order. After years of answering stupid ID verification questions whenever I've called them, it was great fun this time to flatly refuse to answer any of their questions to me and instead make them answer a few of mine to prove their ID to me! 

Using mobile phone prepay / postpay accounts - I imagine it's the same as MNO Billing - as a substitute for m-wallets is a great idea in theory. However, MNOs seem to demand as much as 40% in transaction fees, thus restricting their use to high-margin virtual goods industry. Zong, BOKU and other GenY Mobile Payments / MNO Billing companies are constantly hoping that transaction fees will drop to 10%. However, until that happens, a bulk of what we call 'mobile payments' is really a misnomer, with the mobile phone used simply as another form factor instead of key fobs or plastic cards. The transaction continues to be funded via credit cards, debit cards and other conventional bank-issued instruments and run over the conventional card network rails. That's why whenever I hear that mobile payments will disintermediate banks from the payment loop, I have a good laugh:  Much of what we know today as mobile payments will not exist without banks.

The very fact that sanctions screening is mandatory for most cross-border electronic fund transfers indicates money is used for illegal purposes even in non-cash form.

One perfectly legal use of cash that explains the disproportionate growth in the use of cash is the rise in the number of unbanked people who are entering the workforce and earning wages but not yet becoming banked. For example, in India, the government's rural employment scheme called NREGA has helped a lot of people in the rural areas earn money. NREGA seems to have spread much faster than the rural push of banks since many NREGA beneficiaries continue to remain unbanked.

Another point worth noting is payments made to plumbers, electricians and other handymen. They typically happen by cash but I'm not sure if they get reported as part of retail payments. In India, even fees to general physicians are often made in cash. All these are perfectly legal uses of cash and a growing middle class leads to disproportionate growth in use of cash. 

Although the linked Times of India article is only two days old, several banks in India have been providing realtime SMS alerts for ATM debit card transactions for several years to customers (like me) who have subscribed to them. Although this article and post make no mention of it, what's new is banks in India have recently started sending realtime SMS alerts for credit card transactions. This requires no subscription and works as long as the bank has the cardholder's mobile phone number (which is handed over by most people in India without any fuss whenever they're asked for it - like, for example, during account opening). It covers card present and card not present transactions. It's a great service and has already helped me spot one fraudulent transaction within two months since its launch. While I won't mind paying a nominal fee for it, it happens to be provided free-of-cost for now.   

Just came across this article about Wells Fargo's move to charge fees for using debit cards:

http://www.mybanktracker.com/bank-news/2011/08/16/wells-fargo-charging-debit-card-fees/

A few things are clear from the article and the accompanying comments:

1. Fees, and not customer service, is topmost in the mind of Wells Fargo and maybe other banks hit with recent regulations around debit interchange.
2. Many customers are upset about these fees and have already closed their WF accounts.  
3. Are they switching to other big banks? Unlikely, since most of them have tarred all big banks with the same brushstroke and signaled their intent to switch to credit unions and community banks. 

It will be interesting to watch whether other big banks follow WF's lead with such fees.

While a niche segment of customers might prefer mobile payments for whatever reason, cash and checks can't be beaten for their sheer convenience among the mainstream. Once the novelty wears out, convenience will trump. According to a recent article from the TIME magazine, INGDirect USA decided to bow down to customer pressure and offer checkbooks for their - yes - online checking account holders. It's quite telling to hear ING's head of product strategy say in this article, “It’s not something that our customers want; it’s really something they need". With this move, ING hopes to "draw more customers who are ambivalent about a traditional banking relationship but don’t want to give up any conveniences".

http://moneyland.time.com/2011/08/15/online-banking-customers-demand-paper-checks/

As many - presumably GenXers and BabyBoomers - have realized, switching banks is more painful than undergoing a root canal. Willingness apart, wonder how many of the surveyed GenYers have experienced either of these pains! And it's not as though the next bank is guaranteed to provide any better customer service than the last one.

Hopefully, regulators have enough teeth while trying to get banks to comply with account number portability regulations.

Mobile RDC is a great example but isn't that a product? If my check doesn't get credited and I'm forced to avail myself of banks' customer service, I think I'd be on hold for 297 minutes with most of them!

I'd anyday prefer a bank that does things right first time so that I don't have to use their customer service.

@Finextra Member: Finextra needs to know who's asking only after s/he has asked, not before. Just to be clear, the sequence I've proposed is (1) Everyone reading the article will see the orange button without having to log on (2) If someone wants to subscribe to comments without adding a comment at that point, they click the orange button (3) The logon screen opens up and they log on (4) Finextra knows whom to send the notification emails to.       

Wouldn't it be better to see the orange button even before logging on? When I just checked, only the text link "Log in to receive notifications when someone posts a comment" - not the orange button - was visible prior to logging on. 

Receiving a statement as an email attachment, entering a password, opening it, then having to telephone the Call Center to report discrepancies - these are but a few areas of friction that make me (and many others I daresay) prefer paper statements. While the article doesn't say so explicitly, it appears that ActivePath's 2Way Email avoids attachments, provides the statement in the body of the email and allows complaints by simply replying to the email. If so, it could prove disruptive, ween a lot of customers away from paper statements and bolster the adoption of e-statements. Props to ActivePath.