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Submitted by Mike Grenville on Thu, 23 Dec 2004 09:55 |
Lloyds TSB Internet Banking has launched a free text alert service for both personal and business banking customers to receive regular updates of their account balance.
The text alert service will provide customers with details of their current account balance and a list of the last six transactions on their current accounts direct to their mobile phone.
Personal banking customers can opt for weekly alerts on the day of their choice and have three timeslots to choose from; 8am to 10am, 10am to midday or between midday and 6pm.
Business First
Lloyds TSB will also be the first bank to offer a text service to business customers. They can request updates by text every working day or weekly and will automatically receive their alerts between 7am and 9am.
Customers who want to sign up for the alerts will need to register with Lloyds TSB's Internet banking and simply select the current accounts for which updates are needed and the mobile phone they want the alerts sent to. Customers can easily change the mobile number on which they receive messages and can pause or cancel the service at any time.
Matthew Timms, Lloyds TSB Internet director said: Text messaging has clearly taken Britain by storm over the past few years.
With more than 2,000 branches, Internet and telephone banking, the challenge for Lloyds TSB personal and business customers now is to find a place where they can't keep up to date with their money!
Slow Bank Take Up
HSBC offshoot First Direct has been offering free text alerts to its customers since May 1999 and has over 400,000 users of the SMS alert service. Sadly other banks have been slow to follow. Unlike the Lyoyds TSB service which is just date and time driven, the First Direct service can also be triggered by events such as when the account goes below a certain level or when a specific credit arrives in the account.
One of the challenges for banks in offering such a service is that they make lots of money from charging customers from going overdrawn. Sending SMS alerts means that customers can be more aware of when they are going into the pain zone and take action. Hopefully more banks will realise that the customer service benefits outweigh the short term profits from forgetful customers and we will see more take up by banks of this simple and effective service.
www.firstdirect.com
www.Lloydstsb.com/text
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