Fintech giant Fiserv is teaming with WorkLight in a bid to cash in on the booming application market, developing financial services apps for desktops, tablets, smartphones and the social Web.
With banks and credit unions seeking to extend the availability of their services to new areas, Fiserv will tap WorkLight's mobile application platform to build, run and manage custom and packaged apps.
Initially, the two companies will focus on lightweight, toolkit payment applications for gifting, alerts, and donations but plan to broaden the range to other banking areas later.
Fiserv says WorkLight's technology enables it, and its clients, to more easily develop services for a proliferating variety of online and mobile platforms and devices. With WorkLight, an application written for one platform can be adapted to run in others, streamlining the development process and speeding time to market.
Erich Litch, SVP and GM, consumer services, Fiserv, says: "As devices and means of access proliferate, financial institutions are compelled to deliver services to consumers wherever they are, whenever it is convenient for them. We're helping our clients provide financial services in new ways, through new channels, and to go quickly to market by building and managing rich applications using WorkLight."
Finextra verdict Fiserv could be on to a winner here. The proliferation of customer touch points means that banks have to extend their services across a vast array of online and mobile channels. Custom-built application tied to a specific online banking platform will no longer cut it. Increasingly the consumer market will pick and choose their banking services from a host of cloud-based apps, available to download across a variety of form factors. It's an entirely new, and not altogether comfortable, proposition for the financial services industry. Vendors who can ease the transition for their banking clients will be justly valued.