UK bank Alliance & Leicester (A&L) has launched a mobile banking service for its small business customers that runs on the Monilink network.
The Monilink mobile banking network that was launched in 2006 by Morse spin-off Monitise and VocaLink. A&L already uses the platform to provide m-banking services to personal current account customers.
Steve Jennings, director, business banking, A&L, says the Monilink service has proved to be "very popular" with current account customers and the extension of the service to business banking customers "is partly due to the popularity and feedback that we have received from our customers who already use the service".
Available immediately, the new service will enable the bank's business customers to check account balances, request mini-statements and top-up pre-pay mobile phones.
A&L says the service is protected by a personal passcode and any information displayed on the phone is automatically deleted. No personal details are stored on the handset itself.
Commercial customers will be offered the service for free until the end of August, after which a monthly fee of £1.50 will be introduced.
The bank is keen to drive mobile banking take-up among its customers and last year gave £10 to 20,000 younger customers who registered for and used the service.
The offer followed research conducted by A&L which showed that more than half (54%) of 16-21 year olds are willing to use their mobile phones to check balances of current accounts.