Japanese telco KDDI and Mitsubishi-Tokyo-UFJ Bank have joined forces to launch a mobile Internet banking business later this year.
The move towards live production follows the establishment last year of the Mobile Net Bank Development Corporation in preparation for the two companies to launch a mobile 'New Bank'.
The Development Corporation has since been formalising the business plan, finalising products and services, and building the required core systems for the venture.
The two firms says the New Bank (Shinginko in Japanese), will offer a full line-up of financial services, including current accounts, cards, investment funds and insurance and will seek to capitalise "on the strengths of the mobile phone as only a mobile carrier could do". Customers will be able to log-in directly from the main phone screen, check trading history and make bank transfers to parties selected from user address books.
KDDI, Japan's second largest wireless operator, announced plans last year to pre-install payments software from national card scheme JCB on its mobile phones in a bid to compete with m-payment services offered by it's larger rival NTT DoCoMo.